Rise of the Fallen

Chapter 12: Tianna Ackerman

Tianna Ackerman, she passed the exam with high marks like me and Julius, never showed up to class and was missing for a few months. What is she doing here? I shake my head. There’s no time to think about that just go with the plan.
I calm my breathing down and I can feel that strange energy flowing through my body. The burning sensation coming from my scar turns into a warm pulse as I draw back on my bow. As I focus my aim onto the barely visible Fallen, my eyesight starts to sharpen.
I stop squinting and readjust my aim. I can see the Fallen, Tianna, Julius in position to ambush the Fallen, and the chaos ravenging the city in the distance. The Fallen walks into the center of the street and tosses Tianna like ragdoll onto the asphalt. I take a deep breath and draw back on the bow and wait for the Fallen to drop his guard. He walks around Tianna and looks to be saying something. I focus in on his lips and his voice starts to become loud and clear.
“…Not so tough, now are you?” The Fallen mocks, “You think I don’t know about your little plan. I know that brat Leviathan and his little friend are coming. You think they can save you? I should’ve killed them right there and then, but that damn…”
Before the Fallen could finish his rambling Julius shoots out from behind a corner and shoots at him a few times to no avail. I use that same opportunity to release the arrow. It slices through the air and pierces the Fallen from behind his knee and sticks into the asphalt.
Julius runs up and punches the Fallen dead in the chin with so much force the street under them cracks. Julius starts to beat on the Fallen repeatedly with enough force in each one to send out shockwaves.
I take this chance to run down and rescue Tianna. I make it back down to the street and crouch down beside Tianna and look over her to see what her injuries are. Her head is cut pretty bad and is bleeding…a lot. I look around and see the store that the Fallen dragged her out of. Rushing in, I look through every isle, every shelf, that they have to find a fist aid kit.
“Nothing, nothing, nothing” I say o myself as I look through the store
I walk into the manager’s office and start to look in there. I open the desk drawer and “Bingo!” I say as an unopened first aid kit sits in the drawer.
I grab it and run outside, only to lock eyes with the Fallen as he holds Julius up off the ground by his throat.
“Nice of you to show up Leviathan.” He says in a cold and murderous tone as he squeezes Julius neck even tighter.
Dropping the first aid kit, I quickly nock my arrow and shoot at the monster’s face. He drops Julius and catches the arrow inches from his face.
“You know, I can barely move my right leg thanks to you. And my knee… well let’s just say it’s taking a lot to move around right now, but I’m done playing with you and your little friend.” He says angrily.
This is not going according to plan. We need to run. I pick the first aid kit up off of the ground and stuff it into the side of my pants, before I run towards Tianna and pick her up over my shoulder. The Fallen yells with pure rage as he slowly chases after us.
I run back to the vantage point and put Tianna gently back on the ground.  Her head’s still bleeding, but it slowed up enough to where I can see the wound. I move her hair and the wound went from her hairline, through her eyebrow and ends at the top of her eye socket.
I take a couple of minutes to treat her head injury. As I finish a hand is placed on my shoulder from behind. I turn around as fast as I could and pulled my side arm, only to see Julius with a black eye and a couple of scrapes and bruises.
“Oh, it’s you.” I say letting out a sigh of relieve as I put away the gun.
“Yea it’s me.” He says as he sits down next to me, “That’s Tianna, right?”
I nod my head and say, “Yea, she hurt her head pretty bad, but I did stop the bleeding. Other than that, she’s fine.”
“Where’s she been and how’d she get here?” Julius asks
“I don’t know, but look, see, she’s wearing the same clothes as the person we passed by in the hallway at the Inn.”
“Oh, yea same black sweats.” Julius says, “But that still doesn’t explain why she’s here when she hasn’t been at the Academy?”
“Julius, I don’t know, but we can ask her when she wakes up. For now, though let’s get somewhere a little safer,” I say looking down at the Fallen who’s flipping cars and destroying any building he sees.
Julius looks where I look and says, “Yea, couldn’t agree less. Let’s go.”
I pick Tianna up and carry her as I follow behind Julius into a church. I lay her down on a pew and sit down in one myself. Julius continues to walk up to the alter and stops. He bows his head and starts to pray.
“Amen.” He finishes as he turns around and sits in an empty pew across from me.
“I didn’t know you were religious.” I say
“Oh, yea.” He says as his voice trails off, “My uh dad used to take me to church a lot and he told me that you can’t do this job without something giving you strength to keep pushing even when you’re pushing mountains.”
“What’d you pray for?” I ask
“I prayed for forgiveness. For everything we did tonight and will do. Although it might not mean anything.” Julius says in a sadden tone, “I also prayed for strength to keep going, and to get out of this alive… I uhh never felt as scared as I was just then when he started to squeeze the life out of me. I just…”
“It’s ok, I get what you mean.” I say, “I keep think we should’ve stayed at the Academy.”
Julius laughs and says, “I’m saying. What were we thinking.?”
“I have no idea. Maybe we thought we were ready. Boy, where we wrong.” I say
“Uhh,” Tianna groans.
I go over and sit next to her as she slowly comes to.
“Uhh,” She groans as her eyes slowly start to open, “What, Huh, Ahh!” she screams as she jumps up, quickly unsheathes one of her karambits and presses it against my neck
“Woah,” I say calmy as a drop of blood drops onto her blade, “We’re not going to hurt you. You remember us, from the Academy Exam?”
She looks at me with these piercing yet beautiful grey eyes that can see right through you. She pulls the knife away from my neck and says, “I think so you two were the first ones to finish the first part, right?”
“That’s right.” I say, “I’m Danny and that’s Julius over there.”
Tianna looks around and asks, “What happened with the Fallen?”
Julius and I look at each other and back at her. Tianna starts looking at both of us and with visible confusion on her face she asks, “What? What is it?”
“Well for one it’s still out there and pretty pissed off I might add.” Julius says, “But, since we answered your question, we have some of our own.”
Tianna takes a deep breath and says, “Ok, what do you want to know?”
“For starters, how did you find us, and you never showed up to classes after the exam why?” Julius asks sternly.
“It’s a long story,” she says
“We have time.” Julius says sharply
Tianna rolls her eyes at him, turns looks towards the front of the church, and says, “After the exam I went to my room to go to sleep, I couldn’t so I decided to get some fresh air. I walked around for a while until…”
“Until what?” I ask
“I... I don’t remember what happened after that. My head hurts every time I think about it.” She says as she closes her eyes and starts to take deeper breaths.
“You remember what happened after that?” I ask concerningly
She nods and says.” I woke up in this concrete cell and I could hear other people, children mostly screaming and crying for help. It was awful.”
“Uh huh and then?” Julius says
“This man came to the cell; I couldn’t see his face but when he left he dropped a black feather.”
“That’s probably the same feathers that the Fallen see before they turn,” I guess
“Turn, what do you mean turn?” she asks in a confusing tone.
“Yea, turned. The Fallen are… wait… how do you even know what their called? That information’s classified right?” Julius asks
“I was wondering the same thing myself.” I say looking at Tianna
She looks at both of us and back towards the front and says, “I overheard the one with the black feathers talking about sending a Fallen to Oregon. At first I didn’t know what it was but when I got here it clicked.”
“Ok, but that still doesn’t explain how you knew we were here and even what room we were in to send us that message.” I say
“I was just getting to that part.” She says, “a few days ago I met this guy there and he helped me escape and come to Oregon. I saw you guys and wanted to meet up, but I guess the Fallen was already two steps ahead. Everything got so crazy. I fought my way into the store, so I could hide out, but he found me.”
“Ok so, we found our missing classmate, cool, but uhm what are we going to do about the Fallen?” Julius asks, bringing up a good point.
“We can find a way back to call for help…”
“It’ll take to long for help to get here.” Julius interrupts, “The city will be gone and the Fallen will be to if we just sit and wait for help to get help from the Order.”
“So, our only option is to fight basically?” Tianna asks
I nod my head and say, “Basically.”
The air in the room became depressingly heavy. All three of us have fought with the Fallen, and each of us almost died. “It may be a bit cliché to say this but…” I start to say before Julius cuts me off
“Danny if you say anything like maybe if we try together, we can, don’t. Let’s be real.” Julius says as he sits back in the pew and rubs his head, “I mean we don’t even know how to kill it.” 
Julius is right, we can’t beat him with wishful thinking. The only thing that even hurt him were my… A lightbulb just went off in my head.
“I think I may know how to kill it.” I say
“Anything’s better than nothin’. What you got?” Julius asks
I look at Tianna who looks practically lost in this whole conversation. I look back at Julius and say, “My arrows hurt him. I hit him twice in the leg, so he shouldn’t be as mobile as he was when we first fought him. Plus, he told me himself that it was taking a lot to stand up.”
“Yeaaa, I did hear that part. So, what are you thinking?” Julius asks
I look at Tianna and ask, “Are you up to fight?”
“Her eyes light up and says, “I’m always ready.”
“Ok then, so how about we bait him out and overwhelm him until his guard is down, we kill him with the arrows. I’ll try to shoot him, but if that doesn’t work you can pick up the ones on the ground and do it that way.” I say, explaining the plan.
Julius and Tianna both nod in agreement, and now all we have to do was rest and flesh out the plan a little bit more. The sound of thunder resonates through the church that shake the very building to its core.
A few minutes pass by and the rain starts to come down in a torrential down pour, beating the exterior of the church. The weather’s in our favor. The heavy rain will make it harder for the Fallen to hear or spot us, though, it might be the same for us to. It’s hunting 101.
“I have four arrows left, so this will probably be our only chance at this.” I say as I sling the quiver over my shoulder.
Julius stands up, stretches, and says, “Well, we just have to make it count.”
“Alright, let’s finish this.” I say as I walk towards the door and open it to an oppressingly heavy downpour of rain and wind that makes me hesitate.
This feeling of dread feels as if it’s creeping up my legs, holding them in place. Julius and Tianna put their hands on my shoulder and its like I can feel the weight of their worries and fears too. We’re all scared, this could be the end of the road but one thing that I’ve learned about being an Assassin. It’s that this fear, is normal, but you can’t dwell on it. The anger and grief is normal, but you can’t let it control you.
I take a deep breath and take the first step out into an unforgiving storm as we march towards what feels like an impending doom.