An Unlikely Friend. part 1

Chapter 30: Getting Out is the Hard Part

“Together!” Ryder yells.

Ryder, Iona, and Thea zap the soldier and Korbin joins in as soon as he rolls back to his feet. The soldier shakes violently from the Aether and his suit continues to brighten. With his perspective shifted, Nero sees the red lines surrounding his body intensely glow as though they were little steams of lava and then, as if a light bulb had just burnt out, they flash and disappear. The soldier crumples to the ground.

“That was messy,” Ryder says. “At least there aren’t any alarms yet.”

Korbin walks over and helps Nero up. “So far that’s an improvement over your rescue mission.” Korbin pulls up a guard’s hand and uses his fingerprint to unlock Nero’s cuffs.

Ryder points to the last soldier they knocked out. “Yeah but did you see Nero take out this one? Nice job.”

“I meant to do that,” Nero says and rubs his side. “Thanks for coming.”

“You’re family.” Korbin smacks Nero on the back. “Of course we’d come.”

“That was a lot tougher than I thought,” Iona says. “Do you know why there were actual soldiers?”

Nero looks around and sees the Doctor lying on the ground. The clear box is just a finger width from his hand. Nero picks it up and looks at the metal piece inside. “Hey Thea!”

Thea jumps with surprise and Nero walks over with a smile reaching form ear to ear.

“My necklace!” Thea gives Nero a hug. “I can’t believe we found it.”

“Nice find Nero,” Ryder says. “You’ll be Thea’s hero forever now.”

Thea, Korbin, and Iona start to wrestle with the clear box in an attempt to crack her necklace free and Ryder begins to hand Nero clothes and gear from his satchel.

Ryder then hands him one of the invisibility bracelets. “And here’s an invisibility bracelet for the way out if we need.”

Nero takes the bracelet. “But I can’t use Aether to make his work.”

Ryder pulls out a spare doorman from his pocket. “Grebson said you could use this somehow?”

Nero shifts his perspective and sees the bright pulsing glow of the doorman. Can I really use this like the stick in the park? He reaches out to it with his essence and with a little coaxing he feels Aether flow into him. “Yeah cool,” he says smiling. “I can definitely use this.”

“Moltrik Aether works really well against the Erohsians but since we don’t have a lepisent for you, you can use this if you need.” Ryder hands him a dart gun of the same design as the one he used in Blue Horin Bay. “Grebson made it.”

Oh great, I’m horrible with this thing. “Thanks,” he says with less enthusiasm.

“Of course.” Ryder turns away while Nero begins to change and touches his small earpiece. “Hey Sosimo, we have Nero and are getting ready to leave. What should we do with the guards? There were a lot more than we expected.” Ryder looks around and notices a series of cells in the side room. “We could lock them in the prison cells. ― Okay, we’ll do that and remove their helmets. ― We’ll be careful.” Ryder takes his finger off his earpiece and walks to the other children just as they break open the box. “Help me put the Erohsians in a cell over there.”

“What for?” Korbin asks. “Can’t we just leave?”

“Our exit is down many floors so we’ll want to sneak as far as we can before the alarms go off,” Iona says. “They won’t be sleeping for much longer.”