The Barden Guardians

(15) Betrayed

"What now?!" Carlos yelled in frustration.

"I don't know." Beca sighed.

"How could you not know?! You're the leader, you have to come with a plan!" Matthew yelled.

"I'm trying my best here but it's harder than you think."

"Holy shit" Jesse said catching everyone's attention.

"What's up Silver?" Cynthia asked.

"Look" Jesse pointed at a small monitor that showed the whole town being overrun by robots. People were running from robots but one person got everyone's attention, Chloe.

"What is she even doing outside?" Beca whispered.

"We have to save my baby girl!" Carlos yelled.

Emily didn't even think twice before she turned on the power and used the levers to disable all the robots that surrounded Chloe. Beca turned off the power as soon as Chloe was safe.

"What is wrong with you?!" Baca yelled.

"Carlos said we have to save his baby girl so I did just that." Emily said in obvious pain.

"Dude you know that thing can kill you, why do you always have to be so stupid?!" Beca yelled.

"I'm not dead so calm down." Emily winced as she sat down.

"If she can turn off the robots, why have we been looking for another solution?!" Matthew yelled.

"In case you haven't noticed, doing that takes a lot out of her and if she tries to disable all the robots she will die. I'm not gonna let that happen." Beca said.

"What's wrong with her dying?" Matthew asked.

"Don't make me hurt you Posen." Beca growled.

"Can't she just do it to a few robots then rest, shouldn't that prevent her from dying?" Markus asked.

"She has to rest for at least one week after every 150 robots she takes out." Benji told Beca.

"She can only take out 150 per week." Beca repeated.

"I can live with that." Markus shrugged.

"Okay then we have an agreement. How many more before I have stop?" Emily asked as she stood up.

"According to my sources you took out 50, so take out 100 then we'll switch off the power." Beca said and Emily nodded.

Carlos pulled Matthew and Markus over to the far corner. "This is our chance. We can paralyze the others while Volt is disabling the robots."

"Do we have to do that? I mean she just saved your daughter man. There has to be another way." Markus argued.

"This way is faster and we can go back to our lives. You can go back to Stacie and Linda. You can save your family and make them happy and safe again." Carlos started.

"Yeah, didn't Stacie say something about you helping her court a girl from her school? You have to do this Markus " Matthew finished.

Markus looked at the Guardians. He was already starting to feel guilty for what he was about to do. Emily stood in position as Beca turned on the powers.

Matthew took something out of his pocket that could paralyze the Guardians. Emily had already taken out the 100 robots and Beca was about to turn off the power when she got shot by a stun gun.

She looked up to see Matthew standing over her. He had also stunned Lilly and Jesse who were grunting in pain.

"Matthew don't...don't do this please. If I don't turn off the power it'll kill her. Please just turn off the power." Beca pleaded.

"I don't really feel like it. Do you guys feel like it?" Matthew looked at his friends.

"Nah, I'm not in the mood. If we keep the power on, we could stop the robots now and we could move on with our lives." Carlos smiled and nodded to himself.

"Markus please stop this. She trusts you and cares for you. You can't do this to her. Please don't do this to her." Jesse pleaded. By now all the Guardians except for Emily were on the ground.

"If you turn off the power Stacie will have to wait forever to see that girl she likes. She'll have to wait forever to be outside with you again. This way she'll be safer." Carlos said.

"This isn't gonna make her happy trust me. Just please turn it off." Beca pleaded with tears in her eyes.

Markus was conflicted, he didn't know what to do. He wanted to help Emily but he also wanted his daughter to be safe. He looked over at his friends who were smiling like villains. He looked at the Guardians who were helplessly screaming, begging him to save their teammate. Then he looked at Emily who was grunting in pain.

It was like the whole world was muted and the only sound he could hear was his heartbeat. The world was moving in slow motion making it even harder to see Emily in pain but he did nothing. He stood there out of fear, fear of letting down his best friends and fear of losing his family.

Emily kept grunting and screaming as the pain became unbearable. She looked at Markus straight in the eye and all he could do was look away.

"Make it stop!" Emily screamed as blood started coming out her mouth and nose.

It took 15 minutes for Emily to disable all the robots. While that was happening the three soldiers had called the mayor and his scientists over. When they got there Emily was lying limp on the ground slowly slipping away. Baca tried helping her but she was pretty much paralyzed from the neck down.

"I can't believe she trusted you! She risked her life to save you more than once and this is how you repay her?" Flo asked Markus with tears in her eyes.

"I never knew these things could cry. Fascinating really fascinating." one of the scientists said looking intrigued.

"You won't get away with this Thomas." Beca said.

"I already have, the robots are stopped and I can finally kill you. No one will miss you cause I'll pin the blame of the robots attacking on you guys. Think about the scandal when I tell the press that you guys messed with the robots just so you can be heroes again." the mayor laughed.

"You're sick, why would you blame us?!" Cynthia yelled.

"Well I have to blame someone. If I take the blame I'll lose all my power and I really don't want that."

"I gotta ask, why did you do your mining of those rocks at the same time every night?" Flo asked.

"Simple, it's easier to get used to something if it happens at the same time everyday. The tremors got stronger the deeper we dug but I don't really care. One of the tremors was in the afternoon but that was just because I was in a rush to finish my robots."

"TMI dude, just.......TMI." Flo shook her head and the mayor rolled his eyes.

"You cut corners when you made those robots?" Markus asked.

"Of cause I did. It was faster and I would make more profit from it. Mayor Thomas smiled. "Oh, put some handcuffs on the freaks and we can dispose of Volt's body once we got down the mountain."

"Yes sir." the three soldiers said before the mayor walked away with an evil glint in his eyes.