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𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐌 𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐔𝐋𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐆 the seas, Lorelei marched through the hallways. She hated the bionic island, she hated the other students, she hated Davenport, she hated everything. However, there was arguably nothing else that she hated more than Chase Davenport at that very moment. She couldn't stand the way he wanted to boss her around and how he wasn't as gullible as she'd thought he would be. The way he'd kept tabs on her and watched her every move made her blood boil.
The absolute worst part about him was his ego. He might've been smart and he might've been perhaps the only person to see Lorelei for who she truly was, but he was no better than anyone else. It was probably all Davenport's fault anyway. He'd shared his ego with his youngest cousin-turned-son and made him believe in his ideas of right and wrong.
How was what they were doing any better than what her father was trying to achieve? They packaged their ways of doing the right thing into helping others, but were they even worth their bionics. Why help those incapable of greatness? If they couldn't even keep themselves safe in their regular lives, then what was the added value of saving them?
Get rid of the weak and let the strong thrive. It was the way of natural selection. If only the Davenports and Leo could understand that and not save those not worth saving. It infuriated Lorelei until she was shaking with anger.
She'd found her way into the weapons area and stared blankly at the tons of explosives and guns simply laying around. Not everyone had access to this room. Only the Davenports and Leo, but they weren't exactly secretive over the code to type in to open the door. She'd wandered the hallways with Bree one day when she had to retrieve something from the weapons area and typed in the code without a second thought, while Lorelei was standing right next to her.
Flashes of fire burnt into her eyes as she imagined the bionic academy scorching to the ground, taking everyone with it. She smiled at the power she saw before her and the demise of the ones that had taken her father away from her. If she had to, she would pin down Chase and burn into ashes with him, just to see the life slipping away from him. To not think twice about taking his life, like he hadn't when he destroyed her father.
She took a handful of the grainy fuel and squeezed it into her palm. The barrels filled to the brim with explosives lit up in green smoke as Lorelei spoke. The words had left her lips before she could take them back.
'Scorching the earth in its wake
leaving a path of a burning snake
time is of the essence
to let the explosion florescence.'
She slipped out of the weapons area and started to make her way to the hyperloop. She'd have time before the explosives would blow up, but she feared it wasn't much. She didn't need to visit her room for her belongings as she carried everything that mattered to her with her.
She rolled her hands into fists as she inhaled deeply. It felt so right to do what she'd done, but. . . it somehow also felt wrong. She'd relished in the thought of burning down Chase and his arrogant father. Even the bionic students who'd turned their backs on Krane could perish for all she cared.
She had to force herself to keep walking to get Sebastian and Bree out of her head. The kindness and sincerity in Sebastian's voice as he spoke to her still roamed around in her ears. It was only now that she realized she'd grown a bit fond of Bree and the feeling of leaving her in the dust nagged at her.
A hand grabbed hold of her arm and swung her around. Chase's hand had a tight grip on her like he never wanted to let her go and made her stop walking. 'We need to talk,' he said.
'What is there to talk about? You clearly don't trust me and hate me because of it,' Lorelei scoffed and struggled to get out of his grip, but couldn't. He was much stronger than she'd anticipated, his hand slowly starting to hurt her wrist that he was holding.
'I don't hate you,' Chase protested and stepped closer to her. 'But you can bet on it that I don't trust you.'
'Why not?' Lorelei asked exasperated.
He stood so close to her that he looked down on her. His eyes gazed over her features. Her pale skin that seemed to become bleaker the longer he'd known her and her clever, observative stare that cut right through him. Her hair the color of a black, endless void that framed her sharp cheekbones and jaw.
'There are too many things about you that I can't explain. You're a mystery to me,' he breathed. 'You're the only person with green powers at the academy which is the same color as those weird glows, you're the only person who can't remember all of her powers, you're the only person with an electricity-generated staff which isn't bionic for as far as I know.'
'Just because my powers are different you don't trust me?' Lorelei hissed and yanked on his arm that was attached to her wrist. 'If the glows were blue like Adam's wave blast, would you suspect him?' She dared him to come closer to her, her hand itching with electric energy begging to be released. 'My bionics are much newer than yours. Perhaps they figured out a laser bo that would annihilate yours.'
She zapped Chase's hand by creating her staff and holding it at the ready. Chase staggered back and formed his own laser bo. She scoffed at him. He was no better than her. He was supposed to be a mentor, but he didn't hesitate to fight back.
She was the first one to swing her staff at him, but he blocked her. She ducked for his incoming stab and swooped her staff against his ankles. She charged at him as he grunted in pain when he crashed on the ground. He rolled back a little and jumped up back on his feet, his laser bo flinging against Lorelei's.
His momentum helped him gain speed, the two of them stumbling backwards until Lorelei's back hit the wall. Her muscles strained as she tried to keep her own staff from striking her throat. He was pushing his laser bo against hers, watching Lorelei as she cocked her head back to get further away from the electricity.
Lorelei kicked her knee into his stomach, her foot following suit and stomping with the speed that Bree had taught her. Her breathing quivered as she had trouble steadying herself. The adrenaline rushed through her body, but even now, she didn't dare reveal what her father had tried to hide from the world. Besides, as powerful as magic was, nothing could compare to hands-on combat to let out all of her frustrations against Chase that had been building up for weeks.
She swung her staff against his and manipulated its electric energy to morph with his laser bo and shock him. His arm twitched violently as his laser bo disappeared. She prepared to hit him one last time, the final blow to his head that would knock him out and release her to flee into the hyperloop.
However, before she could, Chase had cupped her face into his hands in a desperate attempt to buy time to recover. Her chest was heaving with heavy breaths, but she did stop in the midst of her tracks to stare at his face to understand what he was doing.
Chase had heard her talk to Sebastian. She hadn't said much, but the doubtful wonder in her voice had caught his attention. He wanted to hear what she was trying to tell Sebastian, but his sneezing interrupted her. Whenever he saw her, too many questions roamed around his head that he wanted an answer for, but no question was as pressing as the one he had after her talk with Sebastian.
His thumbs slowly caressed the soft skin of her cheeks as Lorelei looked at him in complete confusion. 'I—' he began mumbling, but was at a loss for words.
'What are you doing?' she asked in a soft whisper.
'I—I don't know,' he stuttered back.
The explosives in the weapons area detonated and left an ear-deafening blow that made the whole island shake. Chase instinctively wrapped his arms around Lorelei and held her close to protect her. The alarms rang through the whole academy as the sprinkler system tried to extinguish the rapidly spreading fire, drenching both Chase and Lorelei.
Chase glanced up at a monitor that was connected to one of the cyberdesk, which showcased an extreme emergency in the weapons area. 'Oh no,' he muttered. 'Something's wrong in the weapons area.' He let go of Lorelei and disappeared into a hallway, yelling Adam and Bree's names into his watch.
Lorelei shook off the weird feeling in her chest as she rushed into the direction of the hyperloop. It was in sight when she heard a familiar howl. Her eyes grew as she saw Otis trapped in a ring of fire with nowhere to go. For how smart Otis was as a bionic dog, he had no abilities to extinguish a fire.
'No, no, no, no, no,' Lorelei cried out and ran towards the dog. 'Calm down, Otis. It's okay. I'm going to save you.'
She frantically looked around the room to find a solution, her heart hammering in her chest. Her feet sopped in her shoes as she walked, which made her eyes shot up to the ceiling. The sprinklers weren't working in this part of the academy, likely because of the few cyberdesks that were stationed around the room.
Otis howled as the fire reached closer to him and burnt a part of his paw. The smoke of the fire flared in Lorelei's lungs and made it difficult to breathe without exploding into an uncontrollable cough. The heat dried out her eyes as even squinting barely made her able to see what was happening.
She roughly coughed and covered her nose and mouth with her arm. The bright fire illuminated a red button attached to the sprinklers. She staggered on her legs as she created her electric staff and threw it as a spear against the red button.
She fell on her knees, her lungs filled with the toxic fuels of the smoke. The first droplets of the sprinklers dripped on her wet hair and soon they were spewing at full blast, killing the fire she had started. Once the fire had died, Otis slowly walked over to Lorelei and sat with her, howling to get anyone's help.
'You saved Otis,' a familiar voice spoke behind her. She turned, her shoulders shaking with every cough. Douglas hurried over to the pair and knelt down next to them. Aside from the burnmark on Otis' paw—which he was already licking clean—and Lorelei's scorched eyes and lungs, they were fine. 'Thank you.'
Lorelei shivered, the cold of her soaked clothes finally catching up with her as the adrenaline had seeped from her body. She gave him a nod and a polite smile in return.
Adam, Bree, Chase and Leo managed to extinguish the rest of the fire with the help of the sprinkler system. They'd returned from the weapons area once the emergency had been solved and Douglas told them about Lorelei's heroic deed of saving Otis.
Bree speedran back and forth between Lorelei and her own bedroom to get her a towel. 'You need to take off those freezing clothes, get into the shower and snuggle into some warm blankets,' she said to Lorelei and helped her stand up. Bree, as well as her brothers, were all soaked but didn't seem cold in the slightest. Perhaps their thick mission suits helped with it or their bionics, but which one it was, Lorelei wasn't sure.
Bree quickly rubbed over Lorelei's arm to hopefully warm her up and rested her head against hers. 'Do you trust her now, Chase?' she asked with a glare to her brother. 'She saved Otis and she was talking to you when those explosives went off. It couldn't be her.'
'How long do you know Chase by now? He's not going to admit fault,' Leo retorted and crossed his arms. 'Just like he won't admit my idea saved us a minute ago and not his.'
'Whatever,' Chase mumbled, his eyes locked on Lorelei's. 'I would be prepared if I were you. Mr Davenport thinks someone's bionics glitched, so we're going to do a chip test on everyone. . .'
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