I've looked behind a giant crate... nothing. 'This is the twentieth one!' My efforts to find Claire were coming out in vain. Every time I heard any kind of noise I'd go after it, in hopes that the creator of the noise was Claire. It wasn't. Just a cat, rats and the wind.
I'll be honest, looking in the docks at the middle of the night for a person, wasn't and isn't the easiest thing ever. Especially, when her evil boyfriend could be lurking around, preparing to blast me into oblivion.
I could feel my anxiety levels slowly rising as my mind thought every worst possible case scenario of what could have and might happen to me or Claire. It didn't help that it was night and the lights around here were extraordinarily dim, and I wasn't a fan of the darkness. Especially, when I'm in an unfamiliar place and setting.
I've always lived close to Claire in El Paso, so docks weren't exactly an everyday kind of thing. The only time Claire and I went to any docks was five years ago when all the grownups disappeared. Of course, we were accompanied by Mariana who had to call her friends Magan, Connor and Wally to help out with the blown-up tiers of her parents' car. They got there really fast. How? When we were miles away from them? Don't know, never cared to ask.
Anyway, back to the matter at hand. All the consequences of today's events were finally catching up to me. My legs were hurting from all the running I had done, and because of Mariana's not so safe driving. My brain was getting all fuzzy thanks to all the information that was trying to sink in at once. My body felt like disagreeing with me and going in directions I didn't want. All in all, I felt exhausted and scared.
I wanted to stop... I wanted to rest... I wanted to go home... I wanted to see Maria and Claire safe... I wanted to see my nonna again, to hug her and reassure her that I was fine... I wanted to go back in time and just ask the others for help instead of running off... I wanted to just wake up in my bed and see that this was just some weird, bizarre and scary dream.
Unfortunately, things are never that easy. The sound of a metal can hitting the ground made me shift my attention to the side. I stopped dead in my tracks. Someone was hidden in the shadow, or at least, trying to hide.
"Felicity?" 'That voice...' The person slowly moved forward, moving to stand in front of one of the many dim lights.
"Claire!" A wave of relief washed over me as my concern slowly dissipated. She ran over to me and hugged me. I, of course, did the same. "You're ok!"
"I'm fine... are you ok?"
"I'm perfect." We let go and I grabbed my phone and the paper Mariana had given me, out of my pocket. "We have to go." She said nothing as I dialled the number and called. It rang once. Twice. Tree times. Nothing. "Crap!"
"What's wrong?"
"She won't pick up..."
"She who? One of your friends?"
"No. Well, yes. I was trying to call-"
"Found you."
You know that moment when you hear something being said really creepily and it makes your neck hairs stand on end and makes you shiver uncontrollably? Yeah, I'm going through that.
Both Claire and I turned to look up, spotting something floating above one of the crates. No, wait, not something. Someone. Blue Beetle to be exact. 'Shit.'
Neither of us had any time to process anything thanks to Blue attacking us. One of his arms turned into some kind of sonic cannon. Virgil had mentioned that Blue used it when he was fighting Volcano, and it was the reason as to why the building had been collapsing around us.
Blue used the cannon on us, hitting us with a sonic wave. We where both knocked back harshly onto the ground, skidding back a few times. But even with having successfully gotten us down he didn't stop there. His arms turned into something different and a weird blue thing shot out of them.
They were coming in fast, leaving almost no room to even breath. Suddenly, I felt energy wrap around me before shooting out, which threw Claire back but did nothing to the thing that was still headed in my direction. Time to prepare for impact. "Felicity!"
Something appeared next to me and grabbed me. I watched in shock as a golden light engulfed both me and the other person, and as my surroundings changed. The light dissipated followed by the sound of metal hitting the ground causing me to look over to the spot where I had previously been.
Blue's attack hadn't been stopped, so much so, that it hit that ground with such a force that it stayed stuck.
"Are you alright?" I was snapped back into reality long enough to feel the pain that had spread through my side. I grunted a small yes but didn't look at the person. "Be more careful next time..." I turned my head to the person and smiled lightly.
"Aye, aye captain." Ed only rolled his eyes.
"Guys!" We turned to face the source of the voice. Virgil, Tye and Sam were all running in our direction, completely ignoring Blue Beetle's existence and the fact that he had his cannons aimed at us.
They helped us up and Tye flicked my forehead. "Ow! Dude!"
"Don't run off like that. Ever." His voice was calm but laced with anger and worry.
I smiled lightly. "No promises." He flicked me again. "Ow! Stop that!" He rolled his eyes and looked passed me. I followed his gaze. My eyes landed on Claire who was being helped up by Virgil. Worry washed over me once more. "Claire!" I rushed over to her and made sure she was alright.
"I'm fine. Don't worry."
"You sure?"
"Perfectly." I sighed.
"Ok." A cough made us turn towards the others. "Oh, yeah... uh, guys... this is Claire. Claire these are Asami, Eduardo, Virgil and Tye." She did a small wave.
"I hate to cut these introductions short but we have a problem." Ed was right. Blue Beetle still had his weapons aimed at us.
"You done with the sentimentality?"
I moved to stand in front of Claire. "More than you know." And so, the fight began. It wasn't hard to evade his attacks, for the most part.
It was five against one, so to us, our odds of winning were good. That is until Black Beetle showed up. That's when thing started going somewhat downhill.
We weren't exactly loosing, more like... being knocked down to the ground... hard. Sam, had been able to knock them back a couple of times thanks to her chi manipulation, but was, unfortunately, rendered unconscious.
Virgil, would use his powers to throw crates and other metallic objects at them and also protect us from any metallic objects that might be thrown at us. He was able to avoid some of the attacks in the beginning, but just like Sam, was out cold after a while.
Tye, stayed fighting Blue even after Black Beetle arrived. He would usually grab some crates and throw them or grab Blue and squeeze him. The first time he did that, I laughed. Unfortunately, though, he too was knocked out. Trying to not get hit by attacks when you're a giant and very visible Astro Form isn't exactly an easy task.
Ed was the one who easily avoided their attacks. The boy can teleport for God's sake. He wasn't exactly the definition of strong, so grabbing something heavy was out of the question, but throwing things to distract them was easy.
I spent the entire time close to Claire. Not close enough that any danger could come to her, but close enough to make sure she was alright. My powers had decided to work which made repealing some of their attacks sort of easy.
After a while, it seemed like the Beetles were getting irritated with the fact that Ed and I weren't going down. We were close, but we still hadn't. It was actually becoming quite evident by our expressions, that we were getting tired and wouldn't hold up much longer.
I noticed that their hands were turning into sonic cannons again and instantly understood that they were going to use them against us. The next thing I did, I regret. I dug one of my hands into my hoodie pocket and took out the smoke signal. Just before they used their cannons on us, I aimed it at the air and pulled the trigger. Yes, it looked like a gun.
Soon after that, I felt myself being thrown backwards. Ed joined me not even a second later. The intensity of the sonic waves that were hitting us was so big that neither of us could concentrate long enough to try to escape.
Unbeknown to me, Mariana seemed to just casually materialize behind both Beetles. Bat at the ready. "That's mi hermana's best friend. So, piece of advice... leave."
Before she had the chance to do anything she started to float before being shaken like a rag doll and being drops next to us.
The sonic waves stopped and we were released... sort of. I looked to the side and noticed that Ed was unconscious. And I would soon join him. Mariana was quick to get back up.
"Never thought my own hermana would turn against me." I looked up and froze. Claire was next to Blue and Black Beetle. Arms crossed and chin up with an unreadable expression on her face.
"C-Claire." My body felt week but I could still move. Forcing myself up, I took a step forward. "Why?"
"Ah, the meat bag won't talk. You know, no free will."
I stopped and looked at Black Beetle. I wanted to blast this guy so far into space he'd never come back. But even walking was hard, let alone using my powers.
"I wouldn't be all happy just yet."
"What do you-" Blue didn't have time to finish thanks to something exploding next to his feet causing him to fall.
"Don't you know that it's cowardly to attack someone who's already down?" I tried to locate the voice but saw no one else other than us. "Especially, when it's my cousin."
Another explosion went off, this time though on Black Beetle. He was knocked into Claire.
They didn't take long to get back up and have Claire attack Mariana. Hand-to-hand this time. Mariana, of course, was quick to get the upper hand and hit Claire in the back of the neck. Knocking her out in the process.
As soon as Claire hit the ground the Beetles used their cannons on us again. Mariana and I were thrown back once more. Her against a crate and me against the floor.
They were about to walk over to us but were stopped by the same voice from before. "Ah, ah, ah! What part of cowardly don't you understand?" No answer. "You won't be able to touch them. So there's no point in trying." They ignored her. "Well, guess I have no choice." They got zapped. "Leave."
"Maybe we should listen."
I heard Black Beetle growl. "Alright, let's go." He turned his back to me and Mariana and turned to Claire.
"Claire!" I wanted to run to her but my body felt heavy, incapacitating my movements.
"You meat bags truly are a handful." I helplessly watched as Black Beetle walked over to Claire and picked her up.
"No... Claire..."
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I felt terrible. I managed to get Tye to fight his best friend, get the others hurt, make Mariana fight Claire, and let Claire be taken by the Reach. I failed in every aspect possible. And to top it all off... my best friend was with the Reach.
"Hey, kid... it's not your fault."
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Sorry if this isn't very good 😣 my brain melted while writing this. 2000 words.