Outside the building, Amy and Future Girl made it to the school common in only a few seconds. More security guards had arrived, their carts surrounding the grass, with Milfoil in the center. The guards were now armed with shotguns, Amy saw. They fired at the creature, but the shells disappeared into its body.
"More! More!" it said.
Future Girl flew to a stop right above Milfoil. Amy caught up and floated next to her.
"I hope this works," Amy said. "The last thing I want to do is burn the whole school down."
"It actually wouldn't be the first time the school caught fire," Future Girl said. "If that happens, I'll just rescue everyone again."
Future Girl flew straight downward, right at Milfoil. Amy saw flame burst from seemingly out of nowhere at the creature, followed by its surprisingly high-pitched screams.
"Stop that!" a security guard shouted, his voice amplified by speakers built into his hazmat suit. "We have the situation under control."
Amy tapped a few buttons on her wrist device, only to have spurts of flame break out in the air all around her. Future Girl was clearly more adept at working it, using the device to burn a circle of fire on the ground around Milfoil.
The sound of gunshots distracted Amy from watching Future Girl in action. The security guards now shot at Future Girl as she tried to burn Milfoil.
"We have the situation under control," the lead guard shouted again.
Amy flew up to the head guard, pulled the small speakers off his suit and crushed them between her palms.
The guard pointed a finger at her. "Truant!"
"Do I look like I'm still in high school?"
The other guards aimed their shotguns at her and fired. These were not ordinary shotguns, as green light flew out of them at Amy. The first two blasts hit her, stinging slightly. She flew in a wide arc around the common, taking a few seconds for each guard, knocking them out one by one.
The center of the common was now a massive blaze. It was hard to tell what was happening, but Amy caught glimpses of Future Girl flying around in the middle of the fire. The high-pitched screams still came from the Milfoil creature. It writhed around in pain, smaller than it had been.
Amy heard sirens. Real sirens, not the woot-woot-woot that accompanied the guys in the hazmat suits. The local fire department made it to the school, with two engines and an ambulance roaring through the school's main gate and toward the common. With the fire contained to the grassy area surrounding the sidewalks, the firefighters had no trouble containing it. Amy stood to the side, letting the experts do their thing. She didn't see any evidence of Future Girl or Milfoil in the center of the fire.
Amy heard a cracking sound to her right. One of the campus buildings shook – never a good sign. Amy saw this was where Milfoil had thrown pieces of itself. These parts of the buildings' outer walls were quickly turning into vegetation, weakening the entire structure.
Amy flew over the to the four-story-tall building, which apparently housed classrooms, and pressed her hands against the corner of it, above the green, splotchy area. Milfoil's "babies" still chewed away at the structure.
Amy could feel four stories of building pressing down on her, just as she knew pieces of Milfoil were at work devouring the wall just above her.
The metallic, grinding sound of the building about the fall apart filled Amy's ears. Amy pressed upward against the wall as hard as she could, but even with her strength, she doubted she could keep an entire building from falling apart.
Amy heard someone say, "Move fast!" Two teenagers hurried beneath her, placing metal rods against the building walls. A third student used some sort of rewired vacuum cleaner, placing it against the wall and sucking up all the Milfoil pieces.
Light, warm fingers touched Amy's shoulders from behind. "It's OK," Future Girl said. "We've got it."
Amy let go of the wall. For a second, it seemed as if the whole building would collapse, but the students pressed the rods against the building. Whatever advanced technology was inside them kept the building standing. All around the common, other students used these same devices to keep the rest of the buildings from crumbling while others cleaned up the rest of the Milfoil pieces.
Seeing the Mirai students in action, using their own inventions to keep the school from falling apart, only one word went through Amy's mind.
Futuristic.
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Next: This is big.