Save Yourself

A large piece of rock broke from the ceiling of the cave and went crashing to the ground. Mikey dove out of the way, dodging it just in time. His body was suddenly thrown back against the wall and he winced in pain. The blonde girl standing a few feet away from him wasn’t playing any games. The pieces of shattered rock lifted up into the air and started shooting towards the boy lying on the ground. He lifted his arms up in defense and the pieces of rock shot back and fell back down to the ground. In an instant, he was lifted off his feet and being hurtled towards the ceiling. Instinctively, he formed a force field around him in an attempt to protect himself. The blonde girl kept him hovering in the air as she sent a large boulder flying towards him. The teen lifted his hands up in defense, knowing that he was screwed. Loud laughter echoed through the cave and Mikey opened his eyes to see that the boulder had stopped a few inches from him.
“I win,” the blonde announced triumphantly as she slowly let Mikey back down to the ground.
“Geez, you have absolutely no mercy. What happened to taking it easy on me since this is my first training session?” he complained. “Gerard, did you want to see me killed by having me train with her?”
“No, Mikey, that definitely wasn’t my plan,” Gerard assured his brother with a light chuckle. “I actually thought that you’d do better. Sure Sarah has the mind power to move objects without touching them, but you have the force field to block said objects and you did.”
“I couldn’t do shit about her awesome mind power when said object was me,” the teen grumbled.
“Fair enough,” the older male conceded still smiling. “I think you’ve had enough practice for the day.”
“Oh, Mikey, don’t be such a cry baby. Gerard’s right, you could do better.”
“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” he retorted, turning around and walking away.
They’ve been living underground for three weeks now. Gerard finally managed to find some people with actual attack powers and he made sure that they were all training. They couldn’t stay down there forever, but they couldn’t go back up without being prepared.
Mikey only felt strong enough to start training with them that morning, but he was slightly regretting it now. He didn’t have anything broken anymore, but the scars were still there and after his training session, they all seemed to have reopened. He jumped as a ball of fire hit the ground right next to him.
“Holy shit! Watch it!” he shouted towards the two people training.
Gabby and Ashley were training together. It was water against fire since, ironically, Ashley could summon fireballs. Mikey winced as he watched the two girls running around and throwing their Talents at each other. That was one fight he did not want to be caught in the middle of. At least he could handle objects flying in his direction. He wasn’t so sure about dodging fireballs or water showers.
Everyone was training for the big one. No one really knew what the plan was. They just knew that they needed to be ready. Surprisingly, Gerard had everything under control. It made Mikey wonder whether Gerard showed up on Una for a reason. Maybe he was like ‘the one’; the one that would save them all, like Superman. He let out a short chuckle at his ridiculous thoughts. Gerard was simply doing what everyone else has been afraid of doing for the last couple of decades. He was taking a stand against the Rebellions. Obviously, everyone else was also fed up with their crap, because everyone wanted to help in one way or another.
“Hey, Ray,” he smiled, stopping next to the male sitting and watching everything.
“You sure got your ass handed to you by that girl,” the male said with a teasing grin.
“She caught me off guard,” Mikey grumbled.
Ray roared with laughter, “Of course.”
The tall male was still recuperating. His left leg was in a cast and he still had cracked ribs, but he was awake. He only sat around watching everyone train and try to make a new life down here. He would’ve liked to be a part of it all, but unfortunately, he was useless at the moment.

*

“Gerard, can I talk to you for a second?” Erin said, pulling him away from where he was watching a couple of people training.
“Sure, what’s up?” he wanted to know.
“I want to fight,” the blonde stated. “I want to help you fight these things.”
“That’s all great, Erin, but why now all of a sudden? And will you be able to handle it?”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve been sulking for long enough. The Rebellions killed David and I’ve come to realize that they probably did the same with Alex since she still hasn’t been found. I want revenge,” she told him.
The male with the onyx hair sighed, “I’m sorry about that. I know it’s hard losing someone. As for Alex, you’re probably right, because we have people out looking around every day. I’m really sorry, Erin. I hear what you’re saying and I will let you fight if you can.”
“Can you tell which one’s real?” she suddenly asked him and in the next instant he had to blink a couple of times to reassure himself that he wasn’t seeing things.
There were three Erins standing in front of him.
“Wow, you can clone yourself,” he noted in awe.
“Unfortunately I have a limit of ten clones, but we can all fight,” the three clones spoke in unison.
“Uhm… right,” he stuttered. “Which one’s the real you?”
“Here I am,” the real Erin spoke up, but she wasn’t one of the three standing in front of him, instead she was standing behind him.
“How’d you do that?” he asked confused, shaking his head to try to regain some focus.
“Several copies of one person can be very confusing,” the teen explained. “We’re pretty agile as well. That’s why you didn’t see me moving in behind you.”
“That’s really helpful, but can you do any damage?”
“Several Erins… I think we can take on a few Rebellions,” she replied with a smile.
“In that case, welcome aboard. I have someone you can train with right here,” he said, walking towards the left. “I hope you like animals.”
She was about to ask why, when they stopped and her eyes fell on an abnormally large tiger watching them.
“Are you serious?” she slightly choked out.
“Have fun,” he smiled, patting her on the shoulder. “Oh, and be careful, she tends to bite.”
“That’s really funny,” she murmured sarcastically, not taking her eyes off the animal standing a few feet away from her. Gerard left and the tiger started to circle her, slowly closing in. She wasn’t going to lie to herself – she was scared shitless, but she realized that fear wasn’t going to get her anywhere.
“Okay, Kitty, let’s play,” she challenged and in the blink of an eye the tiger leapt at her.

*

“Geez, I get it!” Frank yelled, hands covering his ears. “You can scream at incredibly high frequencies, but stop. My ears can’t take it anymore!”
Felix nodded furiously in agreement, staring at the girl standing across from them.
“Sorry,” Annabel apologized, her voice back to normal.
“Are you going to yell their heads off their bodies?” the teen joked.
“No,” she grumbled, “But I can always distract them. Bob and I can make a mean team. He has to engage in close-ranged battle, because of his super strength. Imagine, he’s stuck in a pickle, I give one loud scream, all eyes on me and then he can beat the living shit out of them.”
“That’s cool,” Felix grinned.
“It is,” Bellz grinned back. “Besides, Frank, what are you going to do? Just run away the whole time?”
Frank scowled at her, “No, for your information, I’m part of the helping crew. You know, the people who have to get your sorry ass away from the battlefield and to help when the Rebellions choke you, because the sound of your voice annoyed the crap out of them. So, I can’t actually fight, but at least I’ll be of some help by saving people in need. Speed isn’t completely useless.”
“I guess,” the brunette conceded. “Just make sure you use that speed and save my sorry ass before they strangle me.”
Frank laughed, “Of course.”
“Hey, Bellz, can you come and give me and Nana a hand?” Arin called to her.
“I’ll see you two later,” she smiled, walking over to where Arin and Nana were.
“So, don’t you think it’s time we found out what you can do?” Frank said, turning to look at Felix.
The little girl never left his side and he didn’t mind at all. She was clean now and was currently wearing one of his black hoodies, although she might as well have been swimming around in it instead, since it was way too big for her small frame.
“I can’t scream like that,” Felix said pointedly.
“Thank goodness,” Frank chuckled in relief. “You would’ve driven me crazy or I would’ve gone deaf. I assure you that you have a Talent though. We just have to figure out what it is.”
“How are we going to do that?” she asked, eyes sparkling with excitement.
“Hm, I don’t know. A lot of people’s talents are sort of connected to something that happened in their previous lives. Take for example, Gabby produces water and she drowned when she was eight years old. The same with Ashley, she conjures up fireballs and she died in a fire,” he explained. “How did you die?”
“I’m really, really allergic to bees,” she told him in a small voice.
Frank stared at her confused for a few seconds before he grasped the meaning of her words.
“Oh, man, you died from a bee sting? That really sucks,” he responded in shock.
The little girl shrugged casually.
“Please don’t tell me your power is to go around and sting people, because that would be both weird and scary,” the teen boy stated.
Felix giggled, “No, not that I’m aware of, but maybe you should be careful, just in case.”
“What?” he gasped taken aback. “You’d really sting me too?”
“Hm, I don’t know.Guess you’ll just have to wait and see,” she giggled again.
“And that’s the thanks I get,” he said, faking a hurt expression.
“Scaredy cat!”
“Come here you!” Frank laughed, grabbing her and tickling her, sending her into a fit of giggles.
“Hey, you two!” Chelle grinned. “Having fun?”
“No, Felix is threatening me,” Frank told her.
“Good girl. Don’t take any nonsense from Frank,” Chelle urged.
“Oh, that’s real nice. Now both girls in my life are turning on me,” Frank pouted.
Chelle rolled her eyes, but Felix put a comforting hand on his arm.
“I won’t really sting you… But then you have to promise to be a good boy,” she finished before he could relax.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he grinned mockingly, picking her up and sitting her on his shoulders.
“So it’s settled. I’ll be working with the team taking care of the dead and injured,” Chelle told him. “As Gerard pointed out, just because I can heal quickly it doesn’t mean that I can risk my life.”
“Well I’m glad to hear that you’ll be staying behind the scenes. It sure takes a load off my shoulders,” Frank agreed.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” she assured him, but touched that he cared.
“Of course I worry, but now I’ll have some peace of mind. I honestly can’t wait to kick these thing’s butts.”
“As long as you don’t go all Gerard on our asses. He’s really on a mission with this whole thing,” the brunette sighed.
“I get where he’s coming from. Everybody’s fed up with this shit. We’ve been living underground for what feels like forever now. I just wish I had some useful Talent so I could join in the action. I’d like to give a Rebellion a piece of my mind,” Frank murmured, drifting off into space.
“That won’t be necessary, because between Gerard’s army gathering and Arin’s strategizing, we’ll be a winning team. This whole thing will be a piece of cake. You and I will be sitting back and watching Rebellions die by the hordes. We’ve got the winning combination of brain and will power. Now come on, lunch is ready.”

*

Erin watched, as the tiger got tired from fighting all her clones. Even though the animal succeeded in killing them easily, she just kept summoning them, making sure to keep it at a safe distance. The blonde knew that if she came into actual contact with the animal, she’d be dead for sure and she wasn’t ready to die just yet. Another clone perished, but immediately another ran to take its place. The tiger growled angrily, but kept killing them. She realized that she’d also tire from the constant summoning of clones, but right now, it was her only defense. She summoned two more clones. Right before they reached the tiger something happened that Erin would never have seen coming. The large animal disappeared and instead a black crow swooped up from between the clones and darted right at her. She didn’t even have a second’s chance to run and as she hit the ground, the large tiger was standing on top of her, its heavy body crushing her to the ground.
“You know, those clones are terribly annoying,” the animal suddenly spoke. “It’s a useful talent, but you can’t just stand off to the side and watch them do all the work, because your opponent will realize that you’re the real thing and then make an attempt to attack you directly.”
“Oh, yeah, like I’m stupid enough to charge at a super large tiger. I still have shit to do before I die,” the teen growled back. “I tried, so if you want to eat me, go ahead, but I will haunt you for the rest of your life and after that.”
Erin was startled when the animal started laughing. She was even more confused by the fact that it was a girl’s voice. She’d been too occupied by the fact that a tiger had her pinned to the ground to notice earlier. The tiger slowly climbed off her and then it morphed into…
“Holy shit!” Erin exclaimed. “You?”
“Yeah, honestly, I’ve never had anything annoy me more in one hour than your clones. If you were a Rebellion, I’d be ripping you to pieces as we speak,” the raven-haired beauty told her.
“But you… I thought that…”
“I was a real tiger?” she asked, her dark brown, almond shaped eyes looking back at the teen, a hint of laughter in them.
“Uhm, well, yeah,” Erin admitted a little embarrassed.
“Gerard isn’t that crazy,” Tatiana chuckled, “But I’ll pass on the compliment.”
“Don’t do that!” Erin hurriedly stopped her. “It’s just… You can turn into a freaking tiger? And where did that crow come from???”
Tati chuckled at her, “I was the crow. I’m a shape shifter. I can morph into anything I want to. Your clones really pissed me off and since I noticed you standing to the side, I thought I’d go for you directly. I actually enjoyed the look on your face, because you did not see that coming.”
“Of course not! One minute I’m fighting a tiger and the next a crow is flying towards me. That’s only a little unexpected and not confusing at all,” the blonde finished sarcastically.
“Well, that’s what training is about. Now you can see where you made mistakes and hopefully learn from that. Remember, next time, join the fight. I’m not saying risk your life, but you know, don’t be so completely obvious.”
“Right,” Erin nodded. “I just hope I won’t be in the same situation again. It’s not fun having a tiger on top of you.”
“Sorry about that. I just figured that it would be the only way to stop you from summoning any more clones,” Tati apologized.
“Actually, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that. Next time I’ll summon more clones. I’m sure they’ll be able to get you off of me before I become tiger dinner.”
“Don’t worry, next time I promise to surprise you with something else,” Tati assured her, smiling as she started to walk off. “I might not even be a tiger. Maybe next time I’ll be an elephant or a dinosaur or something.”
Erin’s mouth dropped.
“That’s not funny.”

Notes