“Well shit, I didn’t know that. Let’s go!” They rushed forward. Reaching the corner, they turned to find a horror show. It was a room that looked like a butcher shop full of human bodies. The missing people. Jack was barely able to stop himself from throwing up as they ran into the room. There were roughly 10 bodies hung on the wall. They had all been ripped open. Some bodies were missing limbs. One was just missing a head. But none of that was the worst part. Further in the room was the beast and Ariel and it had already started ripping her open. “NO!”

The monster was already turning around since they had rested control of the rat and when it saw Jack and Henry it dropped Ariel’s body and started running toward them. It was impossible to tell if she was still alive, but it didn’t look good. The beast was still injured from before, but it looked like it had attempted to repair itself with new organs, potentially Ariels. Jack saw white as he charged forward. One of his first real friends had been hurt by this beast. He was mad, madder than he had ever been before. This fucking monster. They charged toward each other. Jack only saw red as he ran. He yelled an incoherent battle cry as he closed the distance with the beast. “FUCK YOU!”

The monster was much bigger than Jack. It probably had 700 pounds on him. But that didn’t matter to Jack. He charged directly at the beast with full intention to meet it head-on. A fire burned within him. A rage he had been holding back. Anger toward society. Anger toward all the rich people that just walked past him every day on the street. The anger had been brewing throughout the school year. The students were constantly being reminded about how great the Royal family was. It was ridiculous.

His electricity being a good friend reacted to that anger. Suddenly Jack was surrounded by a thick aura. This time the electricity wasn’t blue, or purple, but pure red. Blood red. Jack had given this electricity one purpose when he created it. Make it bleed. Make it suffer.

The electricity didn’t shoot across the distance between them. It appeared to just teleport. One second Jack was consumed in an intense burst of pure deep electricity, next everything went white. Then red, Then Black. It took him a minute to recover. After a few moments, Jack realized he had stopped charging forward and was just standing still. Did I die? Then he heard a sound.

“hghgr”

Jack realized he had shorted the lights in the area with his blast. There was no obvious sign of the beast so he turned his headlamp and surveyed the area. Looking down he noticed he had completely destroyed his gauntlets. Oops. He saw the monster a moment later. It hadn’t moved from where he had struck it. The flesh parts of the beast were ash and the metal had melted almost completely. He didn’t take any time to appreciate what he had done. He continued forward to Ariel.

“ghgey.” Ariel attempted to speak. She looked horrible. The beast had ripped her abdomen open and did not do it in a gentle manner.

“Don’t move, I’m here to help.” Jack tried to put on a confident demeanor. He looked down at her abdomen and it was bad. She was bleeding profusely. “We need to get you to a healer.”

“No…time….” Ariel muttered. “Must cauterize. “In class, they had learned in emergencies that you could use extreme heat to burn a wound shut. It was a last-resort tactic.

“Fuck.” Jack looked back over his shoulder, “Hey Henry can you do anything?” there was no response. “Henry? Fuck I don’t have time for this.” Jack focused on Ariel’s wound. Her abdomen had been ripped open and he could see some of her intestines. In moments like this Jack would normally throw up, but this was his friend. He put his nausea aside. He pushed his fear aside and he laid his hand on her stomach. His plan was to just stop the bleeding. They had learned that minor burns could be repaired, but it had to be quickly after. He tried to be gentle but as he placed his hand on her stomach she groaned. “I’m sorry. This next part is gonna hurt.”

Through clenched teeth, she muttered. “Just do it.”

He closed his eyes and focused. He had never really attempted anything close to this before. Temperature had never been something he worried about when creating electricity, but now it’s all that mattered. He slowly began to build power. This time he contained it within his hand. He took all the electricity and put it deep in his palm. It began to burn, but it wasn’t enough. He continued to build power. Not letting it out of his hand. His hand began to glow, and after a few moments, he could clearly see the bones within his hand. “Ok, here we go.”

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With all the control he could muster Jack released the electricity, but at the same time, he only let it flow to the surface of his palm. While allowing the electricity to move he applied resistance to its flow. The resistance encouraged more heat. His hand burned, but he didn’t move. Ariel screamed.

And then the room started to shake. Oh, for fucks sake. What now?

After a moment he released the power from his hand. Looking at his palm it was burned, then looking at Ariel’s stomach he could see he had succeeded in stopping her from bleeding out. But she seemed to have passed out.

The room continued to shake, then his cyber pad beeped. Looking at his bracer he was surprised to see an automated emergency message.

This is an emergency broadcast

Multiple explosions reported in Lidad

The display was showing a map of the explosion locations. Jack was very surprised to see most of the explosions seemed completely random. None of them were near strategic military targets.

All available personnel report to emergency response stations

What the fuck is going on?

“Henry! Where the fuck did you go!?”

Jack didn’t want to leave Ariel’s side, but after a few moments of ensuring she was laying comfortable, Jack stood up. Walking back, it quickly became apparent what happened to Henry, he had also been struck by Jack’s electric burst. The machine was in pieces. Jack stared at the robot’s broken parts for a moment before he heard a very quiet tick.

Tick. Tock.

The robot was in pieces, but the head was mostly intact and one of its blue gems lit up.

Boom.

Another explosion shook the room. Shit. What’s going on? I have to go help.

The city was under attack. They had known it was coming and yet they still somehow were caught by surprise. Jack ran back through the city toward the Academy. He was worried for his friends.

Oh god, I hope everyone is ok.

He continued to sprint. Where the hell is everybody? He hadn’t seen a single person while running back to the academy. The city had been mysteriously quiet when he had originally snuck through, but now it was eerily silent even though there had just been multiple large explosions. After a long run he made it to the Academy. The gates seemed to have been one of the locations of the explosions. Jack had examined the when he first came to the academy, they were incredibly strong. The once impressive gates were now a crumpled mess. There was not much left of the impressive metal doors. Now you could barely tell anything had ever been there. Jack barely slowed down as he continued to run. He quickly ran through the halls. Up until this point he hadn’t seen a single person and he had become extremely worried.

While running through the halls he finally started to hear fighting. It was distant, the sounds of battle were echoing down the hall. Suddenly he hit a two-way split in the corridor. To the left were the dormitories and potentially his friends. To the right were the sounds of battle. Shit. Which way do I go?

After a moment he made his choice. His friends were the only thing he really cared about. The Academy had been great, but it was his friends that made it great. Without them, he could care less for the Academy or the city. After another minute of running, he reached the gate that led to the dormitories. What the hell? The buildings looked fine. There was no commotion. It looked like a normal night. He sprinted towards the closest spire and almost ran right into the door. It took a moment for it to open automatically for him. Once inside he was surprised to find the person at the front desk was asleep.

“Hey!” He ran over and shook them. But they seemed to be in a very deep sleep. Probably magic. Shit. What the hell is happening? He decided to run back towards the sound of battle. Sprinting back through the gate he had to pause and listen intently. It was hard to hear over his heartbeat and his breathing. After a moment he confirmed the position and continued to run.

He ran into a courtyard and found evidence of people fighting. It was a gruesome scene. A large group of students seemed to have been murdered. It looked like they put up a good fight. The area was battered and destroyed. But only a few corpses of obvious intruders littered the ground with all the dead children. Jack threw up. This is too much. Why would somebody do this? Why are they attacking students? It doesn’t make sense. The attackers seemed to just be going for mass civilian casualties which is insane.

“Hey Jack!” Jack turned to see Jared running over to him. Jack felt a rush rush of relief to see his friend from class.

“Hey!” Jack replied out of breath. “Do you know whats going on?”

“No Idea, I was training late when I heard a commotion outside. When I went to check it out, I was attacked. Any idea who these people are?”

“Not really. I’m looking for my friends.”

“Yeah, I understand. My older brother is here somewhere. I’m looking for h,” Jared never got to finish the sentence. Because suddenly an arrow shot through his throat. He looked confused for a moment, opening, and closing his mouth, trying to speak. Then he fell over. Jack couldn’t comprehend what happened. He looked down at Jared and then up toward a mysterious figure. The figure was wearing all dark clothing and was wielding a large bow. He hardly had time to look at the figure before an arrow flew right toward his face.