Phantoms were running around gathering weapons and securing the women and children. They carried weird tech guns that could blast several men at once or so, said Stephan as Zen watched the activity from the steps of the guest settlement. She played around with Ishevara on her chain. I understand that you are special Ishevara but me? I’m nothing!

You carry the blood of the trinity within you Zen. That is rare enough.

So does Isaias!

But he carries less and it wasn’t activated. You have not manifested the other abilities that come with this blood child but all in due time. You can already pass through shadows.

I don’t even know how I did that Vara!

You will learn You and your brother have not fully awakened yet.

Zen sighed, swinging Ishevara around her finger before hiding her under her shirt and standing. Beside her, Stephan was staring intently at the phantoms as they rushed from settlement to settlement. They would enter empty-handed and leave loaded with guns and staffs.

“That must be their armory,” he muttered pointing to a large building to their right. It had a large symbol of a stalagmite on a shield.

“Is that their logo then?”

Stephan nodded. “Yeah, although it’s much more stylized than when I left. You could barely discern the two before.”

Zen nodded and turned to walk inside the guest settlement. She outstretched her hand. “Coming?”

Stephan grinned and took her hand following her inside. Everyone was ready and waiting impatiently for the ax to fall.

A few minutes later the first explosions were heard from the metal gates. Zen and the others rushed out. Stephan sighed as he calmed a sparking Edline.

“Everything is fine Little Spark but you have to remain here and hidden for me ok?”

“I can fight Stephan! You know Mom showed me how!”

“Just because you were shown something doesn’t mean you should do it Edline. I want you to stay out of the fight if you can alright? Ten-year-olds shouldn’t have to fight for their lives. Trust me on this.”

“Brother, did you have to fight at ten?”

“Yes, and it messes with you Edline. Taking a life so young always messes with you. I don’t want you to experience the same thing I did. If for any reason you have to fight then fight but till then hide, ok?”

Edline sighed. “Ok big brother but I’ll fight if they harm you!”

Stephan grinned. “They won’t get me, Ed. You be careful alright?”

“Yes, brother. I’m not a baby you know!”

“I know Ed. We were raised to fight but just this time...don’t.”

“Ok, Stephan I promise to stay and guard the vents...even though they don’t need guarding do they?”

Stephan shook his head. “No Ed. They don’t. If you have to run then run.”

Edline smiled. “Be careful brother! I don’t want to shock people to save you!”

“You won’t!” He turned to leave.

“Hey, Stephan?”

He turned to her. “Yeah?”

“When am I going to be able to kiss someone like you kiss Zen?”

Stephan blushed. “When you’re fifty Ed.”

He left the room to join the others. Marco was right! I shouldn’t have kissed Zen like that with her watching. I hope she doesn’t get any ideas.

###

Zen looked up as Stephan joined her side. Her left side was covered by Isaias who was speaking to Marco about strategic plans in case Zen was captured since he was the teleporter. Zen was listening in and nodding. Every once in a while Marek and Val put in their two cents. Senka was cloaked in shadows but surprisingly Kiera could spot him and was busy talking to him about the gun he preferred. Everyone jumped when the second blast came through.

“They’re having trouble with the metal door aren’t they,” asked Zen as she plucked one of her daggers and spun it around her fingers.

“That door is Obtonium metal. The best and hardest metal around but the next explosion should do it,” Stephan muttered kneeling to where Zen and the others were waiting near a huge stalagmite. To their right were the lines of men forming the ranks of Rafael’s men. There weren’t many and to Zen’s surprise, several women were in the lineup.

“Can beauties fight?” she asked as one woman punched a staring male in the nose.

Stephan looked over and nodded. “Some have offensive gifts while others can use their gifts for other purposes. Not everyone is like Palomera, and Mira, Zen.”

“Thank god for that.”

Stephan grinned and hauled her up. “Come on. I’d like you to get to know Valisa, the wife of Keenda and a commander of the Stalagmites. She’s as tough as you, and has the same gift as Palomera but uses it offensively as well as growing feeding crystals.”

Zen smiled and followed him into the ranks of men till a tall beauty came into view. She was dark-skinned and wore some chest armor and a short pleated skirt. Her long blonde hair was done in a braid with flyaway hairs framing peculiar amethyst eyes. Zen realized this was the woman she had seen breastfeeding a baby not too long ago.

“Stephan! Are you here to help us with these assholes?” she asked, flicking her braid.

Stephan nodded and pushed Zen forward. “Valisa, I'd like for you to meet Zen. She’s my girlfriend.”

Valisa grinned. “Had the decency to leave that snake at last did ya?”

“I left her two years ago, Valisa.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“I know I helped you escape from her clutches. This one seems better suited.” Valise stared deeply at Zen unnerving her. Then she smiled and brought her hand to her shoulders. “This one is a keeper. Don’t lose her boy.”

Stephan grinned and took Zen’s hand. “I don’t plan to Valisa.”

A loud explosion sounded through the caves and then Valisa was rushing to the front with her husband and another male. Zen watched as Valisa grew a crystal sword and lunged at the walls with it. Beauties were a conundrum to her. No one explained the differences in rank or system she only knew that some beauties fought but what were their gifts and how did they fight? Gunshots began to ring out. Stephan let go of her hand and cocked his gun while she drew forth her daggers. Here we go! I can figure this out later.

Zen and Stephan hurried back to their group and watched from their place as Guerreros and Pinguinos met headlong with the Stalagmites.

###

Zen and the others ran down to meet the mess of trained men and women fighting. They clashed with force, everyone taking someone with them. Kiera began to shoot into the crowd followed by Marek. A few guards chased them and Marek shot his Blaster guns at them. Kiera stood her ground and headbutted her guard, sending him reeling while she shot the other one. I’m made out of metal and cables. What did they think was going to happen? I’m not human.

Marek grinned and high-fived her. “That takes care of them.” He looked as another wave ran through. “Here come more.”

Val positioned himself, one foot forward the other backward and both hands outstretched with a metal pole in front of him. The minute a soldier came near he jabbed his staff making contact with the soldier’s gut. The soldier doubled over. Another soldier shot but the bullets were repelled back at him as Val twirled his staff above his head. Val swung his staff again and jabbed another in the face. He swung it backward nailing a soldier in the knee before swinging it up and over smashing the metal staff into several soldiers’ skulls and crushing them like paper. He shook off the blood and gore off his staff and got ready for the next bunch. This was too easy. They are planning something.

Skin was dizzy from the whirling. He was perched on Val’s shoulders and had moved to a rock inlaid to sleep peacefully. He disappeared for safety.

Senka tracked his prey through the mess, aimed and shot. Heh got another one. His shadows were hiding him as he lay belly down on a settlement building and sniped from above. He looked into the viewing scope and watched as Kiera gunned down another soldier. He grinned. The woman got spunk.

He led his gun and shot again hitting a Guerrero in the back of the head. Idiots can’t tell when someone is sniping them. What kind of soldiers are these?

He led the gun into another shot and smirked.

Isaias shot at another familiar face and groaned. Sorry, Pablo. You were a good guy, just on my bad side. He ran between Guerrero’s who were shocked that one of their own was shooting them. Isaias used this confusion to put them six feet under. He ran towards another Guerrero and pointed his gun at him.

“Adios compadre,” he said and shot the Guerrero in the head before moving on. Know your enemy pendejos.

Marco slashed another absent-minded Guerrero with his sword. Were Isaias and I this bad when we first began training? Hell we never finished and I do have BEI training but still...that guy was picking his nose for Christ's sake!

He blew past another soldier severing his jugular. It was times like this he loved being a wind elemental. He didn’t need to teleport for these guys. A Guerrero spotted him and he was forced to teleport to safety. Spoke too soon.

He blew past the same soldier and slashed his throat open, not waiting for him to bleed to death.

“Hay un fantasma,” cried a Guerrero running and Marco sighed. These guys were a joke.

Zen palmed her dagger as she kicked a Pinguino in the face and Stephan shot him dead.

“Nice move,” he said, shooting another soldier in the head as she spun and slashed the jugular of another soldier.

“Not bad yourself, waterboy,” she said, kicking a soldier in the nuts and elbowing him in the face once he’d dropped to his knees. Stephan shot him out of his misery.

Zen lashed out, puncturing a soldier in the neck and turning to do the same to another while Stephan shot a few more dead. He raised his hand and a huge wall of water rose like a tsunami crashing into everything in its path. It became a huge water shield swallowing up men. Stephan shrugged and left the shield up till nothing moved inside. Then, he let it fall with the bodies taking out several more men.

He turned to Zen and grinned. “I think that takes care of this bunch.”

Zen sighed. “No one likes a showoff.”

“If you got it, flaunt it,” he said, following her to the front where Stalagmites were fighting off the soldiers off their land. They fought with brutal jabs of their staff and careful use of their tech guns that could take out four soldiers with one shot, as one shot was four bullets.

Valisa was encasing a soldier in metal as she jabbed another in the face. Beside her fought her husband Keenda who would shoot a round of bullets into the crowd at Rafael’s order like every other tech user.

“They’re pretty organized,” Zen said as she slashed at a soldier and Stephan shot him dead.

“Yeah, they are. Despite being a small unit, they are the better-trained combat unit out here,” he said, kicking a soldier down and shooting him in the face.

Near the gate, Isaias, Marco, and Kiera stood. Isaias unbound one of his explosives and threw it at the swarm of incoming soldiers.

“Pendejos, take this!”

A loud explosion drew the men apart and Marco slapped Isaias over the head.

“That was too close to the door! You might have widened the hole, Isaias!”

“Oops, didn’t think of that.”

“Here come more,” stated Kiera as she began to fire at the crowd. They began firing back and she ducked behind a big stalagmite that protruded from the ground. Isaias and Marco also took cover shooting into the crowd as they came closer. Farther up Marek was behind a big rock shooting soldiers. Since he could see inside a body, usually he would shoot while Vall discreetly led the bullet to the right area. Except for today, Val can’t make me a sharpshooter. He can’t use his powers at all. So how the heck is he still repelling bullets?

To the side between two stalagmites Val was twirling his staff as he shot a few soldiers point blank, their bullets were repelled by the kinetic force of his staff. He swung his staff down and crushed a soldier’s spine. He leaped forward and jabbed his staff, crushing another’s ribcage. Then he began twirling his staff as the soldiers began to shoot again and he took his own blaster gun and began shooting again. Their bullets missed, his hit on target. He was decimating them slowly.

###

Ahead, Zen had taken out her whips. They coiled around the soldier’s guns and snapped them from their fingers. Then, they would come back to coil around a body part and bury their hooks into the flesh before being yanked out by force. There was a lot of screaming where Zen was.

Stephan winced. “Do you have to be so brutal?”

Zen grinned and aimed her cat o nine tails at a soldier’s legs. Stephan shot that soldier out of mercy.

“That would have been brutal to watch.”

“That was my demonstration of what will happen to you if you ever cheat on me.”

Stephan gulped. “Noted.

Stephan was glowing blue, siphoning water out of the dead bodies to use as shields and weapons. He too made whips that would coil about a soldier and trap him in a water bubble before inching back and doing it again.

Zen raised an eyebrow. “At least I don’t suffocate my prey.”

“Yeah, I feel like some damn mermaid.”

“Can you sing?”

“Not a note.”

###

So far the soldiers hadn’t brought in laser cannons but it wouldn’t be long til they did. Just as Zen had that thought the men began to retreat through the hole they had made. Everyone waited but there were no sounds in the cave except for the dripping of the stalactites.

Then a rumbling was heard throughout the caves and the floor began to shake. Zen glanced over to the metal doors and saw them bust open as three laser cannons and the Dons came in. It hurt to see her uncle beside D’Angelo and Cecile but she straightened her back and met their eyes from the small hill upon which she stood.

The nomads had backed up to the second hill to stand between the women and children and the cannons. She looked on as the laser cannons rolled in one by one and pinned the group of fighters on the second level.

“Get me Zen,” said D’Angelo calmly. When no one moved he grabbed Valisa and cocked a gun to her head. She stood tall. Still, no one moved. D’Angelo pulled the trigger but the bullet just kept spinning in its place frozen in midair. A calm glow settled over Zen as she came through the crowd to face D’Angelo.

“I’m here. Let her go, D'Angelo.”