Adelfried

Chad slumped forward on the table. Adelfried saw another flash of black ESH streak within inches of his face. His body tingled with the familiar warmth of magic flowing through him. Ying opened her mouth to scream, but the sound that came out wasn’t right. The scream and the music playing droned in a wall of noise. The beats were gone, and the tempo dragged. Desperate to see where the attack had come from, he tried to turn his head, but his body resisted his desire to move. At first it felt like he couldn’t move at all. No. He was moving, but very slowly. As he lethargically turned, the people and planets also moved at the same delayed rate. The entire world around him crawled in a snail-like time warp. Had he been hit with some type of magic to slow his movement? No, the rest of the club was also moving slowly. When he was able to rotate his head around to see his attackers, he saw a large group of Sovs spread out on the wall across from him with their silver weapons aimed at them. Two more had already fired at them. The bolts, while moving faster than anything else in the club, also dragged slowly through the air.

He was not enchanted. He had somehow instinctively increased his cognition speed. How was this possible? This was exciting indeed! But there was no time to be excited because there were two deadly shots on their way. One would hit him and the other Ying. How could he move himself and Ying out of the way before they reached them?

Adelfried started to try to push Ying’s body out of the path of the first bolt of ESH. His hand moved infuriatingly slowly, but it moved. With his hand halfway to Ying, he realized the bolt heading towards him was actually going to hit Jim on the head. He had to come up with a new plan, and fast. This necessitated Adelfried shoving Jim in the face enough to hopefully move his head a few inches to the side. Slow motion takes getting used to, and slow motion while sitting in a small asteroid-shaped booth orbiting a fake sun while bad guys fire magical guns at you is even harder to get used to. It was at this last possible fraction of a second that he realized that his plan to save Jim and Ying was going to fail miserably. They would be hit before his hands could reach them. He pushed frantically, but his hands refused to move any faster. This caused another new instinctive response in Adelfried. He erected a barrier around the booth at the last possible instant to deflect the attacks. When he did, time slammed back to its normal pace. Adelfried’s hands met their intended targets. He punched Jim and he grabbed a handful of Ying’s chest.

“Ow! What the hell?” Jim grabbed his jaw.

“Hey,” Ying yelled, pushing Adelfried’s hand away from her. Several more blasts hit the shield, but it held up without issue. Ying slapped him causing him to lose focus. Another shot connected with the booth with a crack. The now unprotected booth careened out of its original flight path. It slammed into a nearby planet. Everything went black.

Jim

Jim tried to sit up but was still dazed and shaken by the impact as the comfortable booth he was just sitting in was now a pile of rocks. The gravity in the section of the planet they hit appeared to have glitched momentarily sending a mass of people into the air. Some of which landed on other planets while others fell to the floor far below. Jim shuddered when he saw Chad’s bloodied and lifeless face staring at him from a pile of rocks from the now destroyed booth. The pile of booth debris started to move as Ying’s hand reached up. Still delirious, he crawled over to the hand and started to dig her out. As his vision started to blur and his surroundings started to spin, he slapped himself in the face. The adrenaline kicked in and he continued to dig. He saw Adelfried lying on his side partially covered in broken asteroid and motionless. He had blood streaming down the side of his head from a gash along his hairline. A few paces away he saw Federico squatting off to the side seemingly unaffected by the landing and still muttering to himself in his own world.

All around them weapons fire streaked back and forth between a group of people dressed in white and black space uniforms—presumably club security—and a group of people dressed in grey outfits—most definitely Sovs. With each shot numerous bodies seem to fall, sometimes landing on planets and walls and other times disappearing to the ground floor. Some of the Sovs wore small backpacks allowing them to dart between the open spaces of the club and dodging attacks.

Two Sovs, a man and a woman, armed with silver assault rifles propelled by jetpacks strapped to their backs shot towards where the booth had crashed. The man took a bolt to the side slamming him into the woman. They both crashed a few yards from the debris pile. The woman fumbled to get up from the crash. She pointed her weapon at Adelfried who was still lying motionless.

Jim lunged, tackling her and knocking the weapon free. But he was easily tossed aside with a surge of kinetic energy. She took a swing at Jim who dodged her blow easily. As Jim was about to punch her, he hesitated. She wasn’t a woman. She was barely a teenager. It would be like hitting Kae. She pulled a knife out from her belt and swung it at Jim’s face. He ducked.

“Oh my god.” Ying yelled, smashing a right hook squarely into her delicate face. “Stop being a wuss.”

“What?” Jim yelled, over the music. “I’ve never just punched a teenage girl before.”

“It’s okay if she’s trying to kill us!”

Jim reached down to pick up the rifle the Sov dropped. He gave it a quick examination finding the trigger and a selection of dials and knobs, none of which were labeled from what he could tell. How could he use this thing? He started twisting and turning knobs hoping he could get an indication of what anything did.

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A blast hit the ground a few feet away throwing them back and causing the gravity to fluctuate, sending everyone on the planet floating several feet off the surface. While floating freely in the air, Jim turned the rifle towards the attackers and pulled the trigger. An intense four-inch-long beam of white-hot energy spouted out of the end of the weapon. He frantically pulled the trigger repeatedly hoping it would fire something longer range, only to see it continue to push out the worthless short beam.

“Shoot them already!” Ying yelled, trying to orient herself while floating freely about the planet.

“I’m trying!” Jim yelled back, twisting and flicking the toggle before pulling the trigger again only to feel it lock in place. “Found the safety.” he mumbled, shaking his head in frustration before switching the toggle back to its original position. Suddenly the gravity on Saturn decided to work again mercilessly pulling everyone back to the surface. As Jim smashed into the ground, he accidentally pulled the trigger sending a blast to the ground barely missing Ying. Whew that was close.

“Watch it!” She yelped.

“That looks promising.” Jim said, as the planet rotated back towards the wall from where they were originally attacked. He saw Sovs and squeezed the trigger repeatedly as the rifle spit multiple blasts at the Sovs leaving only a cloud of dust where they once stood. “Check on Adelfried, I’ll cover you.” he yelled, as he scanned the whirling chaos of planets and dancers above him while the loud frantic music pulsed on.

Ying shook Adelfried. “Wake up!” He didn’t move.

“Use some of that patented delicacy to wake him up.” Jim yelled, firing at a group of Sovs on another planet.

“Now’s not the time for your hilarious humor.” She started to shake Adelfried more vigorously. A slap to the face caused a murmur, but he was still out of it. She grabbed a Toasty Anteater poking out from underneath some of the rubble to her side. She put the tip of the snout right in Adelfried’s nose and squeezed. The anteater smiled as vast quantities of the white creamy liquid sprayed out of the tip and into Adelfried’s nose sending him into a coughing, choking state of consciousness.

“Ugh, I’m awake.” he yelled, struggling to wipe the liquid and bits of ant from his face.

“Great, now would you mind getting us out of here?” Ying yelled.

Jim continued to fire. He scored more hits at a nearby Sov coming in for another pass, sending him downward to the floor of the club.

Jim yelled. “We better hurry, I think the security team is getting overwhelmed.”

“Jim, come closer.” Adelfried yelled back. Jim turned to look where Ying and Adelfried were sitting but they were gone. “Come on, hurry.” The disembodied voice of Adelfried urged them.

“Where are you?” Jim said, somewhat unsure if he was just talking to himself. He felt a hand grab his shoulder and a slight tingle went through his body. When he looked down, he couldn’t see himself at all. He could see the rifle he was holding, but his arms and shirt and everything he was wearing were now completely invisible. “Wow. Nice trick.”

“We will have to hold hands, or we will get separated.” Adelfried yelled over the music.

Ying added. “You better put that down. It might look kind of odd if a gun is floating around the club.”

But he was just getting the hang of it. He looked at the sleek silver rifle sadly. “Alright.” He dropped it.

“Come on.” Adelfried tugged Jim’s hand.

Jim hesitated, he looked over at the blubbering dope and felt a pang of guilt. “What about Federico over there?”

“He’s just going to slow us down.” Adelfried replied, starting to pull Jim’s hand.

“We can’t just leave him.” Jim said, giving Adelfried an ugly look that he knew he couldn’t see.

“He’s not our responsibility.” Adelfried’s voice answered back.

This wasn’t right. They couldn’t just leave him. “You’re right…he’s not your responsibility, you don’t owe him anything, you didn’t put him in this spot. But so what? He needs our help. We can’t just leave him. His Chad is dead.”

There was a long pause as Jim could almost hear Adelfried’s heart battle with his head. “Yes, okay.” Adelfried said, at last.

The group, linked hand in hand, moved over to Federico who was still muttering to himself. When Adelfried touched Federico to turn him invisible, Adelfried’s other hand tightened around Jim’s, sending a shockwave of sorrow through Jim’s body.

“I just felt the most bizarre presence, like….” Adelfried’s voice trailed off. “I can’t place it…did you feel that?”

“Yeah, what was that?” Jim yelled. “I felt this intense sadness.

Ying pulled the chain of hands forward. “No idea, but let’s hug it out later.”

Nina

Red and Nina burst through the door from San Francisco. Streaks of ESH tore through the air in all directions as club security and a few Wreckies skirmished with waves of Sovs. On the ground a wild mass of people poured out through the doorways. The large Club Planetesimal marquee sign, that hung on the wall between the foyer and the club, had gaping holes through which music, sparks, and people flooded out in a funnel of frenetic terror. The problem was that the wall on the inside of the club held people on it with a form of artificial gravity. Once they tried to go through the holes and into the foyer, the gravity changed direction back to normality and people would fall several stories to the ground. Some were able to soften the fall with their abilities. Some weren’t.

Three Sovs on Nina’s side watching the doors spotted them. Nina braced her shield as they fired their MEARS. The riot shield banged against her as the bolts deflected away harmlessly. Her adrenaline spiked as she swung her hand around from behind her shield and returned fire. The Sovs attempt at a quickly rendered shield was ineffective as Nina’s blast cut through them. Their bodies caught fire as they fell to the ground motionless. Control. She had to control her rage, or she would be out of juice before the fight was over.

“Come on!” Red said, tugging her shoulder towards the main entrance.

After pushing their way through the panicked crowd rushing through the nearest entrance to the club, a loud blast rang out above them. As Nina stopped to look up, Red tackled her from the side. They rolled sideways away from the entrance as a mass of flaming debris and humanity crushed the spot where they were just standing.

Nina’s ribs ached. She struggled to get air back into her lungs as she spat dust from her mouth. She opened her eyes and was met with the lifeless gaze of a man covered in grey dirt and blood. She turned away still but couldn’t catch her breath, unsure if it was because she had her breath knocked from her or if it was the lifeless corpse in front of her.