No. 21: An Unexpected Knife

No. 21: An Unexpected Knife

Cliff was running hard, his heart pounding in his chest as he tried to over come his fear.
He ran into the garage to find Terra and Venn almost having a moment, not that he really cared at the minute.
"Guys, we've got a problem. A really, really big problem." He panted.
The two jumped, slightly embarrassed that he had walked in on them, but when Venn looked at his worried face he nodded.
"Come on." Cliff urged, running back the way he had come.

The three made it over the dead grass, Cliff's legs burned and his chest felt like it was two times smaller then usual, but he never slowed and never stopped.
They met Stryder and Brandon on the way to the mansion. They fell in step with Cliff easily and kept their breathing even.
"What's going on?" Brandon asked.
Cliff stopped running at the door and tried to catch his breath. Brandon becoming impatient turned to Venn with a questioning look.
"Don't look at me dude. He just said that something bad was happening."
"It's Kaleigh...and Crystal..." Cliff gasped.
Brandon got serious and his ears perked up.
"What about Kaleigh?"
Cliff couldn't say anymore, he just ran into the mansion.
"You guys have got to keep quiet alright? Don't say a word."
They all sensed his urgency and they kept quiet despite their burning curiosity.

The mansion was deserted, as it usually was over Thanksgiving break. But because of this it made it both easier and harder to sneak around the place.
Finally they made it to the steps of the Professor's office.
None of them dared to say a word, so they motioned to each other through hand gestures.
Cliff crept up the stairs quietly, using his new training to his advantage.
"...We have terms Wallace." A sweet voice said. Cliff wanted to punch Venn in the gut when he took in a sharp breath, scared that it had made too much noise.
Everyone looked at him in confusion.
"It's Crystal." He mouthed. Then sent the same message to Terra telepathically since she couldn't see his lips.
"I know how dearly you hold onto your precious Guardians, so don't agree to our terms, and she'll die."
They heard a muffled groan and the brother's had to use a lot of will power to keep on the spot.
"Please, Crystal," The Professor's voice was surprisingly steady. "there is no need to hurt her. Just tell me what you want."
"The Savior. Hand him over and we'll give the rest of those pathetic teenagers a head start."
"Okay I've had it." Brandon stormed into the room before anyone could react.
He was quick, his blades whizzed through the air as soon as he had a line of sight.
Crystal let out a scream of surprise and pain as she let go of Kaleigh, who turned in shock. Crystal fell to her knees, gasping for air that refused to come. Her eyes were cold as she starred at Kaleigh.
"You wont succeed." She spat, blood spilling out of the corners of her mouth. "We'll kill every last one of you. And then some."
Brandon knelt behind her and drove a long knife in the one spot in her back that severed the spine, and went strait to the heart.
She let out a gasp before he pulled the knife out and let her fall to the ground.
Everything was silent except for Kaleigh's ragged breathing.
Brandon looked up at her and slowly placed the knife down on the floor.
"Kale you need to calm down okay?" He said in a calm tone.
Kaleigh's eyes flashed from the dead body to his face.
"You just - you j - just -"
"Kaleigh," The Professor came up behind her and gently laid a hand on her shoulder. "we don't have time to go into shock we have to move, fast before Interficio moves in when they haven't heard from they're little spy."
The others who had been standing outside the door nodded gravely and looked to the Professor.
"But what are we going to do?" Terra asked.
"We have to start preparing him."
All eyes fell on Stryder, who shifted uncomfortably.
"Preparing me for what?" He asked.
The Professor took a deep breath.
"Lets go back to the observing room and we'll talk there."
The observing room was the second room in the pyramid building. When ever there was a meeting in that room it meant something bad was going to be told. And even though Stryder was still new, he knew something was wrong by the way Kaleigh walked over slipped her arm through his, marching him outside and back into the sunlight. He did his best to ignore the idiot's glare.
"Try to keep a cool head." She said slowly as they walked up to the weird building. "I have no idea what he's going to tell us this time."
Stryder nodded silently and followed her through the doors, squeezing her arm when he felt it shake against his.

Sooner than any of them would have liked, they were sitting on white chairs facing the Professor with sullen faces.
The Professor wore a grave expression that made everyone feel nervous, as they exchanged glances.
"Okay, so you have us here," Brandon said hesitantly. "what do you want to tell us?"
The Professor took in a deep breath, and looked at everyone.
"It's not very good news. And it's not something I particularly want you to know, but it's not something I can keep from you. You have to know what you're going to go through." He was starring strait at Stryder. It wasn't the others he was talking to, he was talking to Stryder and Stryder alone. But the other's had to hear it.
"Stryder you are going to find that you are different from other Elementals. In ways you wont yet understand, and in ways even I don't understand. But there will come a time when you have to make a decision. A big one that could change everyone's lives for good..."
"...I sense there's a really big 'but' coming here..." Stryder said hesitantly. Kaleigh could tell he didn't really want to know what the 'but' was, but hated to have it hanging over him.
The Professor inhaled deeply and they all knew that by the look on his face that what he had to say wouldn't be good. He had become the grim reaper, and didn't look like he was happy about it.
"The decision is up to you, only you can make it, but I want you to realize the scale of what will come to pass if you chose to deny it."
"Deny what?! What decision are you talking about?!" The Professor's words made Stryder nervous, he sensed this decision he was suppose to make was a grave one, but he didn't know how grave, or why the Professor wouldn't just say it.
"You will know the decision when you face it." The Professor replied, then he turned in his chair and began typing on the keyboard that appeared on the glass topped desk.
Stryder starred at his turned back before exploding.
"Cryptic answers do not help anything! In fact, they never help! They just lead to more confusion, which leads to more mistakes, and more wrong answers, and dead ends and lives get messed up and it's not pretty. So why can't you just give me a strait answer?!"
Kaleigh realized this could get ugly. He was going in overdrive, she could see it. As could everyone else. Brandon was rising out of his seat at the sense of her uneasiness. But she, personally, could not make her muscles move. It had taken every ounce of will to get her to this chair. But now all she could see was the look in Crystal's cold dead eyes haunting her.

It was like everything was happening in a daze. She could see everything happening, but it was like she was seeing it from outside her own body. Stryder close to exploding, Brandon jumping up and wrestling him to the ground.
Terra warning that wasn't a good idea, Venn and Cliff jumping in before the two could hurt each other. Then there was the Professor who was watching with sad eyes, but seemed to have no notion of doing anything.
   Finally she saw what he had pulled up onto the screen on the large wall.
Buildings were on fire, people were screaming, running everywhere like an ant hill when someone steps on it. Two armies were facing each other, she could tell that humans, normal people were on one side, and then Elementals were on the other side. By all that was going on she could see that they were going to engage in a battle, but then the camera zoomed out, she saw the extent of the armies. It was so vast she couldn't believe that there was actually that many Elementals in the whole world.
"What - what is this?" She asked.
Her shaky voice broke through the shouting that everyone was making. The Professor turned to her, and looked at the video. Terra, who had been less engaged in the boy's fight, walked up next to her, and asked her what she was talking about. When Kale started to describe the video, the boys gradually quieted down at the heavy words that left her lips. Their eyes were on the video, as they got up from the floor and stood behind the two girls.
"This is what the world will look like soon. Very, very soon." The Professor explained. "This is what the world will look like if the Savior does not do his duty, does not fulfill his destiny and save mankind from it's self. The humans will turn against the Elementals, and the apocalypse will happen. The war wont end until one of them is either dead completely, or has surrendered to a life of servitude under the other."
No one said anything as the scale of how large their roles were sunk in.
Especially Stryder's.
"Now do you see? Do you see why you are so important Stryder?" He asked, turning to the young boy. "Do you see that you are so important that a girl, a teenage girl was willing to kill to get you to Interficio. Do you see Guardians?” He turned to the rest of the group. “What you are up against? why it is so imperative that you protect the Savior until he completes his mission?”
Cliff was the first out of the stunned silence.
“How long until Interficio comes poking around?” He asked.
“That depends on when she last contacted them. But I wouldn’t give them more then a day.” The Professor answered.
Cliff clapped his hands together, getting everyone’s attentions.
“We can’t space out guys.” He said, his tone stern. “We have got to focus on the here and now. And that here and now is making sure we live through tomorrow. Okay? We don’t have an army, we don’t have numbers. And I’m sure Interficio does. so we have to get the upper hand. Like what Stryder said about Kaleigh. We have to know our own limits, and decide what we have to do to get the jump on these guys that’s in our grasp.”
Everyone nodded in agreement, but kept silent so he could continue.
“So we have to come up with a battle plan. We know this place pretty well, including this building. We have to use it to our advantage. And then of course, we’ve got super powers so that automatically gives us a plus.”
Kaleigh couldn’t suppress the smile that crept onto her face. Nor could she not help but think that her brother was a complete dork.
“So let’s get to work.”