Subject Seventeen: Wraith Among Shadows
Chapter 11

I dive behind an overturned Insurgent. The armoured truck provides me with some cover as I reload. I have one magazine left and I have almost reached the limit for the amount of lightning I can conjure up. I can’t even summon any wind in this situation. I’m completely pinned down. A dozen or so soldiers are firing at the armoured truck, all the while hoping a bullet might somehow perform a miracle and hit me. I sigh. Can I even call down some rain in this situation?

I take out my last two throwing knives. I might be able to send out a decent amount of volts through them. It’s my last hope.

I run out and cartwheel forward before launching into a series of backflips. The soldiers are taken by surprise and are slow in their attempt to shoot me. They only end up hitting their comrades as I flip between them. I come to a stop and roll to the left, throwing one of the knives right through one’s hands. The other travels through the eye of another soldier. I let loose my lightning and watch their bodies convulse in a series of fits before they collapse in a heap. I reel my knives back in and straight after I take aim and quickly shoot two bullets into the nearest live soldier, dispatching him with ease. My remaining four bullets go right between the foreheads of the other soldiers behind him.

The last two soldiers take aim and shoot right at me. ‘I’m dead,’ I think. It's over.

Suddenly I’m flung upwards and I’m soaring through the sky.

Six.

She’s flying whilst holding on to me. I don’t even stop to question what she’s doing here or how she’s alive. I just take a moment to be grateful for her presence.

Six drops me down a little way off and flies straight back into the two soldiers. The breath is knocked out of them and Six carries them up into the clouds. The next time I see them is when they are falling all the way back to the ground with sickening thud.

I let myself sink to the ground in exhaustion. I’m too tired to move anymore. This is the biggest full-scale fight I've been in yet. If I was stronger then maybe I could do a bit more.

Seventeen’s amazing. Not only can he copy our powers when he’s around us but the things he can do are insane. I wonder how he’s holding up. The stress of his powers should be taking its toll by now.

My mind races back to yesterday night and I feel myself go red, my heart racing a little more. That was a mistake on my part. I never should have kissed him. I’m not the Sky I used to be before all of this. And I’m definitely not the ‘Sky’ he thinks he knows. I’m Two. He clearly has me confused with someone else. Yet my mind keeps thinking back to that night. During the entire fight that’s all I’ve been thinking about. How soft his lips were. How he smelt of orchids, strangely enough.

How could I let myself be influenced by this strange feeling I get when I’m around him? I need to remember my job. He means nothing to me. It won’t happen again. All he does is tell one cheesy story about stars and I get swayed so easily? Damn. If that's all it takes to get me to fall for someone then I'm easier that homemade pie. It sure as hell won’t happen again.

I shake my head and bring myself back to reality. Back to the battlefield. I rush over to a dead body and pry the rifle from his hand. More use to me now than to him. I turn to see Six hovering behind me, her head tilted to one side. She observes me with a crooked smile before finally talking.

“You’ve grown a bit.”

“You haven’t,” I spit back. “You’re a traitor. Why’d you attack us back at the center?!”

I aim the rifle at her and open fire. She dodges me with ease before racing over to the armoured truck I had hid behind earlier. I already know what’s coming and start running for my life. Six picks up the truck with one hand and flings it towards me. I can hear the thick metallic thuds the truck makes as it bounces along the ground while making its way closer and closer to me. I dive out of the way, escaping at the last possible second.

“Want to go again, Two?” she says.

I give her the dirtiest look I can. When I first saw she was alive I hadn’t been able to act. Now I can. Forget Baltec and Temere for now. Forget whether or not we’re terrorists. Forget Seventeen. Right now I’m angry. Angry she left us. I’m angry she let us think she was dead. And now I’m going to take my anger out on her. If she dies in the process? Oh well. Sometimes casualties are a necessity.

I aim at her carefully and open fire. She darts about in the air to evade the bullets. The next thing I know is that she’s grabbed me from behind and I’m fifty feet in the air. My feet dangle as she holds me up, a small smirk on her face.

“Go ahead, kill me,” I say.

“Now why would I do that?”

“Because you’re a fucking asshole who not only faked her death, but tried to kill us for no reason!”

“Oh come off it, Two,” Six cries out. “Blimey! You and Nine must have realised by now the whole thing is a sham.”

This gets my attention. I know she's right and I'm being unreasonable and not even making sense right now, but I'm angry and I want her to feel all the rage I have pent up inside of me. Despite all my anger, I force myself to look her in the eyes, hoping she’ll explain what she means by that. Nine hasn't explained everything to me so maybe I can get more information out of her.

“You should know that this whole operation of yours? This God Save the Queen melodrama? You do realise that we’re not the good guys in all this?”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I hiss at her.

“Fine. You want to know who sends you on your shitty little missions, pretty girl?”

She turns my head to look down at the hundreds of dead Chinese soldiers.

“Well, you’re looking at them.”

I gasp. That’s not possible. There’s no way in hell that what Six is saying is possible. I struggle to release myself from her grip to no avail. How am I supposed to beat her when I can’t even use my abilities? Six grins at me.

“Some enhanced you are, eh?”

She throws me away and I’m sent hurtling to the ground at tremendous speed. If I hit the ground at this speed there’s no way I can survive this. I know in my heart it’s all over.

I slow down abruptly, touching the ground with a soft bump. Looking around I see Seventeen standing behind me, his face showing no emotion whatsoever. It looks as if he hasn’t even been fighting this entire time. As if he's been completely restored. It must be the work of Eleven.

“What are you doing here?” I hiss at him.

“What are you doing here?” he spits back.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I came back for you! You don't get to just die without my permission.”

That shuts me up. He came back for me. He’s here for me. I can feel myself blushing. I try to regain my composure so I can focus on the bigger issue at hand. Six.

“Hey, Seventeen.”

Seventeen raises his head to look at Six. All of a sudden he’s rising in the air to her level. Six cocks her head in surprise.

“Oh, you can fly?”

Seventeen doesn’t reply. I can feel he's in a state of silent rage. I don't really mean this much to him, do I?

His silence just pisses Six off even more and she charges straight at him. Seventeen doesn’t seem properly accustomed to flying yet and I can tell as he's unable to move out of the way in time. Six forces him into the ground. I feel the impact as Seventeen falls next to me and jagged pieces of the ground and rocks spray everywhere from the impact. Blood bursts out of his mouth and his eyes go wide in shock.

The fight is over before it even begins. Or so I think. Seventeen summons a huge gale of wind which blows Six back into the air.

“You want to touch her you’ll have to go through me,” he says.

I feel my heart skip a beat. What’s his problem? He needs to just leave me alone and focus on the mission right now. Clearly he doesn't know how to keep his personal life separate from his professional one. No, wait. That would mean admitting I'm part of his personal life. I take that back.

Six laughs at his statement, her excitement barely able to contain itself. I can’t help but wonder why Six is fighting us if she knows the truth; although, to be fair, I did attack her first. If anything, shouldn’t she be on our side? Even if she doesn’t know we know she should at least be trying to convince us to help her in whatever she's got planned. Assuming she does have anything planned...

“Guess I should teach you a lesson newbie,” Six spits at Seventeen.

Six flies off, disappearing from view. I know she’s not gone, but something sets of an alert in my head.

“Duck!” I shout.

Seventeen dives to the right just as Six flies back in at a frightening speed. The amount of wind she generates as she passes pushes me back and I fall flat on my back. If that had hit him his torso would have been torn apart.

“Run!” I scream at him. “I don’t need you dying for me here! Not for some stupid ass notion of you being my white knight!”

Seventeen pulls me to my feet and looks into my eyes. It’s almost as if I know what he’s going to say before he does.

“No-one’s dying today, Sky,” he says.

I can’t help but blush. I give up. No matter how many walls I put up he just keeps breaking them all down.

Before I have a chance to say anything he leans forward and kisses me. I feel a burst of heat flow through my body. Oh god I want this. But I can’t. I try to push away but my arms are weak. His warmth courses through me. I can feel his soft lips overpowering my senses. Just when I think I can take no more he pulls away.

I hate myself. I just promised myself I wouldn’t let it happen again. How am I supposed to act now? I can’t even stop one little thing from happening… God I hate this guy. I hate him so much…

Seventeen takes several long strides backwards and I feel my body go limp as I drop to my knees. My mind is blank. I don’t know what to say. Again. It happened again. What the hell is wrong with me?

What happened to the ever-so-cool-headed Two that Nine used to praise all the time? The Two who used to always stay focused on the mission no matter the cost? The Two who never made decisions based on emotion and always chose the best course of action for the sake of the team? She's nowhere to be found now. Instead, all that's left is an shell of her, near empty and filled with this fake and weak Two who becomes weak in the knees because of a guy. That's not the Two I know. That's not the me that I know.

The wind around us picks up. It starts to circle around me and Seventeen violently. I look around confused. I know it’s not me doing this. It takes me a while to realise it’s Seventeen. His hands are raised in the air while the wind circles him. Rain begins to pour down heavily and Lightning strikes the ground between us causing me to jump back in surprise.

He’s calling down a storm. No, a typhoon rather. I understand he can control natural forces and mimic our powers, but even I’m unable to summon a full scale typhoon. I can only control wind, lightning and rain out of all the elements so far. And only one at a time. I can’t make a storm or typhoon. This is crazy. The wind picks up and gets even faster, whipping around violently. I can see bodies and shrapnel, guns and even armoured trucks being tossed about in the wind.

Six – who is trying to fly through the wall of wind – gets caught in the typhoon and goes flying through the air in circles. She struggles to get out but the wind only gets stronger and forms an incredible tornado which destroys everything in its path.

I watch dumbstruck as Seventeen does this. Only now do I notice the small trickle of blood pouring out of his ears. This is too much for him to handle. He’s going to end up hurting himself.

I try to call out to him but I can’t hear my voice over the roar of the wind. The rain slowly turns to hail and begins to pellet Six who is desperately struggling to escape. Then a bolt of lightning hits her. I don’t need to look to know what happens next.

Six when’s she angry is not a pretty sight. She breaks out of the tornado with brute strength and darts forward through the air towards Seventeen. He doesn’t have enough time to react as she punches him in the stomach and he collapses. I know she broke at least three ribs, and that was her holding back.

Six is about to hit him again when Seventeen draws his knife from his sheath and lunges for Six. Six jumps back but is not fast enough. She gets caught by the tip of the blade and groans in pain. He’s matching Six. I can’t believe it. The newbie is actually matching Six. Maybe miracles do exist.

Just when I think Six is about to retreat she grabs Seventeen and pulls him up into the air. She’s about to drop him when something causes her to release him suddenly. Seventeen’s burst into flames. Ten must be nearby if he’s mimicking his powers. Seventeen propels himself forward and crashes into Six, sending her flying. Then he releases a torrent of flames in her wake. I turn my head away to avoid seeing the explosion. But it doesn’t come.

I look up and I see Four rotating his arms at a high speed to create pillars of wind which blows away Seventeen’s flames. Six is crouched down behind him. Seventeen falls slowly to the ground and lands on one foot. The wind around us dies down and dissipates.

I aim my gun at Four. I can’t let Seventeen fight them both by himself. I open fire at Four even though I know I will never hit him. Instead he’s in my face right after the first bullet goes flying. Just before he punches me in the face Seventeen moves with frightening speed and pushes Four down. Everything that happens next is a blur. Both Four and Seventeen are moving at super speed. I see two blurs constantly running into to each other and being bounced back.

“What’s going on?” Three says, appearing behind me. With her is Nine, Eight, Eleven and Thirteen. It looks as if Eleven has healed them all. She works her way over to me and I feel the familiar chilly but warm energy wash all over and heal me.

“Thanks,” I say. “Four and Six showed up and are fighting Seventeen.”

The only time I’ve Three look so enraged was when they showed up at the research center. Six sees Nine and tries to fly up into the air, only to be pinned down by a series of metal plates. Eight’s handy work. With all this metal around she naturally has an advantage.

Seventeen is sent flying into an overturned truck behind me and Four skids to a stop next to Six. His face is full of bruises but he’s still managing to grin. Seventeen on the other hand isn’t moving. As much as I hate to admit it, that is to be expected. He may be able to do such incredible things but he still hasn’t mastered his powers.

“Eight, would you like to do the honours or should I?” Three says. Her voice is stern and has a weight to it.

“He’s too fast for me,” Eight replies.

Three takes that as incentive to attack Four. She ghosts in front of him and lunges forward with her katana. Four speeds back and circles around her. But before he can attack her, Three ghosts again and again. She disappears and reappears continuously and Four is unable to catch her. He’s looking around desperately trying to calculate his next move when Three’s blade goes right through the side of his stomach from behind. The blade emerges out the other side and is dark red with blood.

“Too fast for death now?” Three says. I can hear the disgust in her voice as she kicks Four off her sword. I'm tempted to laugh because I know Three has been waiting to use that line ever since their last encounter. I wince as Four falls to his knees while desperately trying to cover the wound with his hands.

Six finally manages to break out of the metal bondage Eight trapped her in and rushes to Four’s side. It’s over. We’ve captured them. Although I'm unsure if this is a good thing considering the fact Nine helped them escape before.

“Well, what do we have here?”

We turn to look at who's talking and everyone stops in their tracks. There’s no way on earth that she’s still alive. There’s no way. Even Three stops in her tracks. Nine only told me he helped Four and Six. Is this the card he said he hadn't played yet? Her?

“How the hell…?” Three begins, her voice trailing off.

Even I’m lost for words. Her long blonde hair trails all the way down to below her shoulders. It whips about as the wind blows to reveal her face. One of her eyes is closed; a vertical scar runs through it. The other is of pure coral blue, deep and full of life. Her cheeky smile bursts out and we all stare dumbstruck at her.

First Four and Six, now her. Of all people it’s her. She turns to look at Six and nods at her. Six flings Four over one shoulder and stands. Three makes an attempt to stop Six but is stopped in her tracks as the one-eyed girl whacks Three in the face.

It’s the first time I’ve seen Three being outmatched. There's no way for her to attack this girl. What’s worse is that we all know full well that as much as we try, not one of us would ever be able to hit a girl who’s intangible. This girl is trouble.

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