“Holy shit!” Paul screamed out in agony.

The crimson blood flooding out of his shoulder. The cop that shot him lay dead on the ground, a hole in his helmet.

“Fuck! Sorry man, didn’t notice him, it was too dark.” Ethan called out, there was smoke coming out of his gun.

“KEEP MOVING! We can’t waste time! The cops are coming! GO!” Alexei yelled out, attempting to drag Paul along with him.

“Yeah, yeah, I just need to… I just need a minute.” Paul said in a whisper.

“That’s a luxury right now, come on!” Cecilia said.

Luckily, Cecilia brought some bandages with her. She knew the risks, and something like this happening was certainly a possibility. She squatted down next to him and noticed that this wound was not a normal bullet wound. The guard used his Spirit and enchanted it with magic. The area around the wound was burning as if it was washed with acid, a strong acid. She shook her head and bandaged the wound as best as she could given the time restraint. Ethan went under Paul to help him get up. Even with the help, he needed to use everything he had in that muscle-filled body of his to get up. The pain was throbbing, burning, and unbearable. The sounds of the sirens were soon blasted throughout the prison, and all the lights turned on.

“Come on, let’s go!” Ethan said before running off to the yard.

The group soon followed. They were cut short by a group of guards on the second floor of the prison.

“GET DOWN! NOW!” They screamed at them.

The prisoners that were still in their cells were yelling and banging on the bars. Some were laughing at the group for their horrendous attempt of escaping, some were cheering for them, and most enjoyed the show. The group never backed down, Ethan was holding up his pistol, and Alexei was able to grab the dead guard’s rifle before and enchanted it with his own explosion magic.

“WHEN I COUNT TO THREE, GET DOWN OR WE WILL SHOOT!” One of the guards yelled out.

“ONE!” He started, Ethan held his second hand onto the gun.

“TWO!”

“THR-” Before he could finish the countdown, the lights turned off. The prison bars from the cell behind him flew at him, instantly shredded him into pieces.

As soon as we heard the gunshot, the guards instantly turned around. That must be them. I took that chance and instantly fired my rifle. The recoil from the rifle caught me off-guard, and I was instantly knocked down by it. I immediately looked up and saw one of the guards dead, his helmet broken. The other one was in a state of confusion. He didn’t stay in that state for long, as he immediately turned his gun toward me. I brought my own gun up to him, and both of us started shooting. We both hit each other’s body armor, and none of us dealt much damage. The shock from the bullet still knocked him down and made his aim off guard. I pulled the trigger again, but the gun didn’t shoot. Ammo! I reached for the dead guard’s gun, but the other guard got up just in time and stopped me with his own body. He got me down to the ground, right in a spot where he could put me into submission. He had me in his arm, I was laying on top of him, but he was choking me from behind. I couldn’t break it, he was too strong, probably using his Spirit to strengthen his own strength. All guards have two guns. I reached down to his waist in a panic. I was desperate, my life depended on whether I could find it or not. I remembered the guard that I killed had it at his back, so I used all my strength to turn him and me to our side. I desperately reached down at his waist, and when I touched it, the guard suddenly remembered he had a sidearm. He wasn’t fast enough, however, as I reached it before he did. I took it out and did my best to aim at his leg. I started firing as viciously as I could, I kept pushing the trigger until he released me. Even though it was protected by the suit, I could tell I did some damage to that leg because he was holding it and screaming in pain. He looked at me as I pointed the pistol to his face, the only non-protected part of his body.

“Please, I beg you! My mother, I’m the only person she has left!” He said, desperately.

Am I cruel enough to take a son away from his mother?

“Do you have health insurance?” I asked him.

He didn’t move, he didn’t speak, not for even a second. But when I pointed that thing closer to his face, he started to speak.

“Huh?”

I unloaded the rest of the bullets onto his injured legs. I got a pretty good feeling that he wasn’t going to walk again. This way, he won’t be able to be in my way, ever again. I smacked his face with the empty gun, knocking him out instantly. He might even bleed out and die, but that was none of my business. I picked up his fully loaded rifle and aimed at the power supplies. I sprayed the entire magazine at them, with every shot, a small explosion occurred when the bullets collided with the electricity. The power went off, and soon after that, I heard screaming. That was my cue, I put on the guard helmet, picked up the dead guard’s gun, and bolted out of there. The backup system powered by magic soon came on, but it was only strong enough to activate the emergency system. The sirens came on again, and there were red lights blinking on the ceiling. The screamings were definitely from the main area, where the prison cells were. Please don’t let it be them. I ran as fast as I could to the place, to see utter chaos. The prisoners had already broken out of their cells as soon as they felt their Spirit’s power. It didn’t matter that the guards had guns, there were too few of them and too many of the prisoners. I panicky looked around, trying to find my group. I spotted them making a run for the yard, taking advantage of the chaos. I ran after them. A prisoner jumped on me, thinking I was a guard. He used his Spirit’s power to make his tongue longer and tried to wrap it around my neck, but I was able to shoot him. He lay on the ground, motionless, I could only assume that he was dead. I ran again and tried to catch up to them. I did manage to get there, and Ethan pointed a gun at me before I could approach them.

“It’s me, Arthur!” I hurriedly took off my helmet.

“Holy, you made it!” Cecilia said.

I looked at Paul on Ethan’s shoulder, he was bleeding out at an alarming rate.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well, he got shot, genius!” Ethan said, widening his eyes.

I bobbed my head. “You blowing up this wall?” I turned to Alexei and asked.

“Yes! Give me a second!” He said excitedly.

Some of the guards noticed us and ran toward us.

“Arthur and I will hold them back, hurry!” He gave Paul to Cecilia and pulled out his pistol.

I turned toward the guards, they were fighting other prisoners too, but we got their attention. When they were busy with the prisoners, we took aim. They shot the first shot first, which luckily missed. I shot them, and so did Ethan, but none seemed to hit. It was hard to shoot it at a distance, but they were heading closer to us anyway.

“HOW MUCH LONGER?” I yelled out.

“SOON!” Alexei yelled back.

A bullet hit my shoulder, it hurt, but the guard armor absorbed most of the damage. They turned a metal table at the yard over to provide cover. Ethan found a table near us and did the same thing. Cecilia and Paul ducked down to be covered, while Ethan and I made sure that Alexei could focus on blowing up the wall. The guards were calling for backup. They were at a disadvantage, they had to fight the prisoners behind them. It didn’t take long for the other prisoners to catch up to them, and it was hard for them to survive while being attacked by waves of people.

A voice came out from the guard’s direction: “ALL PRISONERS MUST STOP THE RESISTANCE!”

Suddenly, everyone including me fell to their knees. It was the Head Warden, the woman that can cause pain with her voice. She was invincible with that red speaker in her hands. The ringing in the ears was too strong, I could see some prisoners bled from their ears, and some were unconscious from the pain. There was no way we could fight it, maybe it was actually over. I felt hopeless on my legs, but just as soon as I was about to fall, someone rose up. To my absolute amazement, it was Cecilia, blood dripping from her ears. She ruptured her own eardrums! She took out a pistol and was able to shoot the Head Warden, it looked like her guard was down from being confident in her own powers. I didn’t know if she was dead or not, but I didn’t hear the ringing anymore.

“Watch out!” I pulled her to cover before she got shot by one of the guards.

“You saved us!” Ethan exclaimed in joy. She couldn’t hear him.

“Woah!” I instinctively got down. Something was wrong.

Something was in the sky, I heard something disrupting the wind in the sky. When I looked up, I saw them. Lights, the super-soldiers the Western Union had created since the Nation Enhancement Bill, and of course, they had a ridiculous score on their Scale. Their Spirits allowed them to dominate the sky as well as the ground. They were able to fly due to having an implanted magical heart created by magical engineers. There were only two of them, but that alone could have caused an undesirable amount of trouble. How did they get here so fast?

“Get back to the prison cells, or we will show no mercy!” One of the announced, a girl’s voice.

Some of the prisoners who got guns from the dead guards tried to shoot the Lights. But before they could do any real damage, one of the Lights used their powers. The prisoners’ eyes suddenly went up in flames, and they died before they could even scream.

“Uh, that looks like trouble,” Paul said.

“Wow, that’s crazy, isn’t it?” Ethan said.

“Alright, guys, get back, it’s gonna explode!” Alexei finally said.

We abandoned the cover. We tried to get as far as we could, but we still got knocked by the shockwave when the wall exploded. Everyone noticed the big hole in the wall, even the Lights.

“Alright guys, run for it!”

One of the Lights flew above us, it was the same one that burned those people. He was staring at me, and suddenly, I felt my guts getting hotter. It was like getting a high fever, a really high fever. But then all of that went away when an explosion rang out in the sky. The Light was distracted by it. It was beautiful, colorful, and loud. Fireworks?

“That’s our friends!” Alexei screamed out.

I started running again. That must have been Hano, the girl who had been saving my ass since I walked into this prison. Some of the prisoners tried to follow us through the hole in the wall, and only a few were able to get through in one piece. There were still fireworks being shot up into the sky, presumably trying to distract the Lights with them. It seemed like that scary Spirit could only be used when the user had perfect concentration, and that’s hard to do when there are fireworks next to you. We ran for what seemed like a thousand miles across the dry desert to finally get to where the escape truck was before the cops. It was a humongous container truck, I wasn’t even going to question where they got it from.

“GET THE FUCK IN! HURRY!” One of the resistance members yelled out. Each of us frantically got inside the truck.

“Everyone here?” Hano was already inside the truck.

I turned around a check if everybody was there. Everybody was, indeed, but besides the armed resistance members, there was one unfamiliar face, wearing the same prison uniform that we had.

“Everyone is here, move!” Alexei said before I could question the stranger.

The truck accelerated so fast that I lost my balance and fell down. The impact of the fall reminded me of how exhausted I was. At least it was over, and we should have been safe. I tiredly sat up and looked at Paul. Some of the resistance members were tending to him, I just hoped we were safe.

After a while, the sounds of the prison chaos seemed to be further and further away, and it had been forever but I actually felt a bit at ease. The resistance members were handing out bottles of water and some dried food, and all of us started devouring them as soon as we got them. It seemed like this prison break took a lot out of everyone, as expected.

“We should be safe now,” Hano said as we were eating. All of us just kinda glanced at her. “Good job on completing the mission, it was a risky one, but you did it either way,” She said to Alexei.

He shook his head. “I should have been there when you guys were attacked, it was my fault that people died, my fault, my fault, my fault.”

“We never expected it, and it’s a good thing you weren’t there because you brought all of these amazing new members.”

“So, this is the resistance, the frontline of the revolution?” Ethan asked.

“Yes,” Hano tilted her head as she replied.

“Like, all of you are here?”

“We were attacked, some of our members were killed or captured,”

“I see,”

“As I was saying, we should be safe now. We will be heading toward our new hideout, and then we will see what to do from there.” Hano said to everyone.

Everyone silently agreed. I lay down on the floor of the truck. I was tired, Paul was already sleeping, and everyone else seemed tired as well. The stranger was silent, he was looking away from the rest of us. Hano was walking over to him, perhaps to explain to him what was going on and recruiting him. I didn’t care at that point, I was just so tired. I closed my eyes and entered a deep sleep.

Until an explosion woke me up.