Chapter 14 – Fight or Flight

Silk was watching Nick standing petrified unable to do anything. He seemed completely helpless and not the usual confident self Silk had seen before. Silk could reason that if Nick even had inkling of what was happening he wouldn't be frozen like that. Finding Nick had been easy as he was just outside their apartment, Bronze and Lucy were there as well equally as out of depth as Nick.

"Hello," Silk shouted waving to them coming out the shadows.

Grace and Lucy were trying to ward of some humans when they heard this shout. Everyone turned to look at who the newcomer was but disregarded him, a few split up to deal with Silk.

"Get out of here," Bronze shouted.

Silk saw Lucy suddenly start floating, a violent wind was summoned around her. In seconds a tornado was around her whipping all humans up in the air and hurling them around in seconds. Silk looked at this with disdain, the tornado was needlessly destructive.

Silk wasn't powerful and knew facing the tornado face on was impossible so he put his sewing equipment down begrudgingly as it was unlikely he would pick it back up and mustered his strength. He focused it into a point, unlike with magic he didn't stop but used every single magical drop. The form the magical energy was a small spider and sent it at Lucy, it didn't have any physical property as the magic wasn't directed in any manner so it went through the tornado and continued to Lucy.

Silk could feel the tornados wind and could only just stay on the ground. The spider was almost upon Lucy, Silk was waiting to strike, if you looked closely you could see a thread that connected Silk to the spider. The spider went into Lucy with no resistance, Silk clapped his hands and watched as the magical energy dispersed into Lucy's body, then he watched.

Lucy fell from the sky, it wasn't beautiful. She fell on top of Bronze.

Silk rushed forwards. "We need to leave," he said urgently.

Bronze picked herself up miraculously showing no injuries. Lucy was still sprawled across the ground not moving.

"My taxi, it's gone." Nick spluttered.

"It's just a taxi," Silk disregarded Nick and reached to pick Lucy up.

"You took Lucy down, impossible." Bronze was just showing how stunned she was.

"He's Silk the Spider, of course he can do that," Nick snapped but then became much sadder. "I need my taxi."

"It's a taxi," Bronze slapped Nick.

"It's much more than a taxi, it's my best friend. We went through the twelve-year war together," Nick shouted angrily in response.

Lucy suddenly sprung up and whipping out a gun shot past all their heads, there was a clear sound of it hitting its target.

"Does the taxi actually mean that much to you?" Silk asked.

"Yes, it means everything."

Silk groaned. "Where did the greatest masses of humans drop from?"

"The main control tower," Lucy pointed at the biggest spire.

"What are you?" Silk asked curiously.

"A super soldier," she said while shooting another human. She flicked a hand a bag fell from nowhere to the ground, it was full of guns. She took out four pistols and pouches of bullets handing them to the three of them. "We can't carry anything heavy if we are to infiltrate the building."

"Shouldn't we stake out the building." Bronze suggested.

"The humans won't know the building inside out and there will be a resistance so know is the time to strike." Silk said.

"He's right." Lucy backed him up.

"It's not that far but I think that is the only bit of luck we have." Silk said. "Don't count on my magic, I've used it up and will take some time to recover," he said while checking his gun. The memories of how to use it was in his head but he still felt uncomfortable holding it.

"We should stay together so we can make a quick exit together," Bronze made another suggestion.

"Agreed," Lucy and Silk both responded.

Lucy took the lead clutching her gun. The first alley they went through was deserted so there was no trouble. The alley was dark and didn't have a pleasant smell but it was safe.

Lucy stopped them before going around a corner, she glanced around it. "Are you ready?" she asked.

They nodded in response.

"I will cover you but then you will have to cover me, take out as many as possible." Lucy suddenly darted out, gunshots soon followed. Silk followed staying close to the ground, the street was much wider than the alley he had just come out from. It had enough room for cars and there were some crashed into the ground from the sky.

Silk took cover behind one of the crashed cars, he glanced up and noticed the floating pavements had disappeared, this place had already transformed into a war zone. Silk heard the gunshots stop from Lucy, he knew it was his turn to make a move.

Silk rose from behind the car and took aim firing at all the figures he saw. Silk was shooting at the body as this was the easiest spot to hit that would fatally injure someone. He was not enjoying a second of this, a deep hatred of himself was rising within him. Taking lives was just wrong, especially from surprised and not prepared targets but he knew this was necessary to infiltrate as they were so small compared to the human force.

Bronze and Nick were also shooting, they were all successful at hitting targets. The enemies started firing back, sensing the danger they ducked back taking cover. Lucy was next to them now. They waited but the gunfire did not stop, it continued for longer than any of them were comfortable with, if one of them got a lucky hit through the car or if the newly crashed car was unstable and blew up it could spell the end for them. They needed to move.

"I will create a fire wall, it will melt all bullets so none will get through however I will only be able to hold something that powerful for a few seconds so we will have to move quickly." Bronze said resolutely to the three of them.

Bronze jumped up, the other three followed suit, she waved her hand and a wall of fire suddenly erupted from the ground. The four of them ran forwards but Silk noticed something wrong with the flames and a slight breeze coming from nowhere. He looked over to Bronze but he could see just as much energy as before to maintain the fire, the fire was getting to big though.

Silk realised why it was. "Jump!" he shouted.

Trusting in each other they darted to the side instinctively going with others observation. It was not a moment to soon, just as they jumped to the side from their running path a giant projectile of air came from nowhere leaving an indent in the ground. Silk shivered, getting hit by that would have killed them.

The only reason Silk could guess that air was being gathered at the other side was because of the change in the flame wall. And the breeze. The breeze provided a slight influx of oxygen which made it become slightly bigger, the breeze was nowhere near big enough to blow it out but the projectile of gathered air could as well as blowing them away, it was truly frightful.

The wall of fire disappeared with a flick of Bronze's wrist, it would not benefit either of them to start a giant fire in the city. Silk eyed where he thought the air projectile had come from, there was a woman with a significant amount of perspiration coming off her.

Silk didn't have much magical energy but he could activate one of his enchantments. Silk activated an enchantment on the sleeve of his shirt and other areas of his other pieces of his garment. The air condensed creating a wall of air between the enemy and Silk.

Silk burst forward sprinting at an average speed but none of the bullets were hitting him. The light waves were bending because the light was slowing down in the denser air. This is known as refraction and it helped displace the image of Silk and the image of him, this was also to do with the angle the denser air was in. Silk didn't really need to do calculations and just guessed with the angle.

Silk soon got to sweating individual and took down the denser air, re aiming (as refraction like this is two way) he shot. She went down with a shocked expression on her face. Silk ducked down behind more cover but kept moving trying to use the surprise to his advantage.

Silk burst out from the other side of cover and shot taking out another enemy. Silk moved to cover again, he prepared to burst out again but a bullet went past the edge of the new vehicle. Silk looked behind him and signalled for the others to make a move while they were distracted. Silk could only count three more shooting at him which meant they now had a number advantage.

Silk heard the sound of a loud rifle, there was one less gunshot firing at Silks positioning. The gunshot must have come from a sniper, it was most likely Lucy. Silk poked his head around the corner to see the two other targets ducking frightened of the sniper. He knew if he made a run he would probably be shot down.

The others were moving up while the enemy was distracted by Silk. He watched as Bronze and Nick ambushed the two targets, they were dispatched quickly. There was no one else on the street and Silk used this opportunity to reload.