Safe house

The sounds of explosions and fire triggered many of the students left in the dorms to scurry away into their rooms. Amy, Cassie, and Luke were all inside Amy and Cassie's room inside a makeshift bunker formed out of the spare beds left in the room. Although they knew deep down that it provided absolutely no physical protection from explosions or fire, it did provide mental calmness to the three of them as if they were in a sort of mother's embrace that could protect them from anything.

As for the brave or stupid few students - just three of them in total - who dared to venture outside to get more information about what was going on, they were met by two of the soldiers dressed in black holding large projectile weapons. The students ran back into their dorm buildings after not even travelling a few steps outside and slammed the doors shut behind them. The soldiers split up to go into both dorm buildings and scare the students into staying put but as if they were in sync they collided with an invisible object and fell backwards.

One soldier put their hand up and felt around for the object that had make a mockery of a soldier. Their hand was being pushed back against by something but it was the other soldier that called out:

"They're using a Zamerium-based force field. Those with abilities can go as they please while our kind are met with a wall. They have one around the entire school ground as well. But it's nothing a few rounds of projectiles can't break through." And so began the volley of projectiles that slammed into the force field and proceeded to explode on impact causing the buildings within it to shake.

Meanwhile, Cynthinia had just landed inside a room located a few metres underneath the school after just dropping off William and Maddison in a safe location. The portal closed behind her as she made her way over to the only furniture in the room. A chair, a desk, and an old computer with many wires connected to it that burst out into the walls connecting into the school computer system. She pulled herself up onto the chair and sat down breathing heavily. She reached under the desk and searched around for something. That something was a USB taped to the underside of the desk a long time ago. These forms of data storage had gone out of fashion about 13 years ago after the introduction of a cheap procedure to turn people's connection to the omni-network into a universal cloud network. Hack-proof and practically unlimited in space.

Cynthinia took the tape off the USB and plugged it into the computer. The screen lit up for the first time since it's placement in this room and displayed a single phrase:

'AIDEN OPERATING SYSTEM'

Underneath was a simple prompt of:

'Activate defence protocol?'

Cynthinia typed in 'YES' and pressed ENTER causing the computer to start whirring loudly as it began working at maximum capacity.

Back at the dorm buildings, the two soldiers were still blasting away at the protective layer between them and the students. Just a few more seconds and it would shatter. Amy, Cassie, and Luke were still in their protective 'bunker' and like everyone else they could feel the shaking and hear the ripples of sound being created by the weakening barrier. But soon the sound paused for a while. The three of them braced for the entry of the soldier but instead came the cry of the soldiers. Amy wriggled out of the 'bunker' and made her way through the glass doors and onto the balcony.

The two soldiers were being pinned down by a molten metal blob that seemed to be slowly forming into the shape of a person. The blob produced two smaller blobs of metal that encased the two soldiers' hands behind their backs and quickly turned into solid cuboids. Cynthinia stepped out of a portal behind the blob as it finally finished forming into a short, slightly on the heavy side person with curly, ginger hair and grey, metallic eyes.

"Thanks Aiden." said Cynthinia as all the students from both dorm buildings ran out and into the portal Cynthinia had come out of. This was the normal evacuation procedure where all students would evacuate through a portal created by Cynthinia to a safe location.

"I'm still getting used to this nano-metal body though." said Aiden. His voice was slightly robotic but had a predominant Scottish accent to it (Liam's idea of course).

"Yeah, Jack left it behind before he left with Edward to sort out some trouble in a neighbouring universe." replied Cynthinia. The last of the students were now entering the portal with Amy being at the back of the queue.

"Dark Nebula shall rule you all!" yelled one of the soldiers as they both popped one of their teeth out and bit down on them. Amy froze and turned to the soldier as a rapid beeping began. The last student entered the portal as both soldiers exploded with a repulsive force that sent Amy flying high into the air. Aiden wrapped around Cynthinia to protect her who opened a portal in Amy's path to catch her. The portal the students went through collapsed in on itself from the force. Amy arced in the air before falling through the portal below her. Aiden and Cynthinia got up and watched as a stray projectile from where Abigail was fighting the other soldiers collided with the female dorm force field, shattered it, and hit the building making it shatter into rubble in an instant.

"Go help Abigail! I'll make sure the students are safe!" ordered Cynthinia and Aiden began running towards the fight. Cynthinia re-opened the portal and walked though to help the students.

When Aiden reached Abigail he was shocked. Only a handful of soldiers remained standing (Kalro included) while Abigail stood gasping for air. When she saw Aiden join her by her side she lit up. Aiden noticed the device on her arm and motioned towards it.

"I haven't tested it yet. But now is as good of a time as any." said Abigail as she handed her sword to Aiden and raised her left arm with her palm facing the soldiers.

Her hair began to float up slowly and the air started swirling around her. The device seemed to kick it causing her hair to rocket upwards, the swirling air to become much more powerful, and for Abigail to begin floating slightly off the ground. Aiden retreated as did some of the soldiers but Kalro stood his ground. Then, as Abigail let out a powerful shout, the ground around the soldiers began to break up and gravitate towards Abigail. The chunks of earth began to pick up speed before disintegrating into a beam of light from Abigail's hair. The soldiers were next to follow as the clawed at the disappearing ground before disintegrating into light. Kalro was the last standing who punched the ground to hook his fist in the earth like an anchor. His final act was speaking into the small device again saying "Send backup, I've found her." before being disintegrated into light.

The device on Abigail's arm kicked into reverse as her hair fell along with Abigail. The wind dispersed as the sun began to set behind the trees. The peace and serenity were instantly disturbed by a gargantuan explosion above their heads. As they looked up, the sky seemed to have been replaced by what looked like a planet reinforced by metal with canons with barrels many kilometres wide. One of those canons began to glow inside the barrel and a massive projectile was launched that flew at amazing speed a shattered the barrier over the school grounds.

Abigail was barely able to stay standing as the force of the aftermath blew trees over and sent Aiden along with Abigail's sword flying into the distance. Abigail opened her eyes and looked up as now in front of her was a towering figure dressed in a black robe and wearing a black mask with white shapes on it. The figure grabbed Abigail by the throat. Abigail punched at the figures head but her fist was met with a yellow grid that covered the figures entire body only an inch above the surface of their clothes. The figure threw Abigail a good distance away and turned their back on her.

"This in Achille. Kalro is dead and the child isn't here. Also, it seems he was wrong about HER being here. There's only a feisty little human. The mole was correct about the coordinates of the Asurian Sanctuary though. What do you mean you thought Kalro was the mole? No, Kalro was just one of our experiments in bodily enhancements who decided to go rogue believing he was helping."

Abigail mustered up the strength to open her eyes as she layed on the ground. All she could see in the darkening night was the pedestal with James' sword in it as the sword seemed to rattle around. Abigail reached out for the sword as if asking it for help as her eyes fell closed from the exhaustion. The swords reply was silence as Abigail felt something enter her grip. Her hand closed around it and energy like she had never known it before filled her.