Who turned on the lights?

Jenn spat out the gag on her mouth, causing the others to do the same. Jake, still in shock, did nothing but stay still.

"What are we gonna do? They aren't wearing their masks anymore," Mia said, her brown eyes filling with tears. Her long brunette hair all over her face.

"We need to find a way out of here; that's what we need to do," Diana said, struggling again against her bindings. Her short blonde hair, flowing through the air with every move.

"How they have mana blockers with them, and there's almost a dozen of them?" Jenn said, still recuperating from the kick to her gut. Unyielding as she is, she refused to let the pain stop her and, like Diana, attempted to free herself again.

"Jenn has the best mana control and fight techniques out of the both of you, but I don't think even she can do much right now," Mia said, sitting herself up and leaning against the cell's wall.

"That doesn't mean we can just sit here and do nothing! They already made up their minds to kill us. What do you wanna do just sit around and wait, or do you want to try to do something, anything to escape?" Diana raised her voice as she scrutinized the wall of the container.

"What CAN we do?" Mia asked, not moving from the wall.

"Find a way out, duh!" Diana exclaimed.

"HOW? I meant how. The cell is covered in mana-blocking stones, and there are runes set all over the entrance. Also, there's only one entrance/exit, and there are more than a dozen Marked Ones out there," Mia clarified. She finally stood up, her hands still bound, and walked up to Diana.

"They want something from us, right? Sooner or later, they have to come and get one of us; that's the perfect time to do something," Diana responded, removing the ropes on Mia's arms.

As Mia and Diana argued, Jenn freed herself from her own binds and walked up to Jake to do the same. She followed Diana's lead and began to examine and scrutinize the cell walls and gate. The cell walls were thick corrugated steel, and there were no engravings or enchantments on them. Mana could not enter the cell or be produced by them, indicating MBB's, mana blocking blocks, were being used. Fortunately, there were enchantments and engraving outside near the entrance, suggesting they only had access to a small amount of MBB's.

'If we can get past the MBB's field and make it to the entrance, our magic should return. The main problem would be that even if our mana returns, it takes a few minutes for enough mana to gather to use magic. We would be defenseless and vulnerable, fish in a barrel.' Jenn began formulating plan after plan, anything that could help out in this predicament.

'They mentioned that the reason this was happening was because of my father. That gives me some leverage; if they want my father to do anything, they'll have to keep me alive, and if they want to keep me alive, I can use it to my advantage to keep my friends alive.'

As Jenn was deep in thought and Mia and Diana were arguing, 4 of the kidnappers entered the storage container and walked up to the cell's door. Three of them were familiar to the group, the redheaded and gray-tipped man with the woman who was holding Diana.

The fourth person was someone they had not seen yet; she was around 5-foot-5 with short brown hair and light green eyes. She was average, neither good nor bad looking, but her imposing physique made her stand apart; unlike the rest of the kidnappers, she held the aura of a soldier.

"You! Stand up, move to the entrance," The redheaded man ordered Mia. "Don't make me repeat myself," he added, seeing the terrified Mia stay as still as a statue.

Seeing as Mia was unwilling to move, the gray-haired man and the green-eyed woman pulled their pistol from their side holsters. They pointed to Jenn and Diana, respectively, as the red-haired man opened the cell's door.

As the door creaked, the sound pulled Mia out of her fear and to panic that forced her to take one small step.

"Hurry it up!" the dark-skinned woman yelled as her frustration got the better of her.

Jenn and Diana's anger was near its boiling point, but the fear of the Spellguns pointed at them bound them to inaction.

"Stop! Don't you dare hurt her," Jake screamed in response as he jumped between Mia and the woman.

"Move it, you brat, no one was talking to you," The woman commanded as she pistol-whipped Jake, causing him to fall onto the floor.

"No!!! Jake!" Mia screamed as she instinctively knelt down beside Jake.

Jenn, unable to take seeing her friend being hurt again, rushed towards the woman, as she yelled, "You bastard!"

Diana instantly followed Jenn's lead and jumped into action, running straight to the redhead, who was inside the cell. In response, the two outside attempted to shoot at Jenn and Diana but were unable to get a clean sight, forcing them to rush inside the cell to help their teammates.

Jenn reached the woman instantly, leading with a punch directly at her jaw. The hit threw the woman back, stumbling, causing her to fall onto the wall, knocking the air out of her lungs. Unrelentingly, Jenn continued the assault by aiming her knee at the woman's nose. The woman was able to regain her senses just soon enough to dodge out of the way as Jenn's knee slammed against the wall.

The blow resounded as it echoed like a gunshot inside the metal crate. The woman still on the floor swept Jenn's leg, making her plunge into the hardwood floor, knocking the air out of her. Continuing in a fluid motion, the woman twisted herself up and pointed her gun's barrel at Jenn. In response, Jenn's instincts kicked in, urging her to roll away from the woman's sights.

The woman's frustrations had reached her limit and began to shoot at Jenn as she rolled away. Through the thunder resounding throughout the cell, shouts could be heard yelling at the woman to stop.

Jenn rolled back only to hit her back on the end of the cell, trapping her in the sights of the woman.

"Jenn!!!!" Mia yelled, her body instinctively moving towards her best friend.

Simultaneously, the green-eyed woman ran toward the dark-skin woman, her focus on the gun. The green-eyed woman reached her just as the woman fired one last shot at the cornered Jennifer.

The magical shot left the barrel of the gun in a ball of fire; it instantly traveled through the short length of the cell.

The ember of infernal flame was only a foot from Jenn when from her neck began to glow a bright blue light that engulfed her whole body. When the bullet met with the wall of light, it instantaneously vanished.

*WEEAAAAOOHHHH*

A siren rang through the container, reverberating the cry, enhancing it, and compounding as it bounced onto itself; the rectangular metal box acting as an acoustic sound amplifier directing the sound forward.

Every person both inside and outside the shipping container could only cover their ears in pain. Jenn, unaware of what was happening, saw the 4 kidnappers clenching their heads in anguish.

Not wasting the opportunity, Jenn stood up and yelled, "RUN!!"

She ran to Mia and Jake, helping him up as Daina ran to them. Picking up the half-unconscious boy, they ran out of the still open cell.

As they reached the entrance, they couldn't help but stop and stare for a split second. Sprawled across a large warehouse filled with shipping containers, 10 people were holding their ears in agony.

Mia was the first to regain her senses as she pushed Diana and Jenn forward, urging them to move. They regained their composure and took off, heading toward one of the vans around 10 meters away from them. They ran as fast as they could, but at the last second, just as they were about to reach the van, the leader of the kidnappers staggered behind it.

Her face, filled with pain, was replaced with rage as she locked eyes with Jenn, as her blue eyes glowed in a fury. The cold and wrathful glare sent shivers into the very heart of each of them as if they were staring into the eyes of a starved and rabid polar bear.

Jenn and the rest immediately turned around and ran in the opposite direction. At that moment, the light glow emanating from Jenn's neck fizzled out into nothingness.

"STOP THEM!!" the blue-eyed blond yelled in between grunts of pain as she stumbled from behind the van and pointed at the escapees.

"Go, Go, Go!" Jenn urged as they tried their best to run, carrying Jake.

A shot thundered through the warehouse as the group turned behind a shipping container. The bullet hit the container with incredible power, bending and twisting the wall.

The group had just managed to jump out of the way when the container drove itself into them, almost crushing them in the process. Jenn couldn't help but feel the terror in her heart rise as she stared at the twisted and bulging wall steel only feet from her.

'One shot, that's all that'll take to kill us!

How the hell did they get Spellguns? They are supposed for military use only! Do they have connections to the military? Is this an inside job? Does somebody want to force my dad out of his position? No

No, these are only Mark2 Spellguns; they only have the pistol versions. If they were military, they would have the Mark4. If they only have these, that must mean they are from the Underworld.' Jenn's thoughts flew at a hundred miles per hour.

In the span of a second, the group stood up, almost tripping on themselves, and returned to their escape. The blast managed to make Jake regain his consciousness, waking him up.

"Wha?" Jake asked, finally paying attention to his surroundings.

"Move it!" Jenn screamed in response.

Jake, still in a daze, was yanked to his feet by Diana and Mia. They ran as fast as they could away, continuing in their original path. Behind them, they could hear the grunts of pain and labor as their kidnappers struggled to stand.

The man who managed to shoot towards the group attempted to stand only to fall flat on his face, letting out a muffled cry of pain. All around him, the rest of the individuals likewise could hardly regain their balance as they stumbled and fell back onto the floor. The sonic discharge emitted by the charm caused their equilibrium to enter a state of disarray, causing them to experience a severe case of vertigo.

Unaware of their situation Jenn and her friends continued to run for their lives. Unfortunately, with Jakes and Jenn injured, their speed had been reduced.

"Where do we go?" Mia asked, her breath already rugged.

"I don't know, just run," Jenn responded, not slowing down.

"We can't just run around like headless chickens. We need to know where we're going," Mia added, her breath growing heavier.

"Obviously, we need to go in the opposite direction from those guys," Diana answered.

"Oh, what insightful advice! How come we didn't think of it?" Mia rebutted instinctively

"We need to get out of here. We need to get to a road or head back to the city," Jake interjected, holding his head upright.

"Well, that would be a lot more helpful if we knew where the hell we were," Mia snapped sarcastically.

"Where else would we be? We are in a giant warehouse filled with shipping containers," Jenn said, holding her arm out forcing the other to stop behind her.

Jenn pressed herself against the wall of one of the containers and peeked around the corner, holding her hand up causing the other to stay silent. After Jenn confirmed there was no one around, she lowered her hand, allowing her friends to rest. They had reached the end of the warehouse. In front of them was the sidewall of the massive building.

"The Westside Warehouse District." Jenn finally said, after noticing no one answered her previous question.

"What? We're only 30 minutes away from where they ambushed us? That can't be; we were on the move for like 2 hours. What makes you sure we're still near Athens?" Mia asked.

"I don't, but I'm guessing. In order to get out of the city, they need to pass the inspection point; they wouldn't risk it with us as their cargo. Most likely than not, they drove around the city to try and lose any potential tails and/or to confuse anyone tracking them," Jenn explained as she led the other down the side of the warehouse.

"Okay! I get that, but what makes you sure it's the Westside and not the Eastside?" Mia questioned.

"Instinct." Jenn answered nonchalantly.

"Instinct? So a guess," Jake inserted, as he jumped back to avoid the glare and punch by Jenn.

"No, it's the honed instincts of a soldier," Jenn added, with mild annoyance.

"Damn it! There's no way out. What now?" Diana exclaimed as they reached the rear wall of the building.

"I... Move with me this way," Jenn said, hesitating slightly due to their current predicament.

'What the hell I'm I supposed to do now? I don't know what to do! Damn it! I need to keep them alive if it's the last thing I do, I won't let my friends die because of me.