Star Crossed: On the Line - 12. Ride or Die

I grab onto the high bar that sits behind the driver and passenger seats. The vehicle we have taken doesn’t have a roof and what should be the trunk is instead a platform with a machine gun connected on top of it. Remelia immediately fought Remy off for it. Remy sits next to me with a rifle given to him by Dozer, he constantly looks back and gives an evil eye to his sister. Alicia and Norian are the ones in front. Alicia is driving and Norian is on the passenger side. I chose to sit right behind him obviously.

Dozer and Tony decided to take two cycles out and are sitting by both sides of the truck, waiting for the go ahead.

Bridgehome is set directly across from us. A long bridge is connected to the giant base of Firelight. Bridgehome is mainly for the one’s too old to work or for any families of any Firelight members. Below Bridgehome is the marketplace. I hope everyone has managed to hide themselves. It may become too dangerous for them.

I pray my friend that gave me Lucain’s bead is safe. I haven’t seen her in forever so I can only hope.

“We ready?” Alicia calls out. Everyone checks their things. We took ammo and weapons from any Firelight that had surrendered to us.

Norian told me to use two small guns as much as I can. We tried seeing how I’d work with a bigger gun but that was just a mess and I almost shot Remy. I tried to fight back about using them but he doesn’t want me to hurt myself with using my magic too much. I agreed even though I really didn’t want to.

Alicia said that Tanner flew over to Bridgehome so we are going to steal his ship as soon as I kill him.

Everyone calls out they are ready and then the hum of the engine turning on fills my ears. The cycles sound more like a low purr.

Before we can manage to drive out of the garage, a few groups of Firelight with white sleeves pile onto other vehicles.

We turn back to the road and immediately drive off. Alicia pushes the truck to drive as fast as it can.

I lift my arms in the air and scream with excitement. I know we are headed after someone to kill, but driving at the top speed on a long open road? This is so fun! I hear a chuckles all around me and then Remy copies me and lifts his arms into the air as well.

The wind blows my ears back and my hair goes wild. The two slips of hair with beads and cloth swing beside my face and smack me every now and then. I just huff in annoyance and try to hold them back.

I hear a laugh in front of me and I look up to see Norian peeking behind his shoulder. I smile and stand to lean forward to rest my arms on the beam to watch his handsome face more closely. He blushes and tries to push me back to sit down in my seat but I ignore him.

"I'm so in love with you." I smile and his blush only grows. I giggle and run my fingers against his horn.

A gunshot goes off in the distance and behind us the sound of glass breaking goes off. A driver was shot through the glass and the car turns off the marked road and runs right into the wall of the bridge.

I glance forward and another shot goes off. I summon a shield around the front of the truck and the bullet is deflected.

Ahead on the road, a bunch of trucks and cycles start driving ahead of us. Loads of Firelight in grey uniforms are seen. All the drivers have someone else with a weapon trained on us.

Dozer and Tony drive ahead of us and so does anyone else with a cycle on our side. The sides of the cycle’s open up and small guns point ahead of them. They start firing at the vehicles in front of us. The ones being shot at duck down for cover and sparks fly from bullets hitting metal.

A few vehicles have their tires shot at and we pass them quickly. However the one’s behind us manage to throw a grenade beneath the enemy vehicles as they pass. The bridge shakes from the bombs and we continue driving forward.

They start raining us with gunfire and we all duck down to avoid being hit. Norian hands me a strange arm brace and motions for me to hand it to Remelia. I lift my hand to pass it to her and as she grabs it, a bullet grazes my wrist.

I hiss through my teeth and grip where I was shot. Norian immediately reaches around to try and inspect it. I push his hand away.

“I’ll be fine!” I shout. He frowns and nods before I peek back at Remelia.

She has placed the brace on top of the machine gun and a bright green shield stands in front of her. She no longer hides for cover and starts shooting at anyone ahead of us.

She shoots the tires out from behind a cycle and it flips forward and then it continues to flip around before launching high into the air and over the bridge. My eyes widen and I reach forward to grab Alicia’s shoulder.

“The people live under the bridge! We need to make sure they don’t get hurt!” I yell forward and she nods.

She moves one hand from the wheel to press her finger to her headset and then speaks into it, a bit too quiet for me to hear over Remelia’s gunfire.

A loud roaring sound goes off below us and then two helicopters fly up from under the bridge. They hover ahead of us and continue to keep a pace that matches ours. I lift my two guns and try and shoot towards one helicopter. The bullets only ricochet off the metal and doesn’t do any damage to them. Not even a dent.

Doors on the sides open and then about eight Firelight jump out. Before they are even ten feet off the ground, they start to float in the air. They have jetpacks. Everyone tries to fire at them but they dodge around too fast. They shoot their guns and bullets rain all around above us.

“I can get them.” I say before standing on my seat. I put one foot on the beam. Norian glances behind me and when he sees what I’m doing, his eyes just about bug out of his head. I push off the beam and jump high into the air. I lean back into a small flip and as soon as my back is to the sky, my backpack opens up and four metal ‘wings’ stretch out and then they hum to life. Instantly I am floating and then I jerk myself forward and start flying ahead of the truck.

While I hate Firelight, I am very grateful they decided to give me these. I used them on my last mission to get to the squad easier.

Bullets rain from the other Firelight members in jet packs and I weave myself around their gunfire. I pull the two guns out and aim them ahead of me and open fire.

They must not have been expecting someone else to fly in the skies with them because they don’t really seem to dodge in time.

The three die before the others start flying around to make it harder to kill them. I dodge around in the air from any gunfire and shoot whenever they make the mistake of flying in a straight line.

It’s a bit tricky having to remember which way is up and to dodge from any gunfire from the trucks below.

Remelia shoots towards a helicopter behind me and somehow manages to shoot the man I was chasing in the head. I give a small shrug before flying towards the helicopter she was aiming at.

I fly in through the side door and one pilot, without looking at me, pulls out a gun and aims where I was standing. Too bad he didn’t look because I wasn’t there anymore. I grab his arm and pull it back against the metal panel behind him. His arm snaps backwards and he screams loud into the air. He loses control of the helicopter and I immediately dash out the side door and into the air.

The helicopter spirals down to the bridge and lands right onto a truck and the blades slice through a cyclist that happened to be driving far too close.

An explosion goes off behind me and one of our own has exploded. A final man in a jet pack has a grenade launcher in his hands and is already trying to aim for another.

I immediately turn and tackle him in the air. The force of running into his armor hurts me a bit but I grab my gun and press it under his chin before pulling the trigger.

A shower of warm blood goes up and around me and I have to wipe my left eye because too much landed on my forehead and it was beginning to slide into my eye.

Everyone has managed to get a little too far from me and I immediately jerk forward to catch up.

I catch up to the main truck and gunfire from the last helicopter begins to rain on my squad. I summon a shield over and then aim my hand towards the helicopter. It’s spinning blades begin to glow purple and then start to burn a bright orange before they melt on top of the helicopter. Instantly it falls to the bridge and rolls around before stopping in the middle of the road.

Beeping from my backpack sounds off and I drop down onto the truck and slip back into my chair. Remy and Norian look at me with wide eyes. I shrug and sheepishly grin.

Remelia handles the last of the trucks with her giant machine gun.

We arrive into Bridgehome and even more Firelight is there to greet us.

~~
~~

Well...Mekaias’ wish came true. He can fly. It was pretty amazing to watch. I need one of those suits for myself honestly.

Bridgehome is set into two sections. The top is where the people live and the bottom section is a sort of stairway that leads further down into what looks like a marketplace. It appears to be empty except I see a few orange aliens sprinting from house to house.

Are they slaves? I wouldn’t doubt that being a thing. Firelight isn’t so great with working with anyone who isn’t human. Then again, some are helping us right now.

At the top section, we can see a bunch of armored cars that are parked and being used for cover. As soon as they we get close enough, they open fire. Remelia immediately fires back and Alicia reaches down to grab a box by her feet. It’s a metal box with a yellow button on the top. She presses it, parks the truck in place, and tosses the box in front of us.

Before it hits the ground, a tall yellow shield erupts and covers about the same height of the truck.

“Our ride should be safe,” Alicia unbuckles her seatbelt and pulls out her pistol. “Mekaias, Tanner is supposed to up there in that top building.” She points past the shield and up to a large building. It looks like it could be a library. It’s a bit on higher ground compared to everything else here. There are two sets of stairs in front of it that weave around and up to the entrance.

As she points the entrance out, a tall machine walks out of the double doors. It looks like it is a giant android but I’ve never seen that before.

“That’s him right there!” Alicia shouts.

So he has decided to wear a suit. Interesting. Does he really think that will be enough to stop us? If Mekaias can melt the metal off a spinning propeller then how would that metal suit work?

I look over at Mekaias and see his eyes burning with rage. I reach a hand over and squeeze his shoulder. He blinks before reaching up to grip onto my hand. He turns to me and gives a small smile before turning to look back at Tanner.

“We are going to do this together, alright?” I say and he gives a small nod, not taking his eyes off of Tanner. “So how are we going to do this?” I ask.

“Like this!” Remy grins before lifting a giant rocket launcher onto his shoulder and aims at the cars packed together in front of us. The rocket flies out and everything seems to go quiet before a loud snarl of fire erupts and cars fly high into the air.

Screams fly from ahead of us and shouts of panic rise. Instantly, our side begins to shoot at anyone who comes out of the smoke and fire. This time nobody tries to surrender. They run out of the fire as if it’s the most important thing in the world. They shoot at us and their numbers grow as more begin running our way.

I jump out of the truck and keep behind the shield to keep safe. I raise my gun and shoot at anyone who gets close. Anyone who gets close to our side dies fast thanks to Remelia. Remy is perched in the truck and aiming with his rifle, taking out anyone who is shooting from long range as well. I peek behind him but see that Mekaias is missing.

I feel my blood run cold and turn forward trying to find him. I don’t see him by any of the other vehicles on our side and not anywhere in the war zone in front of us. I turn to the left and then I see him. He is jumping from rooftop to rooftop and headed straight for Tanner. Shit!

“He’s running for Tanner!” I shout. I hear Alicia curse behind me and she calls into her headset.

“Mekaias is running for Tanner, Tony. Do you think you can help him with Tanner?”

I barely hear his response but I hear another voice begin to speak in the headset. Alicia nods and then her face goes pale.

“What?” I say and turn to her. “What’s wrong?” She holds a finger up and keeps listening to whatever is being said in her headset.

She finally looks up at me and then up at the opening in the sky. Her hands start to shake and so I reach out and gently grab her hands. “Just tell me what’s happening.” I say as calm as I can. I peek over at Mekaias and see he is about two rooftops away now.

“B-bombs.” She says and stares past me and straight at Tanner. I frown and look at him. He isn’t holding a switch or anything. “Mekaias can’t kill him! We’ll all die!” She almost whispers. What does she mean? I reach for her headset and she doesn’t fight back when I take it off.

I bring it to my ear and speak. “What’s happening? Alicia is freaking out. What did you tell her?”

A woman’s voice comes in, “Tanner has bombs set up around Ember. If his heart stops then everything blows up. Whatever you do, do not kill him!”

“You tell us this now? Why the hell didn’t you say this before?” I shout.

“Nobody told us that you all decided to just rush in there and attack!” She shouts back. I look for Mekaias but see he is missing. Tanner is facing something on his left. I have a feeling he’s looking at Mekaias.

“Shit.” I say. “What do we do? I have a feeling we won’t be able to stop it in time.”

“All our aircraft’s can barely hold more than six people. There will have to be people who will have to be sacrificed.” She says that all like it’s nothing and it sounds insane in my ears. “We only have about ten aircrafts. Eleven if you count the one Tanner took.”

How the hell do we handle this? Even the people on our side alone is more than sixty. All those people that are down below the bridge.

I bite my lip but then static fills my ears. I frown. “Hello?” I curse and hand the headset back to Alicia. She seems to have calmed down a little but not by much. She looks past me and immediately starts shaking all over again. I follow her gaze and then I see Mekaias standing before Tanner with his hands glowing. Wisps of violet energy radiate off his body.