Project Songbird

Chapter 26

The clouds unleash their fury, a cacophony of thunder echoing the intensity of our battle. Rain lashed down, adding an unpredictable element to the skirmish as lightning briefly illuminated the fierce expressions on everyone's faces. The air crackled with an intense feeling that crawled down my spine. I match Jack and we hit Mira at the same time while she was distracted by Mary's useless arm. She goes flying backwards and collides with a few trees in the distance. Mary grips her busted shoulder, a howling cry leaves her lips.
"Training alone can never prepare you for the actual fight." Felix huffs as his wings pump to keep him airborne.
"So why don't you tuck your tails between your legs." He says brusquely.
Honestly he was intimidating with the way he narrowed his eyes. The electric blue glow only made me nervous and at the same time, I was utterly awestruck.
Mary glares back at him. She's shaking.
Whether it was in pain or rage, I couldn't tell.
"You should lay down and die!" She spits.
"I don't follow commands." Felix says, "I grow weary of your petty annoyance."
He shifts his body to prepare the beam attack again. Mary tenses, a slight look of fear sinks into her eyes. He opens his mouth and the powerball appears.
Suddenly the beam that he had fired earlier shoots up into the cloudy sky!
"Felix!" Jack calls.
Mira had sped back and uppercut Felix, causing his head to fling back and waste the beam he had prepared. He is flung backwards from the woman's force, but his wings steady him. His head jerks back down and his icy glare has returned to his face as he spits out blood. Jack mutters softly before he grabs a hold of my arm, "Ethan, sorry."
"Huh?"
"Headbutt me."
"What?"
"I don't have time to explain!"
Confused, I jerk my head back and collide it with his. There's a loud crack when our skull meets and I stumble backwards, "Ow, fuck!"
Jack stumbles backwards but steadies himself, and then he lets out the loudest wail I ever heard leave his mouth. Felix races forward and just as he arrives at Mira, he is immediately replaced by Jack! He swings his fist hard down into the right side of her face. She's shot down into the ground with such force, I can feel the quake; I sink to my knees and let out a heavy breath.
They are all out of my league. I am not that strong.
"Ethan, get your head in the game." I hear Felix rasp from next to me. I look over at him. He spits some more blood from his mouth; a couple of his teeth are crooked now. He grabs my arm and jerks me back to my feet, "This is a serious matter. I know that this is all fairly new to you, but you need to focus, or you could die."
"...S-sorry," I feel so small. So weak.
Felix shifts his weight and his eyes turn to look at me. The electric blue is breathtaking. He lets out a soft huff and then closes his eyes briefly, "Trust in yourself, you're stronger than you think you are." He moves forward, his wings launching him back into the ongoing fight.
Trust myself, huh?
I catch Mary trying to escape as Mira has Jack and Felix caught in a tight battle. Shit! If she gets away, they might bring back reinforcements!
I snap my wings open and rush after her. "Get back here!"
She jerks her head back to look in my direction before he pushes herself to get away from me. My wings are bigger than hers and I begin to gain on her. We need to kill them or be killed. I have to end her. I reach out as she tries to avoid my grasp and I manage to grip her shirt collar. "Stop!" The squeak of fear that leaves her made me shudder just slightly. Got her!
"LOOK OUT!"
"AH-!"
It takes a second to realize that the scream was from me as I briefly lost consciousness and hit the ground below me. What happened...?
There's a ringing in my ears and an excruciating pain that radiates from my pelvis. I can barely see Mary in the sky above me, due to the rain, but she seems to be smirking at me.
She points her good hand at me and I recognize the position from the beginning of the fight. I push my body up before I have to collapse back to the ground as the pain is even worse and my vision swims. Fuck! Fuck, I can't move! Mary tenses and then the beam she shot earlier heads straight for me.
I'm fucked!!
There's a person in front of me and takes on the brunt of the attack. I blink a few times to make out who it is.
"Ty?"
He struggles slightly under the attack but then manages to change its direction from him and it clashes with a tree, blowing it up. Felix comes from nowhere and swings his fists on Mary, knocking her from the sky and sending her down to the ground, where Jack continues to attack her. I couldn't see much from my position.
Tyler steps back until he is facing me. His face blurs slightly as my vision swims again.
"Ethan, can you hear me??"
A loud clap of thunder just makes the ringing in my ears more intense.
"...kinda."
"Don't worry, I'll take care of this." He bends down, "This might hurt but I need to move you to a safer spot." He proceeds to slip his hands under my legs and back.
"A-ah-!" I grip his shirt, gritting my teeth as the pain worsens again. He moves swiftly and then again, I'm back on the ground; laying on my side. Tyler carefully wipes my sopping wet hair out of my face before he gently caresses my cheek. His face looks blank. There's emotions deep within his eyes but I can't make out what they are due to the rain. He stands and turns back to Cecilia. She was laughing, hands placed upon her knees as she hunched over, "I can't believe you let that idiot tag along!"
Tyler is quiet but he shifts his position and then I watch as the ground rumbles beneath her. Bits of the ground raise up as makeshift walls, tossing her around like a ragdoll. She yells out a string of cuss words before she swings out a steel spike and stabs it into the wall against her back. Tyler lets out a grunt but doesn't falter in his attacks. The walls continue to grow in size all around her until they completely cut her off from the outside world. A stone coffin.
The ground opens up wide enough, beginning to swallow the coffin.
He's going to trap her within the earth.
Tyler takes a couple of steps forward, his mutters drowned by the loud claps of thunder. My vision swims again and I slowly move my hand up to my face, wiping the rain away. Jack makes his way over, "Oh my God- Ethan!"
I can just make the blood splatter across his face, slowly being washed away by the pouring rain. "We need to get you to Amy!"
"No, wait, I want to watch." I point over to where Cecilia had somehow broken out of the stone coffin Tyler had tried to bury her in. Jack turns his head to look then back to me, "Are you insane? You could lose your leg!"
"My leg?" I shift slowly to pick up my head. Is that why there is pain in my pelvis? I bent my head sideways to see one of Cecilia's steel spikes had gone straight through my pelvis. My messy blood is tainting the luscious green grass trapped beneath my wounded body. I feel Jack's hand upon my shoulder, "Ethan, this is far too serious. We can't wait to see the end of the fight!" His voice makes my ears ring a bit more before I turn my head back towards Tyler. He was locked in close combat with Cecilia. She was beginning to look weary.
"I wish to stay."
"You could lose-"
"I don't care!" I snapped. Last time I left Tyler, he was injured and I was swallowed by that guilt. I don't want any more guilt, I don't think I could take it again.
Jack mutters but at my request, shifts me into a sitting position against the tree so I could see the fight better. "What happened to Felix?" I hadn't seen the blonde in a few minutes.
"He's taking care of the two girls. I broke through their defense pretty easily after a few good hits. Felix stopped me from killing them. He didn't say anything to me but there was a look in his eyes that told me I should make myself scarce. I think he didn't want me to have the weight of more death on my shoulders, despite the fact that he has been actively hating on me for the last decade." Jack takes a seat next to me, he fiddles with a piece of grass before shoving his sopping wet hair out of his own face, "All that's left is Cecilia and I doubt Tyler is going to let her get any further."
We turn our attention back to the fight. Tyler and Cecilia had separated and both were glaring the other down. Tyler had a steel spike sticking out of his shoulder. Cecilia was covered in mud. She looked very angry.
"How is he supposed to beat her? She's steel." I observe.
"That's just a physical strength. Tyler has gone through years of fighting; he may look tired but he has much more stamina than her. If you notice that she has labored breathing and Tyler is still at a normal pace." Jack reminds me.
Cecilia makes a mad dash for Tyler. She lets out a loud yell as she jumps in the air and swings down her arms, trying to hit him in the face. Tyler jerks his head to the side, bringing his knee up and cracking her straight in the ribs. From the look on her face, I can only assume he cracked her ribs. Tyler doesn't give her a second to gather herself as he brings down the steel spike, that he had pulled out of his shoulder, down onto her spine. She collapses to the ground. Tyler brings the spike up and then swings it back down on her again with even more force. She screams.
Tyler had the spike covered with his stone to keep her body from reabsorbing the spike into her body. He pulls it up and then stabs it through her shoulder, pinning her to the ground. He moves in front of her. She speaks but I can't make it out over the loud thunderclaps. He bends down to her, he grips her neck in his forearm. She struggles in his grasp and out of desperation tries to stab him through his chest. The spike makes it through a little bit of his skin before he puts his full force into snapping her neck completely. And just like that, the fight was finished; weirdly enough, it didn't feel satisfying like Andrew's death.
"Is it supposed to feel this way?"
"...who cares." Jack stands and then he reaches down to me, "Can we go now? Felix and Tyler can clean up this mess here on their own."
"Fine, since you won't leave it alone." I groan. Honestly I'm amazed that I stayed conscious this long. The amount of blood I have lost must be more than one should lose. Jack grabs me and hoists me up. The jolt causes an inflammation of pain and I struggle to keep from screaming. My vision swims, this time with black creeping further than the edges of my sight. "Hang on Ethan," Jack's voice makes it through the ringing and I grunt out as I lift my head back up just catching a bolt of lightning that strikes through the sky. And then Jack teleports us back to the camp.
"Fuck!" He groans.
The camp was completely empty. Amy had evacuated everyone to a new spot since the attack. He carefully places me down to rest, "I'll see if I can find any clue to where they disappeared to."
"Sounds good, I'll just sit here." I chuckled dryly through my teeth as the pain was beginning to set into my bones; it didn't help that the rain was freezing cold. I glance around the camp. It was a strange sight to see that everything was once lively. We, for a brief time, were at peace again. We had a good time together, learning more and more about one another. Jack makes his way back over to me, "I can't find anything. If they did leave something, the rain may have washed it away. We'll have to go back to Tyler, ask him to locate the others with his ability."
"I don't know how much longer I can stay awake. I'm feeling quite weak." I take a breath. Jack grumbles a bit and looks at the spike that was through my pelvis, "I know we can't remove it or else the bleeding will get much worse, but maybe there's a way to cauterize the wound?"
"Can you even get a fire started with this rain?" I glanced up to the sky, there was no sign that the storm was anywhere near over with. Jack makes a face, "Felix might be able to help. Hang on, we're going to go back and we have to do something to help you. We won't get you to Amy in time." He grabs me and we teleport back to the battleground. I can hear Jack yell for their help but I was losing my grip on consciousness.
Suddenly there was searing pain. It stabbed at my mind and I let out a loud holler, gripping the ground below me.
"Keep him still!"
"I'm trying!"
Another screech pries its way past my lips and I begin to shake violently against my hold, "LET GO!"
"Hold him!"
"Ethan, stay still! I'm almost done!"
I open my eyes but I can't see anything. The darkness instills a panic into my very veins and I jerk around, "HELP ME!! HEELLP!! TYLER HELP!!!"
"Stop squirming, or you'll lose your leg!"
There's a warmth that envelopes my head and I begin to relax slightly.
"It's okay Ethan, you're safe."
It was Tyler's voice. It once again reverberates deep in my chest and I feel a sense of calm work its way through the panic that worms its way through my body.
"That'll have to do for now. Give me something to wrap his wound with."
"Here, this should help."
"It's all we got."
"Tyler can you locate the others? Ethan requires professional medical care."
"We kind of all need medical."
I can hear the others talk but their voices begin to melt together until I am in blissful silence with the warmth wrapped around me.