“We thought u might want to know that someone’s after you.” Zen growled in pain.
“Yeah I caught on to that already, chief. Anything new u wanna inform me about?” He snapped.
“That we’re not here to hurt you. Can’t say the same for u though.”
“Fine,” She let them go. Zen clenched his fist, considering hitting her, but Tess stepped in front of him before he could.
“So you’re hiding then?” Tess asked.
“No, I’m getting the other girl back.” The Eventide girl replied, “It’s bad enough someone’s after me, but if and when they find out that they have the wrong person, well, u know what they’ll do.”
“How do u plan doing that?” Zen asked in disbelief.
“Not your business. And no I’m not letting u two tag along.” She half-glared.
“Oh so u don’t want the help of someone who can go invisible?” Tess smirked while pretending to walk away, “Okay.”
The Eventide girl smirked back. “I don’t need your power if I get it from you.”
“Wha-huh?” Tess halted, turning back to the girl. “What do ya mean?”
“You’ll find out.”
“And if we were to just go and tell everyone then?” Zen countered.
“Then I’d do my best to practice my concerned look.” The girl made a sad nervous face, half-biting her fingernails, before putting her hand down with a smirk, “Look, I’m not trying to be a jerk here, but the less people that get involved the less dead people there’s gonna be, and unless u can hack of fight, and make me run out of excuses, you’re not coming along.”
“Who zei we were?” Tess dully asked. “We’re going after our friend, like it of not. That doesn’t mean we’re going to go with you.”
“I could just knock u out then, and go solo, like I PLANNED to do…” She clenched a fist. Tess clenched her own.
“How DO u actually plan on getting to her?” Zen asked a seconde time.
“Already answered that, but whatever fine. I’m going to absorb the tire tracks, and feel my way to where they left.”
“Hardy har…” Zen replied.
“I… don’t think she’s kidding…” Tess zei feeling a bit uneasy now.
“About that cloaking power…” The Eventide girl said, retracting her arm, readying to strike.
“Alright stop.” Zen shoved them both away, “We’re wasting time. You,” he pointed at Liz, “don’t want us following, we won’t, but tough luck, we’re going anyway, and we’ll just keep on going till u beat it out of us. The longer we argue about this the closer Liz is to dying.”
His little speech seemed to work a bit. Both Liz and Tess backed off a bit. “Cute speech.” The cat girl commented. “Fine, u two want to die, don’t expect me to go to the funeral. Let’s go.” She grabbed hold of them both door the hands, “Oh and hold tight.”
The cat girl then dashed through the volgende house at a supernatural speed. She passed through everything in fact, she was… ghosting through it, like a phantom. Zen and Tess both started to scream at first, but as soon as a bug landed in their mouths, they stopped.
The three teens reached the school in near minutes. Lizzy let go of them before stopping, causing them to slide on their bellies a bit when they landed. “Oooh…” Tess clutched her stomach, “Okay… ill…”
“Tell me about it.” Zen croaked. He looked over at Liz who was now cloaking like Tess did, and going towards the parking lot.
She walked back and pulled them with her. She then knelt down volgende to the tire tracks, and placed a hand to them. Neither Tess nor Zen noticed any supernatural changes, but they did not vraag it. However they were extremely freaked out door what was now just happening.
“HOW ARE u ABLE TO DO THAT!?” Tess yelled. Liz sprung at her, grabbed her and Zen then ghosted down into the ground till they reached the school basement.
“The police are RIGHT over there.” She hissed. “Do NOT SAY, AN-Y-THING!” She held up her finger for them to wait then ghosted up to check if the coast was clear. She came back down scowling. “Well great, they’re running all over the place now.”
“I… sorry I just…” Tess looked away.
“Well DID u get the… SCENT of whatever?” Zen asked sternly.
“No thanks to…” She stopped herself, squishing her head with her hand, cringing to control herself, “yes I got the scent.”
“How long should we wait here then?”
“Not long.” She grabbed them again and ghosted through the uithangbord again, slowly moving upward. Tess noticed that they were going up, but they had nothing under them to push up on. How was she going up?
“How can u go up like this?” She asked.
Liz stopped, hissing angrily, “Save the twenty vragen for later, alright?” She snapped before continuing forward. Tess would be bothered with how little they knew for quite some time.
They surfaced in a yard across the straat of the school, in between a metal fence. Liz let go of them and started walking towards where she sensed the trail, with Tess following.
Zen on the other hand was half inside the fence. “Don’t mind me.” He said, stuck in what looked somewhat like a can-can position. Liz tried to look annoyed but could not mask a small amount laughter.
“Alright hold still.” She grabbed him and yanked him out.
The path lead out past the houses, past the school obviously, and out of the area, then past a set of very lovely fall trees, before entering… the Highway. And on this trip they were not running at Liz’s full speed, which Liz explained was because she could not trace while zooming about, at least not well.
“How are we supposed to track through that?” Tess asked as they slowly walked on the sidewalk volgende to the road.
“You two just keep walking, and I’ll call out for you.”
“Are u sure, Liz?” Zen asked.
“One, it’s Lizzy, not Liz, two, yes, three, I zei no meer twenty vragen till later, and u already broke that with the speed question, so could we please not make me want to sneak off when u can’t see me???”
They remained silent. Lizzy nodded to them then walked into the traffic, ghosting and cloaking. (No one wants to see a cat go through their bodies and car out of nowhere.) The twins continued walking vooruit, voorwaarts down the path, hoping that Lizzy would pop up at one point.
It was an entire half uur later and nothing was happening. They questioned if Lizzy had left them after all. They were about to yell for her when Tess’s phone rang. The ID zei it was from her parents.
“Oh… what do I tell them!?” She asked frantically to her brother.
“U-uh,” Zen shook a bit trying to come up with a story, “Tell her that we’re…off to see- that we’re I don’t know!”
“We have to tell them something!” She yelled.
“Well if u don’t answer soon they’ll get worried and call me!” Then Zen’s phone rang. He held it up, “SEE!?”
Tess groaned, and flipped open her phone “H-Hey Mom.”
“Tess its Dad.” A worried voice came from the other side.
“Oh…sorry, hallo Dad.” She chuckled weakly. “What’s up?”
“Are u and Zen alright- where ARE u two?”
“Well we…” Looking over to her brother she could see him pointing to his phone, though she did not know why. Then she got an idea. “Zen dropped his phone somewhere on our way home, and we’re looking for it. u sound upset, what’s wrong?”
“We heard your friend got kidnapped. Tess we want u and Zen to come home, come home pagina right now! No buts.” He sounded very serious and Tess highly doubted she could persuade him otherwise.
“O-okay… b-but could we have maybe five of ten minuten to look a bit more? Please?”
After a short pause, “Ten minutes, but I want u to call me in five minutes, and the ten minuut mark of I’m coming over to the school to look for you-… Goodbye.” Then he hung up.
“Oooooooh this is bad…” Tess knew what her father was doing.
“What did he say?” Zen demanded tensing his hands.
“I think he’s coming to the school to look for us…” Tess cringed.
Zen leaned against a uithangbord on the sidewalk, raising a hand in annoyance “Well… great, just great!” He proceeded to stempel, punch the uithangbord and scream accordingly in agony.
“That’s not helping.” Tess scolded, before sighing, “What do u think we should do?”
“I dunno, tell him everything?” Zen shrugged, rubbing his hand, “unless Miss Snappy has any ideas. Speaking which,” He turned back to the traffic, “LIZZY! HELLO!!!! RESPOND!” He flailed his arms to no avail.
“Let’s just keep walking and think of something along the way…” They did so for a good four minutes, door which time their father called once again. They quickly replied, hung up then continued on. Three minuten later they neared the end of the Highway.
“LIIIIIIIIIZZY!!!!!!!!” Zen yelled in a now broken voice.
“It’s not going to DO anything, Zen.” Tess grumbled tiredly, as she had told her brother this now seven times. “She would have replied ten minuten geleden if she heard us.”
“So she just ditched us?”
“You just came up with that conclusion?”
Zen continued scanning the area, “Weren’t u the positive one?”
“I can’t always be.”
This banter was short lived, and a short distance away was the downtown area of the city. It was in one word “shiny”, very tall buildings, lots of people, and almost everything looked new. It was a very rare city, as it had much less street-life and dirtied areas than most.
“Where do we go from here?” Zen sat on a nearby bench, being the first to acknowledge the extreme pain in his feet. Even when he relaxed he felt a spasm of pain go through his toes and heel. “I’ve probably got blisters.”
“Erk… I doubt it.” Tess groaned as she too sat down. She laid her head back, “As for your question… I dunno.”
“Dad’s going to call any minute.”
“Surprised he hasn’t already.” She leaned vooruit, voorwaarts again, “We should have gotten Lizzy’s number before she left.”
“I seriously doubt she’d actually tell us her number. I don’t think she likes us very much.” He teased, grinning sheepishly. Then he groaned, clanging his head against the bench’s plastic back. “It’s not like we can just walk back to the school in time… we could get a taxi. I’ve got some cash in my wallet.”
“Didn’t u lose your wallet?” Tess turned to Zen.
“No,” He pointed to her, “you did. Then I found it and u thought I was the one who stal it. And that was a jaar ago.”
“Huh…” They both relaxed again, keeping silent till thirty seconden passed.
“Why are we so calm?” Zen questioned.
“Hm?”
“Our friend just got kidnapped; why are we so lax? We’re not freaking out, we’re just sitting here.”
“Might be the feeling of defeat?” Tess shrugged.
“Probably…”
“There u guys are.” It was Lizzy walking from the Highway area towards them, de-cloaking as she stepped.
“You were in the traffic that WHOLE time?” Tess gaped in disbelief.
“You try distinguishing thirty trails from each other, and that was just the ones from TODAY, not to mention the ones that came AFTER!” She pointed out. “Anyway I found meer tracks. Are u two okay to walk of did u give up? Please say it’s the latter.”
“You know that just motivates us to keep going, right?” Zen zei as he winced at getting up, but did so anyway, as did Tess.
“I can dream.” Lizzy replied in a depressed tone. “We’re wasting time.” She grabbed them both once again, and once again shot off. It was not a long trip, in fact it took a mere five minuten before they had reached their destination, which turned out to be… the sewers.
“Great we get to navigate through a maze of-“ Zen was interrupted when Lizzy ghosted them all downward until they reached an opening. It was a large glass room, which overlooked a very narrow base.
At first glance it looked like they were in a trap, but they soon realized that they were in a control room when the two guards at the control stations volgende to them aimed their guns at them.
Lizzy ghosted herself, Tess, and Zen once again, and performed a mid-air backflip before throwing Tess and Zen into the guards, once the guards had stopped firing, which was mid-jump.
The guards were caught off… guard door the twins falling on them, as were the twins. The guard that Tess had landed upon uppercut her in the jaw, causing her to fall back, while the one Zen had landed on banged his head on the controlboard and was knocked unconscious.
Lizzy quickly grabbed the conscious guard’s forehead and shoved him back, digging into his skull with her claws. “You’re going to keep silent, because dead men tell no tales.” She hissed while tightening her grip on the screaming man, who tried to grab at her. She kicked his hand against his chest, then moved her foot up to his throat, and pulled his head forward, cutting off his oxygen.
He gagged for a moment, with Tess dizzily recovering, and Zen only just seeing what Lizzy was about to do. “DON’T!!” He yelled. Lizzy did not stop and the guard was about to be sent to Davy Jone’s locker.
She would not listen so action was needed. Zen tackled Lizzy, causing her to let go of the guard. She spun to the ground, as did he, before kicking Zen off of her, glaring at him so hatefully that he thought she might get him next.
The guard was in no condition to attack them, as he was no coughing and breathing in and out on the ground.
“If u do that again, u can forget about my help in getting u guys out.” Lizzy hissed as she stood back up.
Zen was not going to take this from her, and glared back angrily “Don’t think for a seconde that u think I’m going to get freaked out just because u can kill us. I don’t care what u think, but I don’t let people die. That’s why we’re here, to save someone. They don’t need someone else to take their place.”
“Save it for the innocent-minded.” Lizzy waved him away. Zen was livid and almost punched her, had Tess not stopped his hand.
“I guess he is useful though.” Lizzy raised up the guard door his overhemd, shirt with both hands and nailed him to the glass wall. “You see all those people?” She nodded her head to the masked workers who were now running towards their location from below. “Well the thing is, they’re all going to die, and I’m going to pry open your eyes, RIP OUT THEIR ORGANS, AND FORCE, THEM, DOWN, YOUR, THROAT!!!” Her nails seemed to grow in this rage, digging at the man’s vacht, bont and skin. “If u don’t give me a reason not to the seconde I close my mouth, I’ll skip the avondeten, diner part.”
The man zei nothing, but simply pressed a button on the keyboard, causing the room to lock up. “Th-that’ll buy u five minutes.” He stammered, tearing up a bit.
“That’s five meer minuten for u to tell me where the captive is, and u know which one, unless there are meer in which u better hope they’re aren’t, and everything else I need to know about getting out of here.”
“J-just go out the way u came.”
“Oh u don’t have something for that? After the ALARM’S GONE OFF!?” She threw him to the side. Zen again was about to run over, but Tess held him back.
“try to trick me, small of big, and there’s two ways it goes. Either I get tricked and I’m furious, of I know you’re trying to trick me and u don’t get the headstart of running away before I find out u tricked me.”
“There’s an emergency exit tube that runs out to the surface, in a building near here!” The man whimpered, “B-but you’ll need DNA-scanned clearance to-“
“Easy enough.” Liz fan kicked the man in the side of the head, knocking him out. She then went through his clothes looking for weapons aside from his gun. She found nothing but a black and blue rubber glove. “Probably a clearance thing.” She mumbled before turning to Tess and Zen.
“Are u crazy!?” Zen yanked free from Tess’s grip.
“Are u believing that there are evil organizations hiding underground, and that there’s a cat girl who can ghost through walls, because yeah, that sounds sane?” Lizzy retorted while walking past them and ghosting through the locked up door leading to the rest of the base.
They heard quite a few punches, kicks, screams; there was gunfire, and laser sounds as well. Zen wobbled a bit and sat down.
“What’s wrong?” Tess asked, kneeling down a bit volgende to him.
“Everything’s just… hitting me all at once… it’s a lot.” He panted. He was sweating even.
“Z-Zen are u going to be okay?” Tess stammered in concern.
“Just give me a minute.” He raised his hand faintly.
Tess got up and looked around outside the glass overview, where she saw Lizzy brutally dismembering the guards around her. She could have sworn she saw a bone in Lizzy’s hand, being used as a melee weapon. She feared that the moment they walked out of this chamber, they’d find the vorige owner, and the rest of his of her body parts.
The guards were starting to come in larger numbers, and the alarm was blaring louder door the minute. Lizzy was becoming exhausted from the fight, but not for much longer. As a guard ran towards her, she tackled it and rammed her fist through its helmet, which most of the guards were now wearing once the alarm went off. At the same time however, it stabbed her right in the middle of her stomach.
She made a gagging sound, and the guard twisted his weapon inside her. Her hand slowly and shakily made its way to the guard’s face, which she dug her claws into, a black energy flowing between her and the guard.
The guard collapses dead, and Lizzy rose up energized again, with the wound fully healed. “Lights out.” She pulled out a grey and black dagger from her boot and raised it to the air. The dagger shot out a storm-cloud like substance that ate away at the lights until the entire corridor was black.
Neither Tess nor Zen knew what had just happened. Quite frankly they were near urination from fright. The lights were out, they just saw Lizzy get stabbed and get up, and they had no idea if they would be killed soon of not. And that was adding on to the already large enough amount of stress of finding out that there was an underground base. They had assumed they would find someone’s house of a warehouse where Liz would be held captive on a chair, like in a police show. They did not expect something out of a Sci Fi show.
Regardless they were beginning to understand why this… organization was after Lizzy. She had powers, and most-likely they wanted to take these powers from her. But that begged the question, how did they know about Lizzy in the first place? Was she an escaped test-subject, of a rouge agent? And were there meer like her?
Zen had recovered from his spell of dizziness, and was feeling around for anything to lean against when a hand grabbed him and yanked him through the wall. He screamed and kicked blindly.
“WILL u SHUT IT!?” Lizzy hissed in his ear. He clamped shut. Lizzy then grabbed Tess, making sure to cover her mouth while doing so… Tess bit her.
Once Lizzy had gotten over the urge to strangle the chameleon girl, she led them through the darkness and what seemed like a hallway until they got to a lit area. It was a fork in the road, with four paths to choose from, with a single lamp above them. There were labels in some strange coded language above the hallway doors, which they obviously could not read.
“What is the point of having a code if u don’t plan on having people that can’t read it going in these places?” Lizzy mumbled. “Let’s all take a path. The first one that finds something that looks like a prison comes straight back here and we group up again. We’ll meet up in ten if we don’t find anything, go.”
And with that, Lizzy took the front route. Tess and Zen stood still for a moment, Tess simply inhaling the orders still, and Zen deciding if he wanted to listen to them. Regardless, with a scoff from Zen, they both went through separate hallways.
Tess’s hallway led to what sounded like a conversation, which began to sound like there was meer than ten people talking, then twenty. Was she nearing a common room of cafeteria or-
“Bunks…” She squeaked while cloaking as quickly as possible. In front of her were guards and other workers sitting laying and walking around their bunks. They neither heard nor noticed her, but she would not be able to stay unknown if one of them bumped into her.
Most of the guards were not disguised, and she could get a better look at their uniforms. They were black and armored, with chest plates, groin plates (which made Tess chuckle a little meer than it should have), arm and leggings, and of course helmets, which reminded her of a character from Zen’s Halo games.
The uniforms also had varying stripes of colors, going straight down from the right of left sides of their shoulders down their legs and feet. Was this to distinguish the different kinds of workers? It made sense since those with red seemed to have guns with them, and those with blue, yellow, and green, did not. So the red were guards, of soldiers, but what were the others?
Finally she noticed that while there were varieties of mobians, a great deal of them were Echidnas, red of dark plum, with some even having metal quills here and there. Were those armor pieces?
Another thought then caught her attention; The alarm had gone off almost five minuten ago… why were they not going after them?
Zen’s hallway opened up to three closed and locked doors. “Great… Who do I send to spleet, split up into these?” He groaned, “Now if I had Schizophrenia…” He jimmied a door knob, which did not open, and had no window to break through. He tried all three.
“Well this is a dead end… Then again if this were the way to prison it would be locked tight…” He looked kneeled down trying to see if anyone was on the other side of the door. He saw nothing but he did hear a whirring sounds, like something was… moving from above him.
He guessed what it was and looked up to see a security camera. And the camera saw him too. Zen thought about possibly hiding, but where would he hide? He was found out. And guards would appear at any moment now.
Then the middle door opened. Zen turned and saw this. He felt insulted. “I’M NOT FALLING FOR YOUR TRAP!” He yelled at the camera. The camera opened up at the base. There was a small hole and a laser pointed at Zen’s head.
Zen ducked down, barely missing the bullet, and tried to run back the way he came, but the hallway locked down in front of him. The only way to go was onward. So he slowly walked through the door while at the same time slowly pulling out his cellphone. It turned on.
“Please work in here…” He prayed as he called Tess.
“What is it?” She whispered after thirty seconden of stressful waiting.
“It’s a trap! They know we’re here. I went into this hallway and a camera saw me. It’s making me keep going. I think I’m going to the prison area but not in a good way!”
“I’ll ran back to Lizzy and tell her, then we’ll come get you!”
“Hurry!” Zen slowly put his phone away, nervously looking back and forth as the hallway became what he expected, a prison. There were rows and rows of cells at both sides of him, and from what he could tell they were mostly unoccupied, but he only guessed this door how many people yelled at him when he passed, as there were no windows. No doubt they assumed he was a guard.
He looked upward and saw that there was another camera looking at him. He looked vooruit, voorwaarts and one of the cell doors opened up. There was no way he was about to go in there, but how would he escape?
He slowly walked towards the cell door… then he walked behind it. The door closed and Zen was nowhere in sight.
Lizzy had found herself in an archive room. It was not difficult getting through with a little ghosting, and the guards there were unconscious. She was hoping for another control room, something with monitors, but this worked.
She was currently looking through a computer containing records of files and where each file was kept. Most of them were passwords and some were aliases; very useful information. But then she noticed that one was in a separate folder. This folder was titled “Phantis”.
“What’s this…?” She clicked on the folder, which opened a text explaining where the file was kept, it turned out to be much meer locked up than the others. “Must be important.” She smirked as she jotted down the information for the file on some paper she found in a trash can.
She gathered some of the other files she needed that were kept in flashdrive also locked up, but were nothing for someone who passes through walls. She placed them in the trash can, which she emptied, bent it closed, and held it door its handles like a portemonnee and she made her exit.
“Lizzy!!” A voice yelled to her as she ran back. It was Tess’s voice.
“Shut it, loudmouth!” She hissed under her breath. Tess could not hear her of course since they weren’t even in each other’s eyesight yet. When they were…
“Zen just got captured, they know we’re here and th-“
“Tess!” Lizzy yelled, “I just beat up an army of them! Of course they know we’re here- Zen’s captured? … That’s your brother right?”
“I don’t have any other brothers so-“
“Where?”
“I’d assume the hallway he chose… you’re gonna speed while dragging me along now, aren’t you?”
“Good guess.” And they were off.
“What did u find?” Tess asked while cloaking them both.
“Some file stuff. There’s a specific one we’ll need to get on the way out. On top, boven of getting your bro and saving Liz Mark One.” She ghosted them through the first locked door.
“How do u know this is where Zen went?” Tess questioned.
“I don’t, I’m guessing.” They rushed past the cells, but then stopped suddenly.
“This is the… I’ll look for Liz, u get Zen.” Tess let go of Lizzy’s hand.
“Can u walk through the walls to see if she’s in them?” Lizzy asked while jumping at the security camera and stabbing it with her dagger.
“Uh… okay u get her and I’ll look for Liz.” Tess winced slightly.”
“Better plan.” Lizzy grinned while landing, and began going through the cells immediately. Tess ran off continuing down the hallway.
The hallway continued to be endless with the cells ending far behind her as she searched for her brother. Tess cloaked instinctively; she did not want to run into someone door mistake without the element of surprise.
Finally it led to one last locked door, this one with a window and a voicebox, and a keypad volgende to it on the wall. “He couldn’t have gone through here u- OW!” She was struck in the back of the head door the end of a metal gun. One of the guards stood behind her.
Tess fell to the ground dizzily, decloaking from lack of concentration. The guard held her down with his foot to her back and the meer dangerous side of his gun pointed at her head. He pulled her up and jabbed a small spiked object against her side. It stung and then she felt numb… paralysis.
The guard began dragging Tess towards the cells; she would have screamed but could not. The guard walked slow and cautiously; he knew that Lizzy was in the cells.
Lizzy was unaware of a visitor at the moment, and was still going through the cells. One of the prisoners she asked about Liz. The prisoner knew nothing. She kept him inside the cell. After all, he was a rouge guard.
She had searched all the cells; Liz was taken elsewhere. She walked back out to the main part of the hallway, and heard a humming noise behind her. She ghosted into the floor, missing the energy being shot at her.
“Run out of bullets?!” She taunted while ghosting back up to face her opponent. The guard had Tess and held his gun at her forehead. He tossed her a metal bead-looking object.
“Use that on your hands and stay where u are.” The guard ordered. “Don’t try to use it on me, it won’t work.”
“Or I could ju-“
“No u couldn’t.” The guard pressed the gun against Tess’s head. “Five seconds, and now it’s two.”
Lizzy scoffed and grabbed the bead, walking up slowly. “Okay… how do I use it?”
“You squeeze the ends together.”
“And… what does it do?” She stalled.
“Time’s up.” The guard was not going to let her get an advantage. So he shot Tess in the foot. Tess could not react of course, but her eyes did begin tearing.
On the other hand, the gun was pointed down, and even if the point of this was to toon that the guard meant business, Lizzy took advantage. First she jump at him, landing her foot on the gun, thus forcing it and his arm down towards the ground. volgende she kicked up at his jaw, which caused the helm to bash against his chinbone. His hand was still held to the ground, so everything jerked.
The guard however was in armor, so despite the pain, he was not beaten, and sucker punched Lizzy on the side of the head with his free hand before getting up while firing at her. She ghosted into the ground.
The guard knew she would go after Tess, and turned to grab her again, but Lizzy was already pulling her through the ground. Then everything went silent. The guard looked around walking a bit yelling for her. He received no reply.
“Nice job.” A voice scoffed sarcastically on his headset.
“Shut it, I had her. It’d be easier if we could have shot first anyway.”
“I just heard u shoot at her.”
“Whate- AH!” Lizzy had reappeared, stabbing her dagger into the man’s shoulder. He dropped to the ground clutching his shoulder, with her blade still inside.
“This dagger… it’s special.” She hissed at him. “It’s got a neat feature, see it drains people, and I can even use it to give me the power it drains. And that shoulder wound isn’t fatal, but the longer this in there, the closer u are to dying, so spill about why everything’s all subtle like a’kay?”
The guard breathed through his teeth, trying to calm down enough from the pain “Kill me first u little-“ She shoved the blade through his shoulder, splitting it and his arm in two. He screamed again.
“I’ll find my own antwoorden then.” She took out the dagger, and started to walk off, “Oh wait,” She kicked the guard between the legs, “That’s for shooting first.”
She then repeatedly kicked a cell door until it broke open. Inside was Tess, who Lizzy set sitting on the cot in the cell. Lizzy took off Tess’s shoe to check the wound. Thankfully it was an energy blast that the guard used to shoot her. There was a burn, and her skin was wrecked, but she could walk.
“Alright, next,” Lizzy stabbed the light in the cell and stuck her hand inside, absorbing the electricity in it. She then shocked Tess on the shoulder, jump starting her nerve system, and causing the paralysis to fade off.
“Ow!” Tess yelled briefly, rubbing her shoulder.
“Thought you’d be a little meer screamy after the shot in the foot.” Lizzy informed as she walked out of the cell.
“I was for the first minute.” Tess replied while slowly putting her sok and shoe back on. She followed Lizzy, wincing a bit as she went. “Did u find Liz?”
“No they have her somewhere else.” She walked past the guard who was still groaning in pain. She kicked him in the head, knocking him out.
“Why not absorb his memories then?”
“That’s a bit harder than just absorbing life force. We’re running out of time.”
They spent minuten going through walls at Lizzy’s quick speed, back and forth, until finally they ran into a large open room. It looked a bit like a courthouse, and was very darkly lit. In the middle was a table, lit, and on the table, was Liz.
Tess charged over to Liz’s side and checked her pulse… nothing. “Sh-…she…”
Lizzy knew, and decided to leave Tess be for the moment. She rushed to the seats that starred down at them, and found… nothing. She ran back. “No one’s home.” She sighed, “We need to find your bro.”
“But… Tess weakly replied.
Lizzy walked over and sliced off the metal cuffs holding the deceased feline to the table. She tossed Liz over her shoulder. “Crying later, Zen now.”
Tess wiped her eyes. She was annoyed door Lizzy’s indifference, but she agreed. “Okay.”
*DONG!* The doors around them locked down, and a dome went over them, lit with a strange blue energy.
“… The trap.” zei Lizzy. “So who’s controlling it?” Metallic arms grabbed them both door the arms and legs. Tess was dragged to the side, but Lizzy was yanked down onto the table. She yanked at the arms to avail, growling furiously with her teeth grinding.
“Now let’s begin.” A voice zei from what sounded like a sound system. And very soon after, a red energy started surging into Lizzy. She screamed, she screamed a lot in fact. Her eyes began to glow with the same red color, as did her vacht, bont at some point. Then the room powered down.
The arms relaxed for both Tess and Lizzy, and as soon as they did, “Dead…” The now very ticked off feline blasted off the table, cracking it as she kicked off. She landed with a thud on the ground.
She was vibrating with the energy, cringing repeatedly, as if she was about to blow.
“Li-lizzy…?” Tess wasn’t sure if Lizzy was under control of just mad.
“Let’s… get out…” Lizzy forced out. Tess sighed in relief.
An observation room above them broke open, with Zen and a suited Hyren (the name of their species) crashing onto the floor.
“You’re… welcome…” Zen groaned as he slowly got off of the man he fell on top, boven of, clutching his stomach.
Lizzy growled at the man and lifted him from the ground. He was unconscious. “Whatever u just put in me’s about to go to work.” She raised her hand to the ceiling and blasted it open with a red energy beam.
Then she heard him… he was mumbling…some kind of code. “SELF-DESTRUCTION!!!” Tess yelled in assumption. Lizzy grabbed them both once again and jumped upward charging further and further upward till they reached the ceiling of a wolkenkrabber which they passed through.
They landed away from the city, in a large desert area near them, where Lizzy sat them down before staggering back. “What’s wrong?” Zen asked.
Lizzy rushed away before answering. Zen messed up his face a bit with a very confused look. “Is… she afraid of getting notic-“ a giant red explosion of energy went off in the direction Lizzy rushed towards.
Zen would have ran towards the sight of the explosion if he was not still recovering from his fall. Tess however darted off instantly, without looking back.
“Wait a second…” Zen thought. Then the building blew up. “… Well okay then.”
Tess saw what looked to be a burned-to-a-crisp corpse. She could not get close enough to it to make sure. The crater left door the explosion was too hot. “Lizzy…” She zei weakly. If this were a movie, of something Tess was watching, she would have found a line such as this to be overly dramatic. But the fact is that this was not a movie; she had just seen someone die, someone who had seen her.
Zen noticed Tess walking back, tears and all. He knew what she found. “I wanted to bring the body back… but… I couldn’t get close enough…” She whispered between silent whimpers.
Soon after the police arrived; some inspected the crater, and some the building. Tess and Zen left the man with the police. They could do nothing about him then. What would they do? Take him to their basement and interrogate him? And what then? Kill him? No, these teenagers were not ready to do anything supernatural of extreme for as long as they could.
What had become a zoek for a kidnapped friend opened up to the discovery of a super-powered cat girl, an underground terrorist group (or at least that is what they assumed it was), dozens of files that were left with them in a crunched up trash can, and multiple forms of death.
They made it back home pagina to find no one home, and they would not find anyone home pagina until an uur later. When their parents asked why they did not call they made the excuse that they found Zen’s phone but they were taken door the police and had to get them back from the station. They hoped that their parents would not bring up this topic in the future.
Tess spent the volgende dag in her room. Zen hid the horror he felt, and went about things normally. But neither could keep themselves from tonen at least some emotion when at Liz Delma’s Funeral five days later. Lizzy Eventide’s they did not hear about. They could not talk to her parents, they could not do anything suspicious, but it was almost as if no one even rememberd her. of noticed she was gone. Why?
Zen and Tess walked out of the school to the first snow of December; a Thursday, the fourth. They were… silent for most of the walk, until Tess asked “Do u want to go talk to her parents today?”
“… We could I suppose.” Tess replied. “… Did u ask the Principal?”
Tess’s tone darkened, “She didn’t even notice that Lizzy was gone.”
“Why do we even care?! She was mean and she… I just…”
“Let’s just… talk to her parents.”
They arrived at the house much later due to the treading in the snow. *knock* … *knock knock* … *knock knock knock knock kn-* The door flew open with Mrs. Eventide glaring then softening at the two of them. “Yes?” She asked sternly.
“Um… Mrs. Eventide?” Tess greeted nervously
“Yes.”
“We… met your daughter Lizzy and we wanted to s-“
“Oh don’t worry about that, if she bothered u I’ll have a word with ya. She’s… troubling to say the least.”
“What!?” Tess yelled before covering her mouth.
“That’s not what u came here for? What are u carolers? She’s not even home pagina right now, do u want something else?”
“We –“
“We’ll be leaving.” Zen intervened. Mrs. Eventide nodded and closed the door. Tess and Zen walked back towards their home pagina flabbergasted.
“W-… Was… she lying about her name?” Zen finally spoke.
“She might have been… If she did then she might now even have a family.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised regardless.”
Her eyes fixed on the two chameleons for a moment. She stood a good distance away. She did not want to reveal anything just yet, they needed to recover, but she needed to know if they had told anyone anything. That and she would need help deciphering the flashdrive in her hand… The Phantis File.
End of Chapter One
“Yeah I caught on to that already, chief. Anything new u wanna inform me about?” He snapped.
“That we’re not here to hurt you. Can’t say the same for u though.”
“Fine,” She let them go. Zen clenched his fist, considering hitting her, but Tess stepped in front of him before he could.
“So you’re hiding then?” Tess asked.
“No, I’m getting the other girl back.” The Eventide girl replied, “It’s bad enough someone’s after me, but if and when they find out that they have the wrong person, well, u know what they’ll do.”
“How do u plan doing that?” Zen asked in disbelief.
“Not your business. And no I’m not letting u two tag along.” She half-glared.
“Oh so u don’t want the help of someone who can go invisible?” Tess smirked while pretending to walk away, “Okay.”
The Eventide girl smirked back. “I don’t need your power if I get it from you.”
“Wha-huh?” Tess halted, turning back to the girl. “What do ya mean?”
“You’ll find out.”
“And if we were to just go and tell everyone then?” Zen countered.
“Then I’d do my best to practice my concerned look.” The girl made a sad nervous face, half-biting her fingernails, before putting her hand down with a smirk, “Look, I’m not trying to be a jerk here, but the less people that get involved the less dead people there’s gonna be, and unless u can hack of fight, and make me run out of excuses, you’re not coming along.”
“Who zei we were?” Tess dully asked. “We’re going after our friend, like it of not. That doesn’t mean we’re going to go with you.”
“I could just knock u out then, and go solo, like I PLANNED to do…” She clenched a fist. Tess clenched her own.
“How DO u actually plan on getting to her?” Zen asked a seconde time.
“Already answered that, but whatever fine. I’m going to absorb the tire tracks, and feel my way to where they left.”
“Hardy har…” Zen replied.
“I… don’t think she’s kidding…” Tess zei feeling a bit uneasy now.
“About that cloaking power…” The Eventide girl said, retracting her arm, readying to strike.
“Alright stop.” Zen shoved them both away, “We’re wasting time. You,” he pointed at Liz, “don’t want us following, we won’t, but tough luck, we’re going anyway, and we’ll just keep on going till u beat it out of us. The longer we argue about this the closer Liz is to dying.”
His little speech seemed to work a bit. Both Liz and Tess backed off a bit. “Cute speech.” The cat girl commented. “Fine, u two want to die, don’t expect me to go to the funeral. Let’s go.” She grabbed hold of them both door the hands, “Oh and hold tight.”
The cat girl then dashed through the volgende house at a supernatural speed. She passed through everything in fact, she was… ghosting through it, like a phantom. Zen and Tess both started to scream at first, but as soon as a bug landed in their mouths, they stopped.
The three teens reached the school in near minutes. Lizzy let go of them before stopping, causing them to slide on their bellies a bit when they landed. “Oooh…” Tess clutched her stomach, “Okay… ill…”
“Tell me about it.” Zen croaked. He looked over at Liz who was now cloaking like Tess did, and going towards the parking lot.
She walked back and pulled them with her. She then knelt down volgende to the tire tracks, and placed a hand to them. Neither Tess nor Zen noticed any supernatural changes, but they did not vraag it. However they were extremely freaked out door what was now just happening.
“HOW ARE u ABLE TO DO THAT!?” Tess yelled. Liz sprung at her, grabbed her and Zen then ghosted down into the ground till they reached the school basement.
“The police are RIGHT over there.” She hissed. “Do NOT SAY, AN-Y-THING!” She held up her finger for them to wait then ghosted up to check if the coast was clear. She came back down scowling. “Well great, they’re running all over the place now.”
“I… sorry I just…” Tess looked away.
“Well DID u get the… SCENT of whatever?” Zen asked sternly.
“No thanks to…” She stopped herself, squishing her head with her hand, cringing to control herself, “yes I got the scent.”
“How long should we wait here then?”
“Not long.” She grabbed them again and ghosted through the uithangbord again, slowly moving upward. Tess noticed that they were going up, but they had nothing under them to push up on. How was she going up?
“How can u go up like this?” She asked.
Liz stopped, hissing angrily, “Save the twenty vragen for later, alright?” She snapped before continuing forward. Tess would be bothered with how little they knew for quite some time.
They surfaced in a yard across the straat of the school, in between a metal fence. Liz let go of them and started walking towards where she sensed the trail, with Tess following.
Zen on the other hand was half inside the fence. “Don’t mind me.” He said, stuck in what looked somewhat like a can-can position. Liz tried to look annoyed but could not mask a small amount laughter.
“Alright hold still.” She grabbed him and yanked him out.
The path lead out past the houses, past the school obviously, and out of the area, then past a set of very lovely fall trees, before entering… the Highway. And on this trip they were not running at Liz’s full speed, which Liz explained was because she could not trace while zooming about, at least not well.
“How are we supposed to track through that?” Tess asked as they slowly walked on the sidewalk volgende to the road.
“You two just keep walking, and I’ll call out for you.”
“Are u sure, Liz?” Zen asked.
“One, it’s Lizzy, not Liz, two, yes, three, I zei no meer twenty vragen till later, and u already broke that with the speed question, so could we please not make me want to sneak off when u can’t see me???”
They remained silent. Lizzy nodded to them then walked into the traffic, ghosting and cloaking. (No one wants to see a cat go through their bodies and car out of nowhere.) The twins continued walking vooruit, voorwaarts down the path, hoping that Lizzy would pop up at one point.
It was an entire half uur later and nothing was happening. They questioned if Lizzy had left them after all. They were about to yell for her when Tess’s phone rang. The ID zei it was from her parents.
“Oh… what do I tell them!?” She asked frantically to her brother.
“U-uh,” Zen shook a bit trying to come up with a story, “Tell her that we’re…off to see- that we’re I don’t know!”
“We have to tell them something!” She yelled.
“Well if u don’t answer soon they’ll get worried and call me!” Then Zen’s phone rang. He held it up, “SEE!?”
Tess groaned, and flipped open her phone “H-Hey Mom.”
“Tess its Dad.” A worried voice came from the other side.
“Oh…sorry, hallo Dad.” She chuckled weakly. “What’s up?”
“Are u and Zen alright- where ARE u two?”
“Well we…” Looking over to her brother she could see him pointing to his phone, though she did not know why. Then she got an idea. “Zen dropped his phone somewhere on our way home, and we’re looking for it. u sound upset, what’s wrong?”
“We heard your friend got kidnapped. Tess we want u and Zen to come home, come home pagina right now! No buts.” He sounded very serious and Tess highly doubted she could persuade him otherwise.
“O-okay… b-but could we have maybe five of ten minuten to look a bit more? Please?”
After a short pause, “Ten minutes, but I want u to call me in five minutes, and the ten minuut mark of I’m coming over to the school to look for you-… Goodbye.” Then he hung up.
“Oooooooh this is bad…” Tess knew what her father was doing.
“What did he say?” Zen demanded tensing his hands.
“I think he’s coming to the school to look for us…” Tess cringed.
Zen leaned against a uithangbord on the sidewalk, raising a hand in annoyance “Well… great, just great!” He proceeded to stempel, punch the uithangbord and scream accordingly in agony.
“That’s not helping.” Tess scolded, before sighing, “What do u think we should do?”
“I dunno, tell him everything?” Zen shrugged, rubbing his hand, “unless Miss Snappy has any ideas. Speaking which,” He turned back to the traffic, “LIZZY! HELLO!!!! RESPOND!” He flailed his arms to no avail.
“Let’s just keep walking and think of something along the way…” They did so for a good four minutes, door which time their father called once again. They quickly replied, hung up then continued on. Three minuten later they neared the end of the Highway.
“LIIIIIIIIIZZY!!!!!!!!” Zen yelled in a now broken voice.
“It’s not going to DO anything, Zen.” Tess grumbled tiredly, as she had told her brother this now seven times. “She would have replied ten minuten geleden if she heard us.”
“So she just ditched us?”
“You just came up with that conclusion?”
Zen continued scanning the area, “Weren’t u the positive one?”
“I can’t always be.”
This banter was short lived, and a short distance away was the downtown area of the city. It was in one word “shiny”, very tall buildings, lots of people, and almost everything looked new. It was a very rare city, as it had much less street-life and dirtied areas than most.
“Where do we go from here?” Zen sat on a nearby bench, being the first to acknowledge the extreme pain in his feet. Even when he relaxed he felt a spasm of pain go through his toes and heel. “I’ve probably got blisters.”
“Erk… I doubt it.” Tess groaned as she too sat down. She laid her head back, “As for your question… I dunno.”
“Dad’s going to call any minute.”
“Surprised he hasn’t already.” She leaned vooruit, voorwaarts again, “We should have gotten Lizzy’s number before she left.”
“I seriously doubt she’d actually tell us her number. I don’t think she likes us very much.” He teased, grinning sheepishly. Then he groaned, clanging his head against the bench’s plastic back. “It’s not like we can just walk back to the school in time… we could get a taxi. I’ve got some cash in my wallet.”
“Didn’t u lose your wallet?” Tess turned to Zen.
“No,” He pointed to her, “you did. Then I found it and u thought I was the one who stal it. And that was a jaar ago.”
“Huh…” They both relaxed again, keeping silent till thirty seconden passed.
“Why are we so calm?” Zen questioned.
“Hm?”
“Our friend just got kidnapped; why are we so lax? We’re not freaking out, we’re just sitting here.”
“Might be the feeling of defeat?” Tess shrugged.
“Probably…”
“There u guys are.” It was Lizzy walking from the Highway area towards them, de-cloaking as she stepped.
“You were in the traffic that WHOLE time?” Tess gaped in disbelief.
“You try distinguishing thirty trails from each other, and that was just the ones from TODAY, not to mention the ones that came AFTER!” She pointed out. “Anyway I found meer tracks. Are u two okay to walk of did u give up? Please say it’s the latter.”
“You know that just motivates us to keep going, right?” Zen zei as he winced at getting up, but did so anyway, as did Tess.
“I can dream.” Lizzy replied in a depressed tone. “We’re wasting time.” She grabbed them both once again, and once again shot off. It was not a long trip, in fact it took a mere five minuten before they had reached their destination, which turned out to be… the sewers.
“Great we get to navigate through a maze of-“ Zen was interrupted when Lizzy ghosted them all downward until they reached an opening. It was a large glass room, which overlooked a very narrow base.
At first glance it looked like they were in a trap, but they soon realized that they were in a control room when the two guards at the control stations volgende to them aimed their guns at them.
Lizzy ghosted herself, Tess, and Zen once again, and performed a mid-air backflip before throwing Tess and Zen into the guards, once the guards had stopped firing, which was mid-jump.
The guards were caught off… guard door the twins falling on them, as were the twins. The guard that Tess had landed upon uppercut her in the jaw, causing her to fall back, while the one Zen had landed on banged his head on the controlboard and was knocked unconscious.
Lizzy quickly grabbed the conscious guard’s forehead and shoved him back, digging into his skull with her claws. “You’re going to keep silent, because dead men tell no tales.” She hissed while tightening her grip on the screaming man, who tried to grab at her. She kicked his hand against his chest, then moved her foot up to his throat, and pulled his head forward, cutting off his oxygen.
He gagged for a moment, with Tess dizzily recovering, and Zen only just seeing what Lizzy was about to do. “DON’T!!” He yelled. Lizzy did not stop and the guard was about to be sent to Davy Jone’s locker.
She would not listen so action was needed. Zen tackled Lizzy, causing her to let go of the guard. She spun to the ground, as did he, before kicking Zen off of her, glaring at him so hatefully that he thought she might get him next.
The guard was in no condition to attack them, as he was no coughing and breathing in and out on the ground.
“If u do that again, u can forget about my help in getting u guys out.” Lizzy hissed as she stood back up.
Zen was not going to take this from her, and glared back angrily “Don’t think for a seconde that u think I’m going to get freaked out just because u can kill us. I don’t care what u think, but I don’t let people die. That’s why we’re here, to save someone. They don’t need someone else to take their place.”
“Save it for the innocent-minded.” Lizzy waved him away. Zen was livid and almost punched her, had Tess not stopped his hand.
“I guess he is useful though.” Lizzy raised up the guard door his overhemd, shirt with both hands and nailed him to the glass wall. “You see all those people?” She nodded her head to the masked workers who were now running towards their location from below. “Well the thing is, they’re all going to die, and I’m going to pry open your eyes, RIP OUT THEIR ORGANS, AND FORCE, THEM, DOWN, YOUR, THROAT!!!” Her nails seemed to grow in this rage, digging at the man’s vacht, bont and skin. “If u don’t give me a reason not to the seconde I close my mouth, I’ll skip the avondeten, diner part.”
The man zei nothing, but simply pressed a button on the keyboard, causing the room to lock up. “Th-that’ll buy u five minutes.” He stammered, tearing up a bit.
“That’s five meer minuten for u to tell me where the captive is, and u know which one, unless there are meer in which u better hope they’re aren’t, and everything else I need to know about getting out of here.”
“J-just go out the way u came.”
“Oh u don’t have something for that? After the ALARM’S GONE OFF!?” She threw him to the side. Zen again was about to run over, but Tess held him back.
“try to trick me, small of big, and there’s two ways it goes. Either I get tricked and I’m furious, of I know you’re trying to trick me and u don’t get the headstart of running away before I find out u tricked me.”
“There’s an emergency exit tube that runs out to the surface, in a building near here!” The man whimpered, “B-but you’ll need DNA-scanned clearance to-“
“Easy enough.” Liz fan kicked the man in the side of the head, knocking him out. She then went through his clothes looking for weapons aside from his gun. She found nothing but a black and blue rubber glove. “Probably a clearance thing.” She mumbled before turning to Tess and Zen.
“Are u crazy!?” Zen yanked free from Tess’s grip.
“Are u believing that there are evil organizations hiding underground, and that there’s a cat girl who can ghost through walls, because yeah, that sounds sane?” Lizzy retorted while walking past them and ghosting through the locked up door leading to the rest of the base.
They heard quite a few punches, kicks, screams; there was gunfire, and laser sounds as well. Zen wobbled a bit and sat down.
“What’s wrong?” Tess asked, kneeling down a bit volgende to him.
“Everything’s just… hitting me all at once… it’s a lot.” He panted. He was sweating even.
“Z-Zen are u going to be okay?” Tess stammered in concern.
“Just give me a minute.” He raised his hand faintly.
Tess got up and looked around outside the glass overview, where she saw Lizzy brutally dismembering the guards around her. She could have sworn she saw a bone in Lizzy’s hand, being used as a melee weapon. She feared that the moment they walked out of this chamber, they’d find the vorige owner, and the rest of his of her body parts.
The guards were starting to come in larger numbers, and the alarm was blaring louder door the minute. Lizzy was becoming exhausted from the fight, but not for much longer. As a guard ran towards her, she tackled it and rammed her fist through its helmet, which most of the guards were now wearing once the alarm went off. At the same time however, it stabbed her right in the middle of her stomach.
She made a gagging sound, and the guard twisted his weapon inside her. Her hand slowly and shakily made its way to the guard’s face, which she dug her claws into, a black energy flowing between her and the guard.
The guard collapses dead, and Lizzy rose up energized again, with the wound fully healed. “Lights out.” She pulled out a grey and black dagger from her boot and raised it to the air. The dagger shot out a storm-cloud like substance that ate away at the lights until the entire corridor was black.
Neither Tess nor Zen knew what had just happened. Quite frankly they were near urination from fright. The lights were out, they just saw Lizzy get stabbed and get up, and they had no idea if they would be killed soon of not. And that was adding on to the already large enough amount of stress of finding out that there was an underground base. They had assumed they would find someone’s house of a warehouse where Liz would be held captive on a chair, like in a police show. They did not expect something out of a Sci Fi show.
Regardless they were beginning to understand why this… organization was after Lizzy. She had powers, and most-likely they wanted to take these powers from her. But that begged the question, how did they know about Lizzy in the first place? Was she an escaped test-subject, of a rouge agent? And were there meer like her?
Zen had recovered from his spell of dizziness, and was feeling around for anything to lean against when a hand grabbed him and yanked him through the wall. He screamed and kicked blindly.
“WILL u SHUT IT!?” Lizzy hissed in his ear. He clamped shut. Lizzy then grabbed Tess, making sure to cover her mouth while doing so… Tess bit her.
Once Lizzy had gotten over the urge to strangle the chameleon girl, she led them through the darkness and what seemed like a hallway until they got to a lit area. It was a fork in the road, with four paths to choose from, with a single lamp above them. There were labels in some strange coded language above the hallway doors, which they obviously could not read.
“What is the point of having a code if u don’t plan on having people that can’t read it going in these places?” Lizzy mumbled. “Let’s all take a path. The first one that finds something that looks like a prison comes straight back here and we group up again. We’ll meet up in ten if we don’t find anything, go.”
And with that, Lizzy took the front route. Tess and Zen stood still for a moment, Tess simply inhaling the orders still, and Zen deciding if he wanted to listen to them. Regardless, with a scoff from Zen, they both went through separate hallways.
Tess’s hallway led to what sounded like a conversation, which began to sound like there was meer than ten people talking, then twenty. Was she nearing a common room of cafeteria or-
“Bunks…” She squeaked while cloaking as quickly as possible. In front of her were guards and other workers sitting laying and walking around their bunks. They neither heard nor noticed her, but she would not be able to stay unknown if one of them bumped into her.
Most of the guards were not disguised, and she could get a better look at their uniforms. They were black and armored, with chest plates, groin plates (which made Tess chuckle a little meer than it should have), arm and leggings, and of course helmets, which reminded her of a character from Zen’s Halo games.
The uniforms also had varying stripes of colors, going straight down from the right of left sides of their shoulders down their legs and feet. Was this to distinguish the different kinds of workers? It made sense since those with red seemed to have guns with them, and those with blue, yellow, and green, did not. So the red were guards, of soldiers, but what were the others?
Finally she noticed that while there were varieties of mobians, a great deal of them were Echidnas, red of dark plum, with some even having metal quills here and there. Were those armor pieces?
Another thought then caught her attention; The alarm had gone off almost five minuten ago… why were they not going after them?
Zen’s hallway opened up to three closed and locked doors. “Great… Who do I send to spleet, split up into these?” He groaned, “Now if I had Schizophrenia…” He jimmied a door knob, which did not open, and had no window to break through. He tried all three.
“Well this is a dead end… Then again if this were the way to prison it would be locked tight…” He looked kneeled down trying to see if anyone was on the other side of the door. He saw nothing but he did hear a whirring sounds, like something was… moving from above him.
He guessed what it was and looked up to see a security camera. And the camera saw him too. Zen thought about possibly hiding, but where would he hide? He was found out. And guards would appear at any moment now.
Then the middle door opened. Zen turned and saw this. He felt insulted. “I’M NOT FALLING FOR YOUR TRAP!” He yelled at the camera. The camera opened up at the base. There was a small hole and a laser pointed at Zen’s head.
Zen ducked down, barely missing the bullet, and tried to run back the way he came, but the hallway locked down in front of him. The only way to go was onward. So he slowly walked through the door while at the same time slowly pulling out his cellphone. It turned on.
“Please work in here…” He prayed as he called Tess.
“What is it?” She whispered after thirty seconden of stressful waiting.
“It’s a trap! They know we’re here. I went into this hallway and a camera saw me. It’s making me keep going. I think I’m going to the prison area but not in a good way!”
“I’ll ran back to Lizzy and tell her, then we’ll come get you!”
“Hurry!” Zen slowly put his phone away, nervously looking back and forth as the hallway became what he expected, a prison. There were rows and rows of cells at both sides of him, and from what he could tell they were mostly unoccupied, but he only guessed this door how many people yelled at him when he passed, as there were no windows. No doubt they assumed he was a guard.
He looked upward and saw that there was another camera looking at him. He looked vooruit, voorwaarts and one of the cell doors opened up. There was no way he was about to go in there, but how would he escape?
He slowly walked towards the cell door… then he walked behind it. The door closed and Zen was nowhere in sight.
Lizzy had found herself in an archive room. It was not difficult getting through with a little ghosting, and the guards there were unconscious. She was hoping for another control room, something with monitors, but this worked.
She was currently looking through a computer containing records of files and where each file was kept. Most of them were passwords and some were aliases; very useful information. But then she noticed that one was in a separate folder. This folder was titled “Phantis”.
“What’s this…?” She clicked on the folder, which opened a text explaining where the file was kept, it turned out to be much meer locked up than the others. “Must be important.” She smirked as she jotted down the information for the file on some paper she found in a trash can.
She gathered some of the other files she needed that were kept in flashdrive also locked up, but were nothing for someone who passes through walls. She placed them in the trash can, which she emptied, bent it closed, and held it door its handles like a portemonnee and she made her exit.
“Lizzy!!” A voice yelled to her as she ran back. It was Tess’s voice.
“Shut it, loudmouth!” She hissed under her breath. Tess could not hear her of course since they weren’t even in each other’s eyesight yet. When they were…
“Zen just got captured, they know we’re here and th-“
“Tess!” Lizzy yelled, “I just beat up an army of them! Of course they know we’re here- Zen’s captured? … That’s your brother right?”
“I don’t have any other brothers so-“
“Where?”
“I’d assume the hallway he chose… you’re gonna speed while dragging me along now, aren’t you?”
“Good guess.” And they were off.
“What did u find?” Tess asked while cloaking them both.
“Some file stuff. There’s a specific one we’ll need to get on the way out. On top, boven of getting your bro and saving Liz Mark One.” She ghosted them through the first locked door.
“How do u know this is where Zen went?” Tess questioned.
“I don’t, I’m guessing.” They rushed past the cells, but then stopped suddenly.
“This is the… I’ll look for Liz, u get Zen.” Tess let go of Lizzy’s hand.
“Can u walk through the walls to see if she’s in them?” Lizzy asked while jumping at the security camera and stabbing it with her dagger.
“Uh… okay u get her and I’ll look for Liz.” Tess winced slightly.”
“Better plan.” Lizzy grinned while landing, and began going through the cells immediately. Tess ran off continuing down the hallway.
The hallway continued to be endless with the cells ending far behind her as she searched for her brother. Tess cloaked instinctively; she did not want to run into someone door mistake without the element of surprise.
Finally it led to one last locked door, this one with a window and a voicebox, and a keypad volgende to it on the wall. “He couldn’t have gone through here u- OW!” She was struck in the back of the head door the end of a metal gun. One of the guards stood behind her.
Tess fell to the ground dizzily, decloaking from lack of concentration. The guard held her down with his foot to her back and the meer dangerous side of his gun pointed at her head. He pulled her up and jabbed a small spiked object against her side. It stung and then she felt numb… paralysis.
The guard began dragging Tess towards the cells; she would have screamed but could not. The guard walked slow and cautiously; he knew that Lizzy was in the cells.
Lizzy was unaware of a visitor at the moment, and was still going through the cells. One of the prisoners she asked about Liz. The prisoner knew nothing. She kept him inside the cell. After all, he was a rouge guard.
She had searched all the cells; Liz was taken elsewhere. She walked back out to the main part of the hallway, and heard a humming noise behind her. She ghosted into the floor, missing the energy being shot at her.
“Run out of bullets?!” She taunted while ghosting back up to face her opponent. The guard had Tess and held his gun at her forehead. He tossed her a metal bead-looking object.
“Use that on your hands and stay where u are.” The guard ordered. “Don’t try to use it on me, it won’t work.”
“Or I could ju-“
“No u couldn’t.” The guard pressed the gun against Tess’s head. “Five seconds, and now it’s two.”
Lizzy scoffed and grabbed the bead, walking up slowly. “Okay… how do I use it?”
“You squeeze the ends together.”
“And… what does it do?” She stalled.
“Time’s up.” The guard was not going to let her get an advantage. So he shot Tess in the foot. Tess could not react of course, but her eyes did begin tearing.
On the other hand, the gun was pointed down, and even if the point of this was to toon that the guard meant business, Lizzy took advantage. First she jump at him, landing her foot on the gun, thus forcing it and his arm down towards the ground. volgende she kicked up at his jaw, which caused the helm to bash against his chinbone. His hand was still held to the ground, so everything jerked.
The guard however was in armor, so despite the pain, he was not beaten, and sucker punched Lizzy on the side of the head with his free hand before getting up while firing at her. She ghosted into the ground.
The guard knew she would go after Tess, and turned to grab her again, but Lizzy was already pulling her through the ground. Then everything went silent. The guard looked around walking a bit yelling for her. He received no reply.
“Nice job.” A voice scoffed sarcastically on his headset.
“Shut it, I had her. It’d be easier if we could have shot first anyway.”
“I just heard u shoot at her.”
“Whate- AH!” Lizzy had reappeared, stabbing her dagger into the man’s shoulder. He dropped to the ground clutching his shoulder, with her blade still inside.
“This dagger… it’s special.” She hissed at him. “It’s got a neat feature, see it drains people, and I can even use it to give me the power it drains. And that shoulder wound isn’t fatal, but the longer this in there, the closer u are to dying, so spill about why everything’s all subtle like a’kay?”
The guard breathed through his teeth, trying to calm down enough from the pain “Kill me first u little-“ She shoved the blade through his shoulder, splitting it and his arm in two. He screamed again.
“I’ll find my own antwoorden then.” She took out the dagger, and started to walk off, “Oh wait,” She kicked the guard between the legs, “That’s for shooting first.”
She then repeatedly kicked a cell door until it broke open. Inside was Tess, who Lizzy set sitting on the cot in the cell. Lizzy took off Tess’s shoe to check the wound. Thankfully it was an energy blast that the guard used to shoot her. There was a burn, and her skin was wrecked, but she could walk.
“Alright, next,” Lizzy stabbed the light in the cell and stuck her hand inside, absorbing the electricity in it. She then shocked Tess on the shoulder, jump starting her nerve system, and causing the paralysis to fade off.
“Ow!” Tess yelled briefly, rubbing her shoulder.
“Thought you’d be a little meer screamy after the shot in the foot.” Lizzy informed as she walked out of the cell.
“I was for the first minute.” Tess replied while slowly putting her sok and shoe back on. She followed Lizzy, wincing a bit as she went. “Did u find Liz?”
“No they have her somewhere else.” She walked past the guard who was still groaning in pain. She kicked him in the head, knocking him out.
“Why not absorb his memories then?”
“That’s a bit harder than just absorbing life force. We’re running out of time.”
They spent minuten going through walls at Lizzy’s quick speed, back and forth, until finally they ran into a large open room. It looked a bit like a courthouse, and was very darkly lit. In the middle was a table, lit, and on the table, was Liz.
Tess charged over to Liz’s side and checked her pulse… nothing. “Sh-…she…”
Lizzy knew, and decided to leave Tess be for the moment. She rushed to the seats that starred down at them, and found… nothing. She ran back. “No one’s home.” She sighed, “We need to find your bro.”
“But… Tess weakly replied.
Lizzy walked over and sliced off the metal cuffs holding the deceased feline to the table. She tossed Liz over her shoulder. “Crying later, Zen now.”
Tess wiped her eyes. She was annoyed door Lizzy’s indifference, but she agreed. “Okay.”
*DONG!* The doors around them locked down, and a dome went over them, lit with a strange blue energy.
“… The trap.” zei Lizzy. “So who’s controlling it?” Metallic arms grabbed them both door the arms and legs. Tess was dragged to the side, but Lizzy was yanked down onto the table. She yanked at the arms to avail, growling furiously with her teeth grinding.
“Now let’s begin.” A voice zei from what sounded like a sound system. And very soon after, a red energy started surging into Lizzy. She screamed, she screamed a lot in fact. Her eyes began to glow with the same red color, as did her vacht, bont at some point. Then the room powered down.
The arms relaxed for both Tess and Lizzy, and as soon as they did, “Dead…” The now very ticked off feline blasted off the table, cracking it as she kicked off. She landed with a thud on the ground.
She was vibrating with the energy, cringing repeatedly, as if she was about to blow.
“Li-lizzy…?” Tess wasn’t sure if Lizzy was under control of just mad.
“Let’s… get out…” Lizzy forced out. Tess sighed in relief.
An observation room above them broke open, with Zen and a suited Hyren (the name of their species) crashing onto the floor.
“You’re… welcome…” Zen groaned as he slowly got off of the man he fell on top, boven of, clutching his stomach.
Lizzy growled at the man and lifted him from the ground. He was unconscious. “Whatever u just put in me’s about to go to work.” She raised her hand to the ceiling and blasted it open with a red energy beam.
Then she heard him… he was mumbling…some kind of code. “SELF-DESTRUCTION!!!” Tess yelled in assumption. Lizzy grabbed them both once again and jumped upward charging further and further upward till they reached the ceiling of a wolkenkrabber which they passed through.
They landed away from the city, in a large desert area near them, where Lizzy sat them down before staggering back. “What’s wrong?” Zen asked.
Lizzy rushed away before answering. Zen messed up his face a bit with a very confused look. “Is… she afraid of getting notic-“ a giant red explosion of energy went off in the direction Lizzy rushed towards.
Zen would have ran towards the sight of the explosion if he was not still recovering from his fall. Tess however darted off instantly, without looking back.
“Wait a second…” Zen thought. Then the building blew up. “… Well okay then.”
Tess saw what looked to be a burned-to-a-crisp corpse. She could not get close enough to it to make sure. The crater left door the explosion was too hot. “Lizzy…” She zei weakly. If this were a movie, of something Tess was watching, she would have found a line such as this to be overly dramatic. But the fact is that this was not a movie; she had just seen someone die, someone who had seen her.
Zen noticed Tess walking back, tears and all. He knew what she found. “I wanted to bring the body back… but… I couldn’t get close enough…” She whispered between silent whimpers.
Soon after the police arrived; some inspected the crater, and some the building. Tess and Zen left the man with the police. They could do nothing about him then. What would they do? Take him to their basement and interrogate him? And what then? Kill him? No, these teenagers were not ready to do anything supernatural of extreme for as long as they could.
What had become a zoek for a kidnapped friend opened up to the discovery of a super-powered cat girl, an underground terrorist group (or at least that is what they assumed it was), dozens of files that were left with them in a crunched up trash can, and multiple forms of death.
They made it back home pagina to find no one home, and they would not find anyone home pagina until an uur later. When their parents asked why they did not call they made the excuse that they found Zen’s phone but they were taken door the police and had to get them back from the station. They hoped that their parents would not bring up this topic in the future.
Tess spent the volgende dag in her room. Zen hid the horror he felt, and went about things normally. But neither could keep themselves from tonen at least some emotion when at Liz Delma’s Funeral five days later. Lizzy Eventide’s they did not hear about. They could not talk to her parents, they could not do anything suspicious, but it was almost as if no one even rememberd her. of noticed she was gone. Why?
Zen and Tess walked out of the school to the first snow of December; a Thursday, the fourth. They were… silent for most of the walk, until Tess asked “Do u want to go talk to her parents today?”
“… We could I suppose.” Tess replied. “… Did u ask the Principal?”
Tess’s tone darkened, “She didn’t even notice that Lizzy was gone.”
“Why do we even care?! She was mean and she… I just…”
“Let’s just… talk to her parents.”
They arrived at the house much later due to the treading in the snow. *knock* … *knock knock* … *knock knock knock knock kn-* The door flew open with Mrs. Eventide glaring then softening at the two of them. “Yes?” She asked sternly.
“Um… Mrs. Eventide?” Tess greeted nervously
“Yes.”
“We… met your daughter Lizzy and we wanted to s-“
“Oh don’t worry about that, if she bothered u I’ll have a word with ya. She’s… troubling to say the least.”
“What!?” Tess yelled before covering her mouth.
“That’s not what u came here for? What are u carolers? She’s not even home pagina right now, do u want something else?”
“We –“
“We’ll be leaving.” Zen intervened. Mrs. Eventide nodded and closed the door. Tess and Zen walked back towards their home pagina flabbergasted.
“W-… Was… she lying about her name?” Zen finally spoke.
“She might have been… If she did then she might now even have a family.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised regardless.”
Her eyes fixed on the two chameleons for a moment. She stood a good distance away. She did not want to reveal anything just yet, they needed to recover, but she needed to know if they had told anyone anything. That and she would need help deciphering the flashdrive in her hand… The Phantis File.
End of Chapter One
G-Sil was getting stronger door the minute, while Silhouette was getting weaker. Everyone tried helping, but whatever damage they did to G-Sil, she would transfer it to Silhouette. Eventually the city became destroyed in the process. And we are where we are now. G-Sil chokeing a half-dead Silhouette above a pond. G-Sil could've dropped her at any second, but she wanted Silhouette to suffer first. Claws screamed "Don't hurt her anymore!" "YEAH!" agreed Shock. But G-Sil couldn't be negotiated with. If u listened closely, u could hear Silhouette's limbs creaking. She truly was in pain. And no one knew what might happen next........
Stay tuned for Part 5!!!!!!!!!!
(FC's belong to original owners!)
Stay tuned for Part 5!!!!!!!!!!
(FC's belong to original owners!)
If u would like ur fan Character uploaded as our icoon soemtime please send me a link of ur character of an icoon u already have.
It really helps and might even bring u closer to our club.
Im doing this because I feel like a jerk for not posting many other icons, made door others.
Please send me some linken below in the commentary.
Ur help is really appreciated and send me some ideas ide really like that aswell.
Also it would be really cool if u could give them a background of some sort in the picture.
It really helps and might even bring u closer to our club.
Im doing this because I feel like a jerk for not posting many other icons, made door others.
Please send me some linken below in the commentary.
Ur help is really appreciated and send me some ideas ide really like that aswell.
Also it would be really cool if u could give them a background of some sort in the picture.