“I do not wish to waste energy,” the leader one said with a smile, as he advanced. “So will you kindly move out of my way?”
“Aldrei!” Vinga cried in her native tongue. “Anaki, stand your ground!”
The man’s smile faded, but his dagger didn’t stop turning. Vinga looked at it, then tore her eyes away from it to glare into the eyes of her competitor. “You defy me?” the man asked.
“Ég mun aldrei skila að óvinurinn," she spat, raising her fists. She didn‘t have any weapons, but she knew she wouldn't let them pass.
“Have it your way, then,” he said. He pulled a pistol from his waist and shot it at Anaki. Vinga yelped as the girl crumpled. Red bloomed from her chest.
Vinga turned back to the enemy. “Þú ert öll skrímsli! Þú verður að borga!" she screamed.
“I don’t understand you,” the leader with the gun said slowly, giving her a mock sympathetic look.
“You will die!” she screamed. “Fyrir Scandinavia!" She sprung at the first one. She flung him to the floor and the gun rolled away. Before she could reach for it, she felt something hard hit the back of her head. Fireworks sprung to her eyes, and she fell to the side. In the matter of a few seconds, the leader had grabbed the gun and was back on his feet. Vinga tried to scramble to her feet, but she was too slow. She heard the click of the gun being cocked, then the loud echo of the shot echoing down the hallway. Pain burst into her shoulder, then started spreading to the rest of her body. She fell again, then started to convulse.
The leader walked up to her, looking down at her. He pointed the gun at her head and she closed her eyes. "Well, now we know where she is from," she heard him say.
Then she heard nothing.
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“Crap.” That was Rebecca’s first real word since her injury. She would have smiled at the thought if she hadn’t been so peeved. It was just like her to be so clumsy as to drop her crutches down the stairs. What did the world need stairs for, anyway? She could definitely do without them.
“Hey, what poor soul lost their crutches?” came a voice at the bottom of the stairs.
“That poor soul would be me,” she answered, aggravated. As the person walked up the stairs, Rebecca realized she didn’t recognize him.
“Goodness, me!” he said dramatically. “How could it be that such a lowly pedestrian as me could chance to be the Bearer of the Crutches for such a lovely maiden, a princess, perhaps?”
“Please. Cut me the act,” Rebecca answered, rolling her eyes. She didn’t need this right now.
The boy stuck out his bottom lip in a pout. “Why be thee so grumpy, o ye distressed damsel?” he asked.
“You don’t know anything,” she said. It had been a bad day. A bad week. A bad month, actually. Her life recently had been just a big ball of bleak and frustrating badness. He seemed too happy for her taste. She took the crutches from him.
“Shall I carry thee down the treacherous stairs, my lady?” he questioned, arms open.
“No thank you,” she replied steely. She didn’t need his help, but he didn’t take the hint.
“Then shall I accompany thee so that if thy crutches leave thee I may retrieve them once again?”
Rebecca allowed herself a smile then knew right afterwards that it had been a mistake. Quickly, she changed it back into a glare, but she was too late. The boy had seen it.
“Ah, so the King’s Daughter does smile. How can we manage a laugh? Shall I get a golden goose?” Rebecca had to try desperately not to smile again. Her lips twitched, and she looked away so that the boy couldn’t see. She started down the stairs as quickly as her handicapped body would allow. Apparently, it wasn’t very fast because the boy stayed with her. “Doth the lovely princess have a name?”
Rebecca didn’t want to give anything away, but she hoped that if she played along for a bit the boy would be satisfied and would go away. “Rebecca,” she said.
“Oh, a lovely name! Princess Rebecca. I very much like it.”
“Um, just Rebecca.”
“As you wish.”
There was silence for a bit. Rebecca always hated silence. And she couldn’t help herself. “What is your name?” she asked.
“I am Rian Allen, son of Daren and Rachel, grandson of Quin and Marie. My lineage is of Ireland and parts of Italy, as well as Germany and England, but I call myself an American, for I was born and raised here, as was my father, my mother, and her father and mother, Brandon and Opal,” he replied.
“That’s…nice.” Rebecca wondered if he recited that to every person he introduced himself to or if she was just special. Yup, she decided. Curiosity really did kill the cat.
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Griffin saw nothing. Just nothing. No women, no shelves, no nothing. It was just this large black object. He then felt a strange pull to the black object. He saw one of the objects from a shelf suddenly fly to the center of the blackness and it disappeared. Griffin knew that he couldn't allow himself to go in there. He saw Janaya fighting against the black hole that he had created, but was being slowly drawn toward it too. Griffin also saw the enemies being dragged into it. He reached out for Janaya, who clasped on to his wrist. Griffin then grabbed a shelf and, with Janaya's help, started to walk away from the growing black hole. He grabbed another shelf. The shelf that he had just used to get himself and Janaya to that shelf lifted up and flew to the hole. Then the shelf that they had been using started to shiver, then picked itself up and started to fly to the black hole, dragging Griffin and Janaya along with it.
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"May I ask how the lovely Rebecca hurt herself so much that she was in need of crutches?" Rian asked. Rebecca didn't answer, but tried to give him an evil glare. Rian knew that she knew that her evil glare didn't work on him.
"I'd rather not." She replied. She kept limping along, trying to forget the question. Rian knew that that was what she was thinking. He had always been good at reading faces and body language.
"So what class do you have next?" Rian asked. Rebecca flinched. Rian didn't know why, even with his talent.
"Ummm, dance.." Rebecca replied. Rian knew where the dance room was. It was in the opposite direction of where they were walking. He played along with her though.
"Then we are walking in the wrong direction. Shall I accompany you to the dance room?"
"No." Rebecca replied. Rian raised an eyebrow. She was acting in a very strange way.
"What is it? You can tell me." Rian asked in his normal voice and tone. Rebecca looked tempted to tell him her secret. She then shook her head as if she was telling herself that it wasn't a good idea.
She then turned around and left Rian, flicking her hair in the process. Rian knew that he would see her again sometime. Rebecca turned around a corner and Rian heard an odd swooshing sound. He ran around the corner to see what had happened, but Rebecca was nowhere to be seen. There was nothing there. How could she have disappeared like that so fast? The minute bell rang, and Rian ran to his next class, still confused about what had just happened.
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Sarah tased the man, but it didn’t do anything. Big surprise. She had also figured out that this man wasn’t really a man, but a robot. As he stepped into the light, she could see a soft glow ripple across his skin like a silver wave. His arms were stiff, gently swinging at his sides. His bare arms flexed with the movement, but the muscles were too defined, too perfect. Tyler shot an arrow at it and the arrow stuck, but the robot man continued to advance. Sarah took out her sword. Maybe if she could cut its head off…?
It stopped. Sarah paused. Stop, it said. One word. The voice was gravelly, techno, almost static, as if two open speakers were being rubbed together.
“Why?” Tyler asked. Sarah glared at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at the robot.
You have passed the test. Welcome, Agent Tyler Ray and Agent Sarah West, agents of Heritage Incorporated Agency. The sentence was broken, the emphasis on some of the wrong words and syllables, but they got the meaning. They only thing they didn’t understand was how it knew who they were and what it meant.
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