Noble Revelations

by Adeleke Kayode

  I looked at Carter feeling as confused as I have ever felt in my life. “What are you talking about?”

  Carter narrowed his eyes for a moment and shook his head. “See that’s why I never talk about…it’s my fault don’t you get it…..”

  Baaaaarp baaaaaarp baaaaaarp. Carter’s eyes wondered away toward the gunfire, I had a feeling someone was trying to get our attention. It took me a moment but I managed to get up with Carter and Alastor’s help. Carter was glaring at Alastor the entire time but then he looked at the riot police and started heading toward the gunfire.

  “You ok to walk?” Tessa asked.

  “Alex please. I’ve seen him get shocked before and still crack a joke after he’ll be fine.” William commented as he marched forward.

  Tessa barely looked at William then glanced at me before heading out, I took a deep breath then nodded to myself and started jogging forward. Once I did I noticed the thunderous sound of our footsteps marching forward. There were at least thirty of us heading toward the sound of gunfire. As we marched on I remembered my days in the army, this was how we moved and this was how it felt to be in a warzone. I could feel my heart beating, the adrenaline was there and two thoughts came to mind one was how whoever wanted our attention had no idea what was in store for them and two what was Carter talking about?

  “What was his fault?” I whispered to myself.

  My words were easily drowned out by the clamor of us marching forward heading off to battle. Baaaarp baaaaarp baaaaarp the sound of gunfire seemed to be the only thing that pierced through the clamor of our marching. We were getting closer it didn’t take long before other sounds became more apparently namely people screaming.

  Chapter 18

  “Aaaaaaaaaaah!”

  “Why is this happening?”

  “Someone help us!”

  “No….no…aaaaaaaah.”

  People were running all over the place baaaaarp baaaaaarp bullets whizzed through the air barely missing some of the escaping citizens. In my gut I felt like the shooter did it on purpose, enjoying the sense of fear that was building as people scurried about. Based on what I was seeing it seemed like people just started evacuating. Mobs upon mobs of people were running about crowding the streets baaaarp baaaaarp baaaaarp. Then a wave of gunfire, followed by a cacophony of terrified screams. People ran all about crying and yelling hysterically, it was nightmarish really. I found myself bewildered for a moment as I looked all around me.

  Baaaaaarp baaaaarp baaaaaarp, I could see gunfire rain down from some of the overhead buildings mostly the taller ones. There were at least six along this block alone. Fortunately the majority of the gunfire came from two buildings that weren’t that far apart. I wasn’t the only one who noticed where the gunfire was coming from, since the riot police were already taking aim at one of the buildings. That meant that the other building was up to the others and me to deal with.

  We didn’t come up with a plan or anything, no instead we went with a very simple approach all aiming our guns at the appropriate floors. Three…two…one…

  “Now!”

  Baaaaaaaaaaarp baaaaaaarp baaarpbaarpbaaaaarp gunfire erupted from both sides speeee speeee glass shattered raining down from the buildings above to the streets below.

  “Aaaaaaah.” A group of civilians cried out while covering their heads from the falling debris.

  Some of them froze in place out of fear, my body started to move in their direction but it was already too late, they had been zipped away from danger in a matter of seconds. I glanced at Tessa to see her wiping her brow as she faked fatigue. I smiled to myself then stopped immediately once I had a good look at the street ahead of me. The road was covered with a number of cars parked obscurely while others were turned over and left derelict. Civilians were scattered around looking lost and confused while most were hiding. Baaaaarp baaaaarp baaaaaarp

  “Look out.” I yelled.

  Rolling forward I avoided the first wave of gunfire then sprinted ahead. Bullets flew passed me, a number hit me in the chest. Luckily for me they weren’t high powered rounds, yet something seemed off, the bullets felt like they were still moving digging their way into my chest. Without another thought in my head I reached for the bullets, they were vibrating so it wasn’t easy to get a hold of them but I managed to remove them one by one. Baaaaaarp baaaaaarp….fwhhho fwwwwho fwwwhho AJ and I released a volley of blasts as cover fire, allowing the others the chance to move forward. Baaaaarp baaaaaarp baaaaarp, gunfire came from down the street. Baaaaarp baaaaaarp….Carter and the others began laying down cover fire giving me the chance to take cover behind one of the cars that was left abandoned in the middle of the street.

  One…two…three. I broke cover and aimed my rifle down the street, for the first time since our enemies started shooting from their position down the street I could see them clearly as they approached. They seemed confident too confident so I figured I should do something about it. I waited for a moment for them to get closer then moved my finger to the trigger wrapping it around then squeezed. Baaaaarp baaaaaarp baaaaaarp a barrage of bullets exploded forth and zoomed toward their targets. I downed two instantly but the third was a little smarter. He rolled into cover behind a truck nearby. It didn’t seem like he was going to come out of cover anytime soon so I waited for just a second before slowly slinking back into cover.

  “Why is this happening?” A nearby civilian cried.

  By peering out of cover I could see that it was a woman with long dark hair that covered her face, she was covered in scratches and huddle by the corner of a nearby building. She looked up just for a moment so I smiled trying to reassure her. Baaarp a single gunshot went off then the woman fell backward laying down flat. A red stain appeared on her chest and grew while a puddle of blood began seeping out. I blinked just once while a hollow feeling washed over me, I felt cold all over, the sadness was overwhelming. It was strange really I had seen death before, a number of times actually, I have taken lives yet as of late it was impossible for me to be as detached as I was before.

  My emotional level was slowly but sure working its way back to what it was before whatever event caused me to be so detached in the first place. This wasn’t the first time I noticed it. There was the time during my mission in South America when I was trying to rescue Conner Creed.

  “Ahahaha, oh my god did you see that. She just went down, just like that.”

  The laughing of a callous person snapped me out of my train of thought, it started off like a spark but the rage grew quickly and suddenly I clenched my fist while turning my attention toward the man that was laughing.

  “Hey watch this.”

  Baaaarp baaaaarp baaaaarp gunfire erupted then followed by screams and silence. I didn’t have to look around to know that one of the other gunmen had shot a number of the civilians. It was a mixture of hot and cold, from sadness to rage. It felt sickened like a roller-coaster with the safety off, the sadness and anger fluctuating. Instead of wallowing in my feelings I decided to act first by dropping my rifle so it hung by its strapped. Then I took out one of the Remington handguns from my belt with my right hand and aimed it forward as I made my way out of cover. My target was in sight grinning ear to ear while his comrade spoke I ignored whatever they were saying because it wasn’t important.

  Standing straight with my right arm stretch forward, the Remington was level, my finger moved toward the trigger just about to squeeze when….beeeershooo. I felt the rocket rushed by while I followed the trail of smoke it left behind, my eyes bounced around following it quickly as it zigzagged for a moment then steadied forward. Boooooom the ground shook as the truck with the grinning man exploded. I didn’t feel sad for the man just surprised. Who had fired the rocket? It wasn’t a rhetorical question I intended to find out, right now.

  I pivoted one hundred and eighty degrees to look behind me in a quick motion and act if need be. Turns out I had made the right call, I aimed the Remington forward just as the rocket launcher was reloa
ded. The man holding the rocket launcher had a red mohawk and smiled at me with gapped teeth. Beessshooo…..baaarp the man with the red mohawk was down with one shot to the head but his rocket was still soaring at me. The rocket moved faster than I thought it would so I didn’t even bother trying to avoid it instead I focused on the thought of hygrometal coating my body in a protective silver shell.

  The very second the hygrometal had finished covering my body was the moment the rocket hit. At first it felt like nothing happened but that was only half a second before the explosion….BOOOOM fire and smoke erupted. I was knocked off my feet and then yank backward by the force luckily for me I managed to go over the car heading straight for the ground. The moment I hit the ground I started rolling uncontrollably while the hygrometal receded, that too wasn’t my choice.

  “Alex? Alex are you alright?” William asked.

  “Aha ha…hhhh…yeah…fine just…fine. Shit Shield makes that look easy.”

  I said the words while working my way back onto my feet. The first thing I noticed was that I hadn’t completely gone over the car since a part of the hood looked like it had been scrapped clean off. I guess clean was a bit of an exaggeration it looked more like someone had meticulously and crazily scrapped it off. I can’t exactly vouch for the meticulous part but I was definitely the crazy part of that equation.

  “That’s strange.”

  “What’s strange?” Tessa asked.

  “It got quiet all of a sudden. That or my hearing is a bit messed up.”

  Tessa snorted a laugh which made me hold back a chuckle. Then Alastor walked forward looking at the car that I had just went across.

  “It’s quiet alright and you use your friend’s power a lot don’t you.” Alastor’s tone sounded like he was curious about something so I just looked at him for a moment.

  “Yeah what of it.”

  “Nothing. I mean you could have just used my telekinesis but instead you decide to tank a rocket.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Alastor preparing to say something to counter his comment when I heard two distinct sounds. One sounded like buzzing like a large bee which I doubted, or maybe an engine of some sort, the other was a large number of footsteps. It didn’t take long for the owners of the footsteps to show themselves as they started surrounding us. It didn’t help that we were near an intersection of sorts. I looked around as a number of gunmen trained their guns on us, the odd silver lining was that they all looked like they were separate groups meaning they were just as much enemies to each other as they were to us. Well almost as much since with us there were dollar signs with the other guys came an unnecessary headache.

  I looked at the others one by one from William to Tessa, Mathew, Alastor, AJ, and Carter we all had the same determined looked on our faces. As for the riot police I couldn’t really tell since they were wearing helmets with visors that obscured their faces. I didn’t even bother glancing at the people Alastor had brought with him. There was a slight click sound as a number of the gunmen moved their fingers closers to the triggers of their respective weapons. I could hear my heartbeat not solely out of some sort of fear but from the adrenaline that was being pumped into my veins. It’s odd really how used to this I was. There wasn’t too much that would completely catch me off guard or at least nothing that could leave me stunned and stupefied.

  “So how do you guys want to do this?” I asked out loud.

  “Maybe you guys could do rock, paper, scissors. Or some sort of variation were the losers get shot in the head. You know what, that would be perfect if you guys could be so kind and just do it that way it would make things a lot easier on us.” Carter made sure to speak with an obviously sarcastic tone.

  I could tell the others were probably somewhat annoyed but I was smiling a little. I tried not to show it but I was used to the fact that Carter did this kind of things especially in desperate situations such as these. There was a short pause after Carter finished speaking, no one seemed to be doing anything until…

  “Soooo, are we gonna play rock paper scissors or what?”

  It was almost too much to bear, I was holding back from cracking up and just laughing out loud so I took a deep breath and said.

  “You know, I guess this would be a good time to follow Alastor’s advice.”

  I made sure to look Mathew and Alastor in the eyes while I spoke then I took note of the amount of cars surrounding us. My fingers wiggled as I dangled them at my side. I imagined large invisible hands grabbing holding of the cars in front of me. Some of the cars moved slightly which got some of the gunmen a little jumpy. Once it moved again some of them fired that’s when I yanked the cars in my direction Baaaaaarp baaaaaarp baaaaaaarp, all the gunmen let loose and fired while cars moved in all directions shielding us by creating a parameter. By the looks of it Alastor and Mathew had done most of the heavy lifting, moving more cars than I had into position. Baaaarp baaaaarp bullets shredded through a car parked in front of me and continued through my right shoulder.

  The pain was electric forcing me to drop my Remington, Tessa was the first to notice. I didn’t say anything but the look on my face was enough, I was in pain. Not wanting to look helpless I bent down and attempted to pick up the Remington with my right hand. It was like moving the claw in one of those claw machines, my arm sort of dangled and moved in the direction I wanted but didn’t stay still.

  Pain embed from my wound but I wouldn’t let it become a problem, taking in a deep breath, I grabbed the Remington and move into a crouched position. The cars were acting as descent shields for now but they wouldn’t hold forever. We still needed to be vigilant and dodge a good portion of the gunfire. Some of us didn’t have to work as hard as the others seeing as a number of Alastor’s men went down once the shooting started. Which now that I thought about it, it seemed to be letting up, and there was that strange buzzing sound that was much louder now than it was before.

  It took me a moment before I realize what it was by then it was already casting a shadow which caused all the gunfire to stop. Everyone single one of us looked up into the sky to see a large black and gray flying carrier aircraft fly into view. Its shadow eclipsed us for a moment as it continued forward buzzing away. It was fitting that it would sound like a bug considering it looked a great deal like a Hercules beetle. The beetle airship moved a couple hundred feet forward before stopping, it was pretty close to us considering its size.

  “What the hell is that thing?”

  “If they got that kind of money. What do they need with the bounty?”

  “Yeah, you got a point there.”

  He did have a point which made me realize that these were no ordinary mercenaries, they were an elite team here to take us out to send a message to Mr. Bright. Refreshing really that after all the people who wanted us dead just because we’ve been unintentional thorns in Prometheus side these people just wanted to get a message across. Unfortunately for us it required our lives. In this scenario Mr. Bright was their endgame, yet either way it was our lives on the line.

  “Maybe I just have bad luck.” I said to myself.

  The second I finished speaking a weird peeerp sound entered the air then a few gunmen went down peeeerp peeeerp peeeeerp, I heard the sound three more times and a large number of gunmen went down. I looked around when I heard the sound again and registered that it was a type of sniper rifle. There was a number of them at least four each of the snipers were firing in quick spurts that normally would have impressed me if I was not in their line of sight. Peeeerp peeeerp peeeer baaaaarp baaaaarp baaaarp, it didn’t take long before the rest of the mercenaries decided to start fighting back. Unfortunately for them that’s when the guys firing at them kicked things up a notch and returned fire with assault rifles as well. It wasn’t long after the gunfire started that it stopped completely. I felt tense knowing I was probably in the crosshairs of at least one of the snipers. Realizing that for now I couldn’t locate them with my eyes, I decided to use my ears instead.

  First I
closed my eyes and blocked out everything that got in the way of finding the snipers. It took me a moment but I could fill out the buildings with the subtle vibrations coming from the slight movements of each of the snipers. It would seem my sonar hearing was improving but now wasn’t the time to be impressed with myself. Once I focused I could hear breathing from Tessa and the others but most importantly there was breathing that was slower than everyone else’s, it was calmer then there was a pause….peeeerp. Without even thinking I sidestep getting grazed by a bullet. At first it felt like nothing happened then there was a warm sting on my cheek followed by blood.

  “He’s really as good as his file says. Let’s see about the others shall we.”

  My eyes open wide as I heard those words, my body turned toward the others moving in slow motion. My mouth began to move, I didn’t know exactly how to warn them but it appeared to be too late….peeeerp peeeeerp peeeeerp. Baaarwwaaa….paaah…paaah…,paaah…bullets bounced off of a seemingly invisible barrier. It didn’t take me long to realize the barrier was Carter and Mathew’s doing through the combine use of their powers. Even though the sniper rounds weren’t working that didn’t stop them from being fired paaah…paaaah….paaaah bullets kept bouncing of the barrier until the snipers were all out of rounds. For a moment I figured they would give up when I heard a sort of whooshing sound that I normal associated with teleportation.

  And wouldn’t you know it in several brilliant flashes of light a number of soldiers in white riot like armor appeared. There was one standing in the middle who wore a cloak and hood which resembled something I’d seen Shield wear. Upon closer inspection I notice that the visors of their helmets were purple which was just a minor detail really. Baaaaarp baaaarp baaaarp….thud, my eyes opened wide in a matter of seconds the riot police were all down along with the remainder of Alastor’s squad. The soldiers in front of me hadn’t drawn their weapons. So who had shot…a couple more soldiers marched from behind the soldiers that currently stood in front of us, from the looks of it they had been positioned behind the riot police.