Olympus

Chapter 30

Before Martin or any of his men could comprehend what Jay was driving at, the chains used to restrain him suddenly grew red-hot- apparently they had been heating up since before he spoke up- and exploded, releasing almost the same type of pulse energy the men had used against the group earlier. The energy hit and the men fell backwards, a lot of them knocked out cold in the process.

Jay rushed out of his seat just as the energy blew and got to Adolf when the men were falling down, putting his hands on his chains to melt them instantly on contact. "Thanks, man," the latter greeted as he got back to his feet, stretching his wings to test their recovery.

A shot rang out just then but Adolf stretched his wing in front of Jay to shield him from a bullet that would have found home in his back and it ricocheted away harmlessly. The two of them turned to see that Martin and a few of his men were still on their feet.

"Get the others," Adolf instructed Jay who immediately complied and the former covered him with his wings all the way.

The rescue succeeded, Jay led Megan, Kei, and Ricardo who looked somewhat groggy, behind a pile of rubble for cover and Adolf joined them soon after.

"Oh, I'm so going to kill those guys!" Kei fumed as she shook her legs which seemed to have not recovered itself fully from the freeze.

"Actually, I think we have something more pressing to worry about," Megan said as she pointed somewhere for the group to look.

Thing is, while they were still making their escape, one of Martin's men had gone to a panel in the warehouse's floor and pressed it to reveal a hidden compartment out of which he removed a containment box and passed it to Martin.

"That's the real Item 13," Jay caught on to what was going on, "Martin's going to take it out of Chersky while we're pinned down here."

"Not if I have anything to say about it." Kei suddenly pulled out a handful of shurikens out of her back pocket and sprang out from behind the cover. She caught a man on every throw; pulling another set after that one was spent, and another one after that.

Unfortunately, the freeze to her leg impeded her superspeed and Martin easily saw her coming up behind him. "Not today, princess," he said with a wily smile as he pulled out what turned out to be a sort of ray gun from his pocket and shot a stream of ice in her path.

Kei caught and slipped on the ice before she could stop herself; its sudden appearance in her path and the forced speed she was using to run causing her torpedo past Martin into the wall behind him, cursing and groaning on impact.

Jay blasted the men with fiery energies to prevent any of them from putting a bullet into Kei still on the floor and Adolf flew over their heads to retrieve her.

But in the middle of chaos, Martin made his escape through the warehouse's back entrance and only Megan saw him.

I can't let him get away with Item 13, she thought to herself. That's the reason why I'm here after all.

Checking to be sure of the safety, she darted out from behind the cover and towards the back entrance after him, but no sooner had she touched the door to open it that one of the men suddenly tackled her to the ground. "No interference allowed!" he yelled as he struggled to pin her to the ground and she resisted.

"Get off me!" she yelled back at him, kicking and scratching as fiercely she could, but he was stronger and it soon became obvious that she would lose.

Out of nowhere, a shot suddenly rang out and the man fell to the side; Megan's eyes following to see that he had caught a bullet in the head. She looked back to see Ricardo with a pistol in his hand aimed in her direction.

"Are you okay?" he mouthed at her.

"I'm fine, thanks for the save," she mouthed back, adding a thumbs up in case he couldn't read it.

He did though and slumped back against the rubble, apparently still not recovered enough to join in the fight.

Megan's quick encounter with the man that had pinned her down opened her eyes to the understanding that she couldn't just go up against Martin without a weapon. If his men are as dangerous as this, she considered, he's bound to be even more so. Looking through the dead man's pocket, she came upon a pistol and grabbed it before she started off after her escaping quarry again.

Truth be told, Megan didn't like guns. In fact, she hated weapons in general. They're the prized possessions of the violents, she believed; and for reasons she would rather not think about then, the violents were a bunch that was like nightmare to her.

Unfortunately, if she was going to stand any chance against Martin Greene and his plan to get Item 13 out of Chersky for whatever reason it was, she needed to let go of that dislike, at least for that moment; and so, she pointed the gun forward and ran without hesitation into a small deciduous forest behind the warehouse she saw him enter.

Bursting out of the forest, Megan saw Martin racing towards a pier on which a chopper already stood waiting for him. Oh no, you don't, she thought and shot a bullet into the air. "Stop or the next one goes through you!" she shouted and pointed the gun straight forward.

Martin stopped, seemly rooted to the spot by her threat.

"Drop the box." He did. "Hands in the air." He complied. "Turn around, slowly."

It was almost like an eternity before Martin finally turned completely, but when he did, a huge grin lit his face such that Megan suddenly began to feel apprehensive.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"You," he replied, still grinning unabashedly. "You see, I know who you are, Megan Months. I know your secret, and I know that you don't have the guts to shoot me, especially not after "the incident.""