The Gemini Age: Book One

[4-2] Chance Meeting - Part Two

    Rubber bullets from the cloudy distance struck the joints of the two fighters that held the brothers, and the pain caused their grips to loosen and drop them both to the road. Two trails of fire flared down the path taken by the motorcycle, and as the heat died out a chill breeze bit into the gang members' exposed skin and stiffened their aching muscles. Fiona split the air with the revving of her bike's engine. "Couldn't you lot have picked a better time to mess around?" she cried with her gun aimed at one of the two fighters still standing.

    Three more fighters ran from the other car, and Wilfred threw another cold breeze their way to slow them down. His eyes found the stirring forms of the brothers shining against the black asphalt. "Fi, we need to get those boys out of here!" he cried as a bolt of fire skimmed past the vehicle's dull paint.

    Fiona fired a couple of shots before she slung her weapon in her holster and worked the motorcycle's engine again. She aimed her bike at the brothers, but a wall of earth rose from the side of the road and collapsed in front of her, blocking the brothers from her view. Her swerve was too late to affect her course, and Wilfred had to take his eyes off the reinforcements to propel them away from the dirt mound with a blast of air. Metal screeched against the road, the gravel in the dirt crunched, and the tyres squealed against the wet grass as the bike slid towards the rocks on the beach. Fighting to keep her balance, Fiona cursed and leapt from the bike, dragging Wilfred's form into the grass with her.

    Dirt fell from Lloyd's shoulders as he stood up, his attention divided between his brother's awakening and the crashed motorcycle in the grass. "Hey, it's that guy from the apartment building," he whispered to Marcus by his side. "Wasn't he just some politician though? What's he doing here?"

    Marcus spat out a grain of dirt and looked over at the bike. The driver staggered to her feet, and the man soon followed, fire flying from his hands as he did so. "I'm not complaining," Marcus said in relief. A shake of his head revitalised his confidence, and he grabbed Lloyd's shoulder. "Come on, we have to help out."

    Lloyd nodded and shaped a ramp off the road out of the dirt scattered around them, his eyes glancing over his shoulder to check if the enemies noticed his movements. As soon as the ramp stood tall, Marcus leapt out and thrust a bolt of fire into the middle of the figures that swarmed the crashed bike, the brightness of the flame stunning his opponents. Following his brother, Lloyd dismantled the ramp into a battery of rocky projectiles to lob at the remaining enemies, pelting them back as he approached the sea. He felt the cool energy of the waves nearby and smiled as the first streams of water flowed through the air at his wish.

    An enemy reached for Fiona's gun, but she grabbed their hand and twisted their fingers back until they snapped. Wilfred blew a column of air forward, yet as soon as he finished that move, another opponent fired a wave of flame at him. Moving with greater confidence, Lloyd sent a jet of water into the crowd of gang members and destroyed the stone hammer wielded by the woman, but she smirked and formed another without stalling. "Uh, not to be that guy, but we don't seem to be wearing them down at all," he said, ducking under a flurry of sharp stones. "In fact, if anything, they're only getting angrier!"

    A large scythe of fire burned towards them, and Marcus caught his footing in time to split it apart. "And there are more in that car, just waiting to join in," he remarked as he indicated the shadowy figures in the other SUV. "We need to get out of here."

    Fiona crouched behind a waist-high wall made by Lloyd and fired into the knees of the attackers. "Bike's out of commission. Don't suppose you Hot folks can whip us up a convenient air current or something?" she asked.

    Struggling to stop the wind from buffeting them, Wilfred clenched his jaw as he spoke. "Not under this much pressure, no!"

    A horn sounded out from a short distance down the road. It was a distinctive sound, a bassy rumble that seemed to shake the world as it called out, the kind of sound difficult to find among mass-produced vehicles. Without further warning, the ground around the road rose, groaned, and fell over the gang members, with only a single passage left between the two piles of earth. Into that passage sped a striking white saloon car which, though it tore over the road, seemed to glide in near-silence. The car drifted past the debris and stopped, letting out two people. "Is that..." Wilfred gasped, then let his face fall into stony irritation.