PART SIX: CHANGING CIRCUMSTANCES

The moment the first wave of soldiers approached the camp, Sam raised his hand. His pulse energy crackling in the air like a thunderstorm. He created a cube in his hand splitting it apart into dozens of glowing segments each floating for a fraction of a second before launching across the battlefield like miniature missiles, slamming into the armored soldiers and flipping a hovercraft onto the cliffs.

Jax was already moving. His pulse-infused sword glowed as he cut through Coalition soldier's armor, sparks flew as enemy soldiers fell one by one.

Lila fired from cover, her shots precise. Bullet casings fell beneath her as she fired rounds at the soldiers, keeping them from advancing forward.

From the ridge, Kieran and Kalduram unleashed their own brand of chaos. Kieran’s twin pistols discharged ricocheting energy bolts with incredible precision. Besides him, Kalduram raised his hands forming energy shields that blocked the soldiers bullets as they hit the impact. His shimmering wall of force twisted and curved, responding to the battlefield’s flow. A soldier fired a high-impact plasma round but Kalduram flicked his wrist and the shield absorbed the shot and then fired it back at triple its initial velocity, taking out three of the Coalition soldiers in an instant. 

Kieran whistled. “Show-off,” he muttered, twirling his pistols before squeezing off another round.

Thalia moved through the chaos like a ghost, weaving between soldiers, using her dual-handguns taking them out by firing at their legs. A drone zipped toward her, scanning for a shot. She vaulted over it, flipping in midair, and shot straight through its core, watching as it collapsed in a heap of smoldering metal.

“Nice moves!” Sam called, spinning his cube into a blazing energy spear. He hurled it at an advancing mech trooper, watching as it pierced through the chest plate and detonated on impact.

Thalia smirked. “Try to keep up.”

Near the ridge, Rome and Priya stood at the center of the chaos, their own powers unleashing devastation.

Rome raised his hands, summoning a massive gravitational field that crushed the Coalition soldiers beneath its weight, pinning them to the ground. The air rippled around him as he increased the gravity further, the screams of the trapped soldiers were drowned by the force pressing down on their bodies.

Priya, on the other hand, was a blur. She moved like lightning, her pulse ability allowing her to phase in and out of existence for split seconds, dodging enemy attacks before they could even react. One moment she was there, the next she was gone, leaving only a brief impression of where she'd been. She appeared behind a Coalition sniper, a flickering afterimage left in her wake. Before the sniper could turn, she plunged a pulse dagger into his armor and he dropped instantly.

“Priya, we’re on cleanup duty,” Rome said, pulling an enemy hovercraft into the ground with a flick of his fingers.

“Got it,” she replied, launching forward again.

But despite their power, the enemy kept coming. More hovercrafts landed, deploying waves of heavily armed soldiers. The Resistance was outnumbered.

Jax gritted his teeth. “Fall back!”

The Resistance fighters regrouped, slipping through hidden pathways in the cliffs. As they fell back, Jax’s comm unit buzzed. A holographic image of Minister Zhao appeared, her face grim.

“They’re coming now,” she said.

“No...kidding,” Jax snapped. “It’s like World War III down here! Maybe give us a warning next time?”

Zhao’s face darkened. “I didn’t know. The Council… or as I suspect General Marlowe must’ve ordered this strike directly. I only found out moments ago.”

Lila narrowed her eyes. “How did they even find us?”

"Well," Zhao hesitated. “Carter thinks someone from your group was followed. Once they knew where you were, they attacked.”

Jax clenched his jaw. “Great.”

"Carter?" Lila asked, trying to sound casual, like she'd just thought of it.

"Anyway," Jax cut in, "what do you need from us?"

“I have something else,” Zhao continued. “The Coalition is planning to remove some Zone core fragments. I don’t know when, but if they succeed, the results could be catastrophic.”

Jax exhaled. “Where?”

“I’ve given your friends the coordinates to one of their labs. You need to steal them back. I still don’t know which Zone they came from but I’ll signal you when I do.”

“Understood,” Jax replied, cutting the connection.

He turned to his team. “We move at dawn. Get some rest.”

Thalia groaned. “Yeah, let me go tell the people currently trying to kill us that we need a break.”

Jax smirked. “Oh yeah… almost forgot about them.”

“So now what?” Sam asked panting.

Jax waved his hands and opened a portal, “Uhm...Now we run.”