Crimson Red, Cerulean Blue
Chapter 41

(Red)

I had literally no idea what just happened.

One minute, I was kicking some idiot in the face like there was no tomorrow, and the next, Orange was flying around the corner yelling about something blowing up, right before a really loud scream nearly blew out my eardrums. And then the lights not- so-conveniently decided they’d had enough of life and went out.

Again.

(They really need to check the lighting in this place. Geez.)

There was a lot of yelling after that latest blackout, and I used the opportunity to punch out two of the guards, trying to find somebody I knew so I could demand to know what was going on. But I couldn’t see anything in the confusion.

What the heck just happened?!

Out of nowhere, something too small to be one of the guards bumped into me, and I realized it was the little kid – Violet. Automatically, I grabbed her cloak and hissed, “It’s me! Red!”

“I-I know!” she cried, and I suddenly remembered about her mind-reading ability. Oops.

“Do you have any idea where everyone else is?” I asked, because hey, if she found me, she could probably find everyone else, right? But then she shook her head and pointed into the crowd, saying,

“There’s too many people here. I can’t read all these thoughts. But… But someone’s hurt!”

“Who?” I demanded, alarmed. What if it was someone on our side? If I lost someone else I cared about…

“I don’t know… But I sense fear, and pain, and… and something awful… Despair?” She shook her head again. “I just don’t know!”

I pictured each of the others having a panic attack, and tensed as I realized just how likely the scenario was, with their pasts and all. Not good.

“Where are they?” I asked urgently. “Can you lead me there?”

Violet paused for a second to close her eyes, then pointed toward the edge of the fighting. In a very firm voice, she reported, “It’s over there.”

I nodded, and without bothering with the pleasantries, grabbed her hand and took off in that direction as fast as I could. Which, admittedly, wasn’t really all that fast with all these people in the way, but at least we were making progress.

Well, that is, until I came to an abrupt stop. A very abrupt stop, seeing as I’d just slammed face-first into someone.

“What the – ” was all I had time to say before a pair of hands grabbed my shoulders and Orange was yelling into my face.

“This place is going to blow!!!”

“What?!” I asked like a total idiot, totally thrown off. “Where in the world did you come from?”

Orange sucked in a breath, looking mad enough to punch through a wall. Single-handed. “We have eighteen minutes to get out of here before this entire facility explodes, so I suggest we start running now!”

“What? What do you mean, explodes?!”

I honestly thought he was going to punch me after that one, but he must’ve understood a little of my shock, because somehow, he didn’t. “I mean KA-BOOM! BANG! FIRESTORM EXPLOSION! Those big fiery blasts you do with your magic? Those?!”

“What?!”

There was a tug on my sleeve, and I looked down at Violet. She immediately blurted out, “H-He’s telling the truth! This place really is going to explode!”

My eyes widened as the fact finally sunk in, my gaze shooting up to Orange. “Where are Blue and Green?!”

“That’s the problem! But first things first.” He pointed at Violet and demanded with absolutely no subtlety whatsoever, “Who exactly is this?”

“This is Violet. Violet, this is Orange. No time to explain. We have to find the girls!”

Orange’s eyes widened just a tiny fraction, and he breathed, “So that’s why she’s nowhere in our memories. Of course we wouldn’t have remembered her if she’s that young – she was just a baby.”

I stared at him like he was nuts, wondering whether or not it would be a good idea to facepalm. Leave it to Orange to remember something as completely random as that when we were all about to die. “Priorites, RT!”

Orange blinked and opened his mouth to reply, but Violet beat him, words flying out of her mouth as fast as bullets. “The person who’s hurt… They’re on our side! They might be Blue or Green, so we should head there as quickly as possible!”

Well, that was my cue to leave, so I gave a sharp nod and sprinted in that direction as fast as possible without waiting for the others. They’d catch up eventually, and right now, my priority was to get to whoever was hurt.

I pretty much bowled over as many guards as I could, coating myself in flames like a human fireball. Still, there was a ridiculous number of the idiots, and I ended up getting slashed about a million times as I blasted through them. And then, out of nowhere, they cleared, and I ended up nearly falling flat on my face as a girl’s voice demanded, “Let me go!”

I looked up to see a guy that looked vaguely familiar and a girl that wasn’t familiar at all. With a sudden jolt, I realized that the dude was the same one Orange had been fighting earlier. And he was holding a knife over the girl’s neck, ready to plunge it in at any second.

I probably would’ve leaped in there without even thinking about it – if someone else hadn’t done it first.

“Stinging Nettle!”

And then Green came flying out of nowhere, slamming a spell into the guy like there was no tomorrow. Thorns ripped into his body in a way that definitely wasn’t pretty, and I was convinced he was dead for sure until he tipped his head back…

And laughed.

“Hey there, sugar pie, you came back!” he called, tearing the vines off him like they were made of paper. “More fun for me, then!”

Green’s face tightened. I’d seen that face way too many times to not know it spelled death. “Go die in a hole, jerkface.”

“Ooh, scary,” he taunted, grinning like he’d just won the lottery. “That’s good. I like ‘em feisty.”

Her eyes narrowed, hands clenching into fists. “You need a better writer. Desperately.”

I was vaguely aware of Orange and Violet appearing behind me, Orange’s face twisting into an angry scowl when he spotted the guy. “We don’t have time to deal with this moron!” he snapped at me. “Tell Green we need to move!”

“Why don’t you tell her?” I hissed back. “You seriously think she’s going to listen to anything I say?”

Orange seemed to consider that for a moment, then decided I was right. In a flash, he was marching into the fight, looking ready to kick as much butt as it took to drag Green out of there.

“Get lost,” he said to the evil guy, ever so eloquently. Turning to Green, he added, “We’re leaving.” Sᴇaʀch Thᴇ FɪndNøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

Her eyes turned stubborn, heels digging into the ground. “Not until I kick this idiot’s behind.”

“We’re leaving,” Orange hissed, hands balling into fists. His face was set in the Glare, the look that could make a Mask minion put down his gun and run screaming for the hills like a little girl. But Green stared back as defiantly as ever, crossing her arms across her chest like the freaking whiny brat she is.

“I said, not until I kick this idiot’s butt.”

“The facility is going to explode in about fifteen minutes,” he told her through clenched teeth. “We need to leave. Now.”

Green opened her mouth to respond, but the evil guy beat her to it. “Are you for real right now?” he demanded, laughing his stupid insane laughter. (It was beginning to get really annoying.) “You know where you are, genius?”

“Shut your trap, vampire,” Orange snapped. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“Oh, heck it doesn’t concern me. I’m supposed to keep you from leaving the place. Understand that, genius boy?” Evil Vampire Dude grinned. “So how about another battle, huh? Our last one kinda got interrupted when you ran away.”

Orange’s eyes were steel. “You’re not even worth my time. Get lost.”

I suddenly realized that no one was even fighting anymore, all eyes locked on this confrontation. It would’ve been a perfect time to gang up on us, but the other apparent commanders (Opposites, I think they were called) only looked on, slightly smirking.

Like we were so weak, they didn’t even have to step in and try.

My hands clenched into fists, and I spun around, giving them a glare that actually ignited some of the guards’ clothes. Heck, nobody puts me down for lost while I’m still standing. Nobody.

“You guys screwed up by underestimating us,” I hissed. “I’m taking every last one of you down.”

My gaze landed on Kyore, and flames rose inside of me, anger bottling up until it was ready to explode. The coward had run away before I could incinerate him, and I was beyond ready to beat his ugly, metal face in.

Just like three years ago.

But then Caelin laughed, and pretty soon, every single one of them joined in like what I was saying was the funniest thing in the world. I stood there in front of a crowd of three hundred people, shaking with anger and every single one of them was laughing at me.

It was a scene out of a kid’s nightmare.

And I smiled. Because every single bit of rage they poured into me was another burst of flames, another explosion that I could use to annihilate them.

These losers had no idea what they were in for.

“Fine then,” I said casually, seeing the faintest hint of alarm in Kyore’s eyes as a grin tugged the corners of my mouth back. “Stand there and laugh. It’ll be so much easier that way.”

I lunged for the girl on the side first, because Caelin was Green’s to kill, apparently, and I wanted to leave Kyore for last. One minute, she was flipping her hair out of her face and bent over double from laughter, the next, I was pounding a flaming fist into her face.

She screamed, but recovered quickly. Sharp fingernails raked my skin, and then something was rubbing against the wound, scraping it and making it sting so bad I almost couldn’t move.

Salt?!

I jumped back. “DRAGON’S FLAMING BREATH!!!”

Flames erupted from my mouth, and with the extra magic force, they were blue, blasting all the Opposites and guards with a barrage of the hottest flames possible. A couple guards hit the ground and didn’t get back up, but all of the Opposites remained standing.

Of course it couldn’t be that easy.

The girl I’d attacked was red-faced and angry now, screaming something about me hitting her beloved face or whatever. I didn’t care, because I was already firing off another batch of spells, diving to the ground when Caelin transformed and spat poison. Kyore blasted off some missiles that ended up hitting the guards instead, and I realized that these guys didn’t care who died in the battle, as long as it wasn’t them.

Typical of Mask and his followers.

The girl who was yelling about her face cast some spell, and suddenly, a gigantic explosion knocked me off my feet. The fire, I could handle, but all those rocks pounding into my body didn’t exactly feel like paradise. I hit the ground, coughing up blood that actually sizzled when it reached the floor, literally boiling.

Of course, they didn’t wait for me to recover – Caelin was blasting poison at me the instant I touched the ground. There was no way I could dodge it, and the acid burned, bringing a choked scream to my throat. I was immune to fire, so I had no idea anything could hurt that bad, a searing, awful pain that shot through my entire body. Caelin smiled, thinking I was done, but I dragged myself to my feet, trying not to scream too loudly.

“Is… that all… you’ve got?” I panted, looking straight into their eyes. “Cool. I… hff… almost felt it.”

Kyore’s eyes narrowed. “You really don’t know when to quit, do you, boy?”

He aimed his missile arm at me, and I leaped to the side, but the injuries slowed me down. The missile slammed into my side, crashing me into the wall at a speed that definitely broke a bone somewhere. My chest was killing me like back in Yellowton, so it was probably a rib. Ouch.

My vision was red for some reason, and after a few seconds, I realized it was blood from a cut somewhere on my forehead. My whole entire body felt like it’d been run over, thrown in a blender, and hurled into a furnace, which basically means it hurt more than anything I’d ever felt except maybe Reuben. I tried to get up, because there was no way I was throwing in the towel like this, but it hurt too much to move.

Heck, it hurt too much to even think.

“RED!!!”

The biggest tornado I’d ever seen blasted through the area, sucking up and spitting out pretty much everyone, and then Blue was streaking toward me at the speed of light, screaming for Green to “Come help him before he dies already!!!” She dropped to her knees beside me, shouting at me to respond.

“I… I’m o-okay…” I croaked, trying to give her a grin she obviously wasn’t buying. “F-Fine… Think my ribs… broken again…”

“What did you do?” she whimpered, looking terrified. “Crayik, Red, don’t close your eyes, okay? I know it hurts, but don’t pass out. Please!”

My vision was swimming. “Blue…”

“Green!” she shrieked, practically in tears. “Crayik, crayik, Red, please don’t pass out, please!”

The edges of my vision were turning black, and I fought to remain conscious. “Blue, I… We need… Explosion…”

“What? The last thing we need right now is an explosion, Red! Green, where are you, he’s already delirious!”

I wanted to argue that I wasn’t talking crazy, but everything was fading to black, and it was getting harder and harder to talk. Blue was talking to someone now, and I thought I heard one of the Opposites shout at the others that it was time to go because the volcano was going to erupt, but I must have been dreaming, because there weren’t any volcanoes nearby. Faintly, I heard Green’s voice, and Blue responding, but that was the last thing I heard, because my brain had had enough.

I passed out.

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