Spell War

Chapter 4 - The Club

Bang. Bang. Bang.
"TIFFKO! WAKE UP!"
"Whuh?" I shot out of bed, fumbling to get a knife placed on my bedstand. I was still half-asleep, and I couldn't tell who was shouting at me.
"Who's there?"
"IT'S ME YOU DOLT!" A fist extended out from the silhouette of a person, hitting me in the forehead, before retracting again.
"Oww! What was that for?" Rubbing my forehead, I finally woke up enough to see who I was talking to.
"Oh, it's just you, Ambi."
Crash. Yet another fist hit me, this time in the stomach. The air escaped my body, and I collapsed on the ground as Ambi began to talk again.
"You really need to fix your sleeping habits. It's almost 11am already," Ambi chided, trying to be mad but failing to notice a small smile creeping through her cold facade.
"Anyway, we're going to go find some of Alex's old friends. Avem expressed interest in looking for them just before we came across you, so Alex's afraid Avem might try to target them now that they think we're all dead."
I attempted to respond, but I still hadn't recovered from Ambi's brutal punch.
"I digress. Get up and get dressed, we're leaving soon." Ambi turned around and left the room, offering me no chance to get a word in.

A few minutes later, I was dressed in some loose fitting clothes - a red shirt, blue joggers and black trainers - and I was walking outside to where Ambi and Alex were waiting for me.
"What took you so long? Were the punches not enough?" Ambi moved towards me, throwing a light punch against my arm.
"Surely you could've found a better way to wake me up, like, you know, gently shaking me!"
"I've already told you, you're a heavy sleeper!"
"Well, clearly this will devolve into chaos, and although I love that, we're on a tight schedule. Talk when we're in the car."
""Fiiiineeee....""

Despite Alex's idea of talking during the journey, we all remained quiet. It seemed like everyone was struggling with their inner thoughts. Alex was most likely worrying about his friends and Ambi was probably thinking about Avem's actions. Meanwhile, the message from the mysterious voice the night before kept replaying in my mind, giving me no opportunity to relax.

"Don't take the fight to Avem..."
"Did you say something, Tiffko?"
"Oh, no, it's nothing."
"Either way, we're here. Let's keep going by foot." Alex hopped out of the car, and we followed suit. We were just inside of what seemed to be a city, destroyed by the same machinations that plagued the rest of the world. Rubble surrounded us yet again, but it was possible to make out some doorways and openings, presumably made to host groups of people or secret gatherings. We continued to walk, and on a few occasions, I felt someone watching us. Paying it no mind, I kept walking, until eventually Alex stopped in front of a random doorway that led underground.
"They should be in here."
"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go!"

We walked in, with Alex taking the lead, and were met by a swarm of people, all trying to talk to Alex, of all people.
"Oh my god, are you really THE Alex?"
"Is it actually them?"
"We need to tell Greg."
"Everyone, be quiet. Greg's here?"
"Yeah, him and Mary are in the back."
"Thanks. We've got to go talk to them, but we can chat later." With that, Alex walked towards the back of the room, as people moved back to form a path, and Ambi grabbed my hand as she walked.

We entered a room in the back of the club, and immediately a fist extended towards Alex's head. I quickly created a barrier surrounding Alex, but he was still sent flying into a wall. Me and Ambi turned towards the source of the sudden punch, and there we saw two people, presumably Greg and Mary.
"WHY'DA TAKE SO LONG TO VISIT US, ALEX?!?!"
"We've been worried sick!"
"Oh can it, you two. Thanks for the welcome and all, but you both know as well as I do that if I had come here any sooner, there was a chance for Avem to catch on to your whereabouts."
"I suppose you're right about that."
"No way we could ever bow down to Avem, not after what they've done." From what little of their conversation I could interpret, Greg and Mary had some deep-set grudge against Avem. Before I had the chance to ask Ambi about it though, Alex finally introduced us.
"Anyway, this is Ambi and Tiffko."
"Nice to meet you both. As you might already know, I'm Greg, and that's Mary. So, Alex, if you were scared of Avem finding this place, why'd ya come?"
"Because Avem's up to something, and we need your help to stop them." Alex looked between me and Ambi before continuing. "We have reason to suspect that they launched the nukes."
""WHAT?!?""
"B-but that can't be true..."
"I shoulda known that snake would be behind all this." While Mary collapsed onto her knees and despaired, Greg grew outraged. Ambi moved to console Mary, when shouting and the sound of breaking glass could be heard from the entrance. I immediately ran to the door, while Greg and Alex followed me. Ambi stayed behind with Mary, who was still distressed.

As soon as we entered the main hall, we were met with a horrifying sight. At the entrance was Avem, and with him were an army of robots, all carrying guns. The robots seemed to be shooting at everyone in the club, but before they could shoot at us, Avem uttered a single phrase. "Leave those traitors to me." With that, he rushed at us.

Using some of the pebbles from my pouch, I created a sword for Alex, as well as a bow and a quiver filled with metal arrows for myself. Greg ran off to help the other people in the club, primarily those who couldn't protect themselves. Avem took out a brightly shining sword from his waist, swinging it towards me. Alex deflected the attack with his own sword, as I jumped back to fire several arrows at robots in the club. Then, I continued to move around, shooting arrows at the robots, while Alex protected me from Avem's advances. There was glass all around the floor, so I used Barrier to protect my feet as I moved.

Eventually, Avem decided to stop trying to fight me to instead confront Alex with all of his strength. Their swords clashed, and beads of sweat began to roll down Alex's head.
"Alex! Why are YOU, of all people, siding with this freak of nature?" Apparently, Avem has such a god complex that my entire existence insults them.
"Hypocrite much? You were the one trying to gather superpowered individuals, for your convoluted plans to 'save us all', whatever that meant."
"I was - am trying to save you all! But you're the ones who betrayed me, deserted me!"
"We were going outside to train! That's no reason to drop a nuke on us!" At this point, Avem's face turned red and steam came out of their ears. He pulled back from Alex, before charging at him like a wild beast. Alex struggled to dodge his attacks, and started to get numerous cuts and bruises. Dodging another attack by moving backwards, Alex tripped over the body of a dead robot. Relentless in his approach, Avem began to swing down with his sword to kill Alex. Of course, I wasn't going to let that happen, and right after I fired an arrow at one of the last remaining robots, I shot an arrow between Alex and Avem.
"MUTATOR!" In that moment, the arrow turned into a giant metal wall, stopping Avem right in his tracks. He finally came out of his frenzied rage, realized we had defeated the robots and began to retreat.
"Retreat!"
But with unfortunate timing...
"Alex, Tiffko, what's happening out he-AVEM?!?" Ambi came out of the back with Mary, and Avem had a change of plans; he threw a grenade at us. Ambi immediately pushed Mary outside of the range of the grenade while I focused on creating a reversed barrier around the grenade to contain its inevitable explosion. However, in the same instant, Avem rushed to grab Mary and Greg, before... teleporting, for lack of a better word, out of the club.
"Goodbye forever, traitors."
As Avem said those words, the grenade exploded.

A few seconds later, the entire room was silent. I had successfully stopped the explosion, but I was feeling... drained. I slumped to the floor out of nowhere, and I could see Ambi rushing towards me, while I saw Alex trying to deal with the angry, violent and possibly drunk survivors. With all of that going through my head, I passed out.