Consuming Fire

Chapter 96

When the soldiers opened up the bunker and faced the enemy, she remembered first the grenade.

Ryo saw them launch it before anyone else did and teleported to the place where it was going to land, catching the grenade in her hand. They stared at her in utter shock. She could have thrown the grenade back at the Agents – who were equally taken aback by her quick movements – but instead, she disappeared and reappeared before the lower level door, dropping it in front of the sealed entrance and teleporting back to the hanger. It would have been easy for Marcus to crack the security system, but that would have taken time and this was much quicker. Now there was a clear path down the staircase to the bunker door where the Chinese were keeping the President. From beneath her feet, she felt the vibration and knew the door had been cracked.

Marcus sprinted to the door that would lead to the communications room. Ryo looked down at her watch. In thirteen minutes, Marcus was going to be attacked. She had to remember that. Timing was everything.

In order to even the fight, Ryo decided to take all of the weapons first.

One thing that suddenly became apparent to her now that she had travelled back in time was the possibility of freezing time. She'd never done it before, but now was as good as ever to test her abilities. With an unbelievable amount of concentration, Ryo retreated into the Zen place she had found before teleporting and told her mind to freeze time. And when she opened her eyes, things had changed.

She hadn't stopped time, but it wasn't moving at normal speed. It was slow motion, so slow that she could count to three and Yung on her left hadn't finished blinking.

Grinning, Ryo burst into action. She had to be wary of the hot bullets floating through the air as she ran from Chinese soldier to Agent, snatching their weaponry and anything else she could find that may hurt her friends. When her hands were full, she shoved the weaponry inside an empty crate stacked up against the back wall. No one would look there. Time sped up the moment she asked it to, and in at least five seconds, the soldiers fired their guns and half the Chinese men and Agents were dead on the floor.

The mutants looked terrified. When one of them launched itself at Zac, Zokani soared forward in flight, hoisted her squirming body up and threw her into the wall, circling back and landing on the ground. One of the mutant's was attacked by an invisible blade that sliced across its neck. Koko appeared behind the body. There was an abnormally large man who somehow could not be killed by bullets, but when Chantal stepped in front of him and met his eyes, he was under her spell and surrendered in tears.

The rest were killed with the soldier's guns and fought in combat. Ryo was dizzy from freezing time and lost focus for a moment when an Agent tried to tackle her. Yung swooped in and gracefully hooked his leg over the Agent's shoulder, wrapping his arms around his neck and snapping it clean to the side. When Ryo gained her footing, she realized that Joshua had been taken. Soon, Will would be too. You can't save everyone, said a voice in her mind.

And then there was a pause, a moment of peace. Everyone looked at each other proudly, as though they didn't expect it to be so easy.

You all have no idea, thought Ryo.

Next to arrive were the second squadron of Men in White and Chinese soldiers. In the first battle, more than half of their American soldiers had been killed, but the Captain remained alive.

Now, it was time to save Marcus.

Ryo had faith that her team could handle the rest of the attack, and so she vanished just as the second squad was coming through the door and teleported straight to the control room she'd seen through Marcus's security cameras on the plane.