The Runaways: K.A.O.

XVI

"Your skills are a bit... rusty." I took flight up the stairs, I heard their heavy feet chase after me. I wasn't exactly sure how long I could keep this chase up, or what exactly I was going to do once I reached the top. 

"Catch her!" I heard their voices yell at each other. 

"If you guys can." The top of the door was blocked by more droids waiting to get inside the large plane. 

"Red! Red away! Code red away!" The droid behind me yelled to grab the attention of the waiting droids. 

I panted and gazed around. The land around me appeared to move a bit slow, as I rushed through the crowd of unexpecting droids. I felt jolts and the heat of attacks hitting my feet, but no damage done directly. My foot slipped as I looked for an outlet, the only thing to move was the plane. 

  Droids ran at me to attack, but fell of the building with heavy attacks. More and more droids flooded onto the small landing, which alarmed the pilot. He did exactly what I needed. The troopers jumped from the plane to grab me. 

  I struggled until one punched me in the gut, my head fell forward and they grabbed my wrists. I trembled as they took me away on the plane, my foot skidding across the ground. They got me. 

Not. 

  I stomped my foot onto the droid's as hard as I could, he stepped back to remove it. I threw my elbow in his face, and with my other fist, punched the incoming droid in his throat. Another droid swung, I ducked, and tackled him. I got up and punched the throat-droid again, this time in his chest until he fell. 

  Another droid grabbed me by my arms, and the pilot ran to attack me. I kicked him away with my strength, which pushed me and the droid holding me into the plane's wall. We smashed into the button which closed the door to prevent any more attackers climbing on. 

  I raised my arm back to strike it, but they grabbed it preventing me. As his grip tightened, I placed my feet heavily on the ground and threw him over my shoulders. I looked for any more attackers, but the droids were worn out and broken. 

"Huh?" I panted, wiping the sweat from my forehead. "I wonder why none of the fighters are female?" 

  The plane began to fluctuate, even if we fall from this height, it wouldn't hurt me too badly. I looked around for any resources I could use to open the doors again. I looked at the large crate in front of me, and decided to crowbar it open. 

  Instead, inside were people. 

My friends!

"No way." This was really too easy. 

  I poked around at the sleeping bodies, something felt a bit off about all of them. I began shaking them in a panic, but no one would wake up. I felt my heart drop thinking about reality, but what would they do with dead bodies? 

"Wake up!" I cried out. In a flash, everyone slowly, but surely began opening their eyes. 

  I did not expect that to work. 

"Vanessa!" The first one to rise was Darren. 

"Get out of the box you guys, we've got to get out of here." I wanted to sound serious, but I was too relieved. 

Next was Greg, then Kaylah. Each of their faces said relief but confusing but not everyone could fit in the box. I looked around for any more familiar faces, but there was none. Where was Terry and Carol or Andrea? 

My heart sped up. 

This is a trap. 

"Grab onto to something!" I shouted, the plane was definitely going down without a pilot. 

  We raced to grab onto things, but in my haste I never managed to grab onto anything. The plane crashed down from the short height, my body flung up, but quickly flung back down onto the closed crate. 

That was painful. 

"Everybody out!" I said with everything I could, my gut was in an immense amount of pain. 

  Instead of looking for a button, we used the crowbar to jimmy the door. It was big enough just for everyone to get through, but started to bend before I could get out. Once the last kid was out, it snapped the crowbar letting the door slam into my face. 

"Vanessa!" I heard Kaylah scream, her voice muffled. 

"Go!" I yelled. "Find Michael and Thompson." I yelled as loud as I could. 

  Hearing tires screech, I heard the children scream. I banged on the door, did I just set them up? The windows were damaged from the fall, so it was hard to see through them. I crawled into the pilot's area, and began breaking the large window with the remnants of the crowbar. 

Dammit!

  It took a few tries, but the glass finally broke and I leapt through with all of my might. My knees were scraped from the glass, but that didn't stop the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I got up, stumbling a bit, and ran after the speeding vehicle. 

"Stop!" I ran as quickly as I could, it seemed to slow. "Don't you dare take them!" Slow, but still too fast for my weak legs. 

"Vanessa!" Michael yelled, his head peered out of the passenger seat. 

What?

"Hurry! The place is in flames!" The car sped up, but so did I. 

Almost there!

BOOM