Kari's POV
What used to be a peaceful, non-suspicious stroll through the village turned into a panicked pursuit as the aether guards made their appearance. A bluish white portal had opened, shining with gold. The cerulean void allowed several armoured guards to enter who made a short announcement about glitches in their midst and whatnot. Someone REALLY wanted bad must be here among us. We didn't stay to listen, however, and we made our escape quite hurriedly though at the same time slow enough to seem casual. However, something had alarmed the guards enough to chase after us, and we soon were forced to do some parkour to evade them. I scaled a rough sandstone wall quickly, the crevices helping me get a grip easily. Bren had gone another way and was skimming the rooftops like a ninja. I was impressed, as I was normally the one climbing trees and such.

The village was actually much larger than I had initially thought. The main walls (used to keep out the mobs) towered over me as I glanced upwards. A few watchtowers had been set up, and several archers were just taking their morning break as the mobs burnt. The yells alerted, them, however, and soon arrows began targeting me. None of them could touch me, of course, and I even sent them in the opposite direction so that they rebounded and sailed back towards the ones that fired them. It was growing annoying and tiring, for each time I hurled an arrow back, it was like I had actually thrown it. The climbing wasn't exactly helping either.

I made it to the foot of the massive wall bordering the village and instantly knew it was near impossible to climb. It would take a pickaxe or something to scale it. The only way to escape were the huge main gates, which were no doubt swinging shut by now. I circled the perimeter for a few minutes, trying to detect somewhere where the wall was weakened. No... Nothing... This wall was sure sturdy. Sturdy enough to hold off even the creepers. Except... I paused just ahead of the said gates, looking at them carefully. I noticed that the hinges were rusted and dilapidated. With a bit of a push, we could get outta here... It would be difficult, and I held back the temptation to simply blast it with a well-aimed ball of green energy. It's more designed to shock and electrocute when fired like that rather than explode or destroy. I could attempt to wrench the gates right off with my telekinesis, but I would require more help...
~~~
Calypso's POV
As soon as the guards were distracted by Jett's sack of potatoes (weirdest distraction method I've ever seen), we had all instinctively split up. Freeze had teleported away with a flurry of purple flakes, her violet eye glinting. Winter unsheathed her xiphos sword and blocked the hits of one of the guards that went after her with scraping sound of steel against ice. Pushing him aside, she threw a chair aside and used it to jump onto the roof of the cafe for a speedy escape. The thick, plated silver and blue armour they were wearing was practically impenetrable, but weighed them down and prevented them from doing any skilled manoeuvres. Seriously, I was surprised they could even move.

I glitched away, just catching a glimpse of a flickering of black as Jett flitted into a shadow that slid across the ground and passed underneath the guards before they could even react. Laughing, he formed on the other side and waved mockingly before avoiding the spear that jutted out the ground next to him a second later. Soon a swift black streak was travelling through the village and pausing just ahead of the sunlight. I can't move away further than a few metres by glitching, so I was still stuck in this godforsaken place. Just as I suspected, they had risen an invisible barrier that stopped teleporting or glitching out. Freeze had known as well and had the sense to get out earlier. Smart girl.

The coins jammed into overloaded pockets jangled cheerfully as I dashed through the village, glitching ahead every once in a while to avoid tight turns, and for about the thousandth time in my life, was very glad I had button-up pockets. I mean, think of all the gold I could be losing right now if I didn't have them. I skidded to a halt just ahead of the main gate, which to my dismay, had been firmly locked and chained up shut. Unfortunately, I saw another boy the same age as me inspecting them, and couldn't stop in time.

"Oof!" There was a short, awkward moment as we were both on the ground, dazed and slightly dizzy. Dimly I could hear the guards chasing me approaching. Oh Notch... A split-second later, we both sprang back on our feet, and stared at each other before reaching towards our weapons. I slid my silver and emerald-lined khopesh sword out of my belt, causing the sound of my stolen loot. Being such an oddly shaped weapon, the khopesh didn't have a specific sheath, and constantly had the danger of accidently killing someone if I crashed into them. Luckily, this particular occasion was a fortunate escape for the other boy. I couldn't tell if he was a glitch or not, for he looked pretty normal, with light brown hair (with an odd streak of dark blue in there somewhere) a denim hoodie with the design of a perfectly symmetrical green star at the front, dark blue jeans and sneakers. The only thing odd about him was the fact that, well, he was carrying a weapon. I mean, I'M carrying a weapon, but I'm a glitch. It would seem odd for a normal human teenager to just go around carrying a sword... Pretty sure it's illegal or whatever.

There was a short silence as we both slowly raised our weapons, and I was about to glitch behind him and stab him when a flicker of gold flashed in front of me. It took a moment for me to realise what it was. A sword. I deflected the next blow from the aether guards next to me, glitching backwards and attacking as best as I could. My blade simply scraped against his armour uselessly, and I could tell he was smirking in triumph underneath his armour. OH, NOBODY GETS AWAY WITH THAT. I closed my eyes and made a small hissing sound, and a second later, several guards were flying through the air. I laughed and turned back to the other boy, who was fighting off more guards. That surprised me, but what really shocked me was what happened after. He picked up one guard and bowled all the others over with him, apparently enjoying smashing them against the hard ground.

"Wait, you're a glitch?" He turned to me with a small smile.

"Took you long enough to figure out."
~~~
Author's Note
See what I did with the title? ...no? Right now I really like all my characters in this book. I like all my OCs, but most of the time I don't like half the characters in a book. 80% of the time I go for the villain, and of course my favourite characters are the antagonists. I also hate perfect characters, and they annoy me incredibly. I don't like to say it, but most of the time people make this amazing, nice person with the most painful past, and everyone sympathises while I'm just like ew, I hate you. Random tangent there. Just a bit on mary-sue characters that nobody cares about :P
-iVesper