We wasted no time getting to the rest of our group. We ran through the corridors and followed the trail of unconscious soldiers to the open area we had seen on the cameras. Once there we were meet by what looked like two dozen bodies piled up on top of each other and Adam, Ellie and my sister searching through their bodies. All three of them looked exhausted. Their faces looked worn to the bone; it probably did take a lot of energy taking on this many soldiers.

"Jesus Christ!" Meg shouted getting their attention. "Are they all dead!"

"No," Adam said. "Most of them are unconscious, some mildly maimed, a few probably comatose or will have serious brain injuries but there were zero deaths. I'm almost 98% sure about it. " He sounded proud of himself.

"How did your bit go?" Ellie said taking periodic glances up at us as she continued searching. "Oli's lip is bleeding and his cheek is busted, so I'm guessing you got into some trouble." 

"Is that someone else's blood on you?" Adam asked as he looked up at me. I hadn't even noticed the blood or the swollen cheek until they mentioned it, now that she had, I could feel the pain in my body begin to miraculously appear. 

"It was one guy, I handled it fine," I said quickly before anyone else could say anything. "But explain to me how you guys are still alive, they were shooting at you and you were heavily outnumbered.

"Turns out they weren't using live bullets, Transgress made these concussive bullets that knock you out on impact," Ellie said as she moved to the next body. "Anyways, when they came they gave us the whole hands up speech, then Adam started shouting at them after that everything just went to hell. I got hit by one of the shots and went out for a bit, but Steph managed to get me up. I threw my fans and managed to get two guys with one throw but they started advancing towards us and Adam had run out of bullets, so we thought we were screwed until we heard the powers were back up. Adam didn't hesitate to make an electric grenade and chuck it at them, I went more offensive and teleported behind them and attacked with the fans. Stephy was probably the most useful here, they probably would have overrun us if she hadn't managed to instill fear in them, they all froze in fear and Adam hit them all with a lightning bolt."

"Huh, okay. That sounds pretty amazing." I said bewildered.

"Found it!" Stephy shouted as she pulled a card from one of the bodies. "That's two right."

"Yup, now we just need a code from the guard with the card," Adam said as he got up from next to a body.

"How are you going to do that?" Meg said. "there are only five conscious people in this room and none of them have the code."

"We give one of them a jumpstart." He said as he walked up to the body my sister had taken the card off of. With his hand glowing vibrant blue he pressed it against the chest of the soldier he instantly shot up like a jack-in-the-box, startling almost everyone.

"Start talking." Adam wasted no time. "What are the codes for the elevator."

"I... I... I don't-" He said squeamishly before Adam interrupted him.

"Bull! Now try again with what I want to hear."

"I swear I don't know. Please."

"You had the elevator card, meaning you have to know the code. So, tell me the card or things are going to get hard for you." Adam said but the soldier looked petrified and said nothing. "Alright, Oliver time for you to be useful for the second time today."

It didn't phase me what he was asking me to do, but when I did I went into a panic "Can't Ellie beat him up or Stephy do some emotional damage to him." I tried to hide it  but my hands were shaking violently in my pockets. I could still feel my heart pulsing in anguish and hurting someone after that was the last thing I wanted to do, I was also scared that I would go overboard and kill him too. My mind began to sink into itself slowly.

"Nope. Pain by itself won't work on him, he needs to make uncomfortable. What's more annoying and uncomfortable than you?" He said with a grin that went from cheek to cheek. I reluctantly walked up to the soldier, he was sweating like he was at a job interview and so was I. 

"No. Wait. Please, I don't know." The soldier pleaded.

"Just make him feel super uncomfortable. Do what you did to me outside, but turn up the heat." Adam said from a distance. I knelt and made eye contact with the soldier, his cocoa-brown eyes filled to the brim with fear.

"Maybe someone else should do this, Adam you've probably done this enough times." Meg started.

"My powers stimulate pain more than discomfort. He needs a slow, devastating kind of torture," Adam said. Anybody else saying that would have been sinister and psychopathic, but Adam was spoke as if it were an everyday sentence. Almost like a teacher teaching me a lesson. 

"Hey man," I whispered to the soldier while they talked behind me. "Just tell what we need to know, I don't want to hurt anyone else today."

"I can't. You don't understand what they'll do me. They'll ruin my life." I whimpered back.

"Please man, they're going to make me force it out of you, just tell me and we'll go." I pleaded but the soldier just looked up me in sadness.

"Oliver, do it," Adam said, Meg looked very uneasy as well as my sister who kept quiet trying to heal Ellie. I locked eyes with the soldier once more and placed my hand on his chest. I let the heat travel into my palm. At edge of my fingers, I controlled the flames that fought to be released, sending the heat through his body like I did to  Adam back in Crystal but worse. Soon enough the soldier began to squirm as more sweat began to pool out of him like a faulty dam. Colour started to fade from his chocolate skin, I could almost feel his blood boiling under his skin, but he still made eye contact with me, puffed slowly reddening eye contact. Steam started to coil out of his pores.

"He's not going to say anything. He'll faint or die if I keep going." I looked back at Adam worried.

"Keep going, he'll crack." He said calmly, he was so calm it was terrifying, but I pressed on. Increasing the heat flowing into his body, his heart bounced inside his chest, his breathing became incredibly fast and shaky as heated pants left his lips.

"Please!" I plead with the man.

"They'll... destroy... us." he panted softly.

"PLEASE, just tell us," I said with more grief in me.

For a second he lay in painful silence then groaned. "6-3-8-2-2-9-1-7" When he said the final number I shot off his body like a bullet from a gun, scattering away from his body.

"STEPHANIE!" I shouted but she was already at his side, her hands holding the sides of his head, I looked back at Adam who also seemed distraught from what had happened. "I'm sorry." I began to mutter to the man.

"Please kill me." He said painfully "Please."

"Not going to happen," Adam said.

"Death would be better than living. At least then Transgress will take care of my family. If you let me live they will take everything from us. Please." His voice was raspy as he began to weep.

"I can't heal all of what Oli did, his skin is hot to the touch, but I was able to stop his blood from clotting and reduced the chances of his heart exploding. The heat inside him should fade away in time. You aren't going to die today." Stephy said as she got up.

"Okay, we need to hurry up to the elevator before the code changes, it's down this way," Adam said as he started to walk past the soldier. Ellie, Meg and my sister were reluctant to move but followed after him.

I followed in the rear and before I got into the mess hall where everyone was going the soldier's hand gripped my leg "Please, I'm begging you, kill me." He sounded so broken. "My family will be on the streets again, find out it was me who let you get to The Gatekeeper. Please. At least then they'd be safe."

Inside me, the same voice told me to do it, while the toll from the first man I killed constricted my chest. "I can't, not again," I said softly to him. "I'm sorry," I told him as I turned and walked away. Behind me, the man's pleas could be heard echoing off the wall until they stopped. I kept walking in the silence until it was tainted with a horrible bang that shook the whole room. I didn't have to turn to know what he had done but I stopped regardless, Stephy and Meg turned around immediately. Stephy's hands shot up to her mouth and Meg muttered something, Ellie jumped slightly when she heard it and stopped in her tracks but didn't turn, Adam stopped momentarily but continued walking away.

"Let's go." He said coldly, without an ounce of emotion.

We followed after Adam, only the sound of footsteps filled the halls but somehow I could hear the gunshot bouncing off the sides of the walls. That was two deaths, two people are dead because of me. Two people. Dead. I started to slow down, it had finally hit me like a plane crashing in the desert, I was hyperventilating not only from the running but now I was having another anxiety attack. I felt worse about the second soldier that died because I tortured him, I cooked his inside and he begged me to kill him, when I couldn't do it he did it himself. I beat a man to death and pushed another to suicide in the span of half an hour. We finally got to the elevator, but I stood far enough away from everyone else for them not to notice me losing myself and I propped myself up against the wall. I felt sweat trickle down my temple, my heart felt like my chain was wrapped around it choking the life out of it, stifling my breathe. The sound seemed to fade away until all I could hear was my breathing, I didn't even notice my sister come up to me until she touched my shoulder. At her touch, all off a sudden it's like someone hit unmute on everything as well as notice as everyone staring at me.

"Oli, Are you okay?" Stephy asked, her face looked concerned, but her eyes already knew.

"Are you okay?" I repeated sarcastically. "He shot himself, what do you think. We pushed a man to suicide and all of you are just fine."

"Oliver, things like this happen. It's horrible that it happened but it does. It sucks that you had to learn about the hard way. We just have to move on." Adam said as he finally got the elevator open. "Now let's get on."

"Give him a second," Ellie said to him softly.

"No, no. Let's go," I said as I pushed off the wall. Stephy held out her hands to catch me if I fell, but I pushed her hands away. "I'm right behind you." As they all entered the elevator, I turned towards the wall and I punched the steel wall with so much force, the crunching sound of my knuckles ricocheted off the wall like a bouncy ball. I clenched my jaw holding in a scream and walked into the elevator holding my hand. I leaned against the back of the carriage and watched as Adam and Ellie swiped the two cards and input the code onto a keypad on the side of the elevator wall. At first, there was a delay after he put the code and I thought that it wasn't accepting the code but then the doors smoothly close before us and the carriage slide calmly down the shaft. There wasn't any kind of sound coming from the carriage, not even the creaking of gears, the only thing filling the elevator was a deafening silence. I checked my hand that I had been holding lightly ever since I entered the elevator, my hand had already swollen up to look like an apple, my middle knuckle had was now split open and slowly dripping blood onto the reflective white floor. My index finger and middle finger were in excruciating pain, but I just left it alone. It wasn't long before my sister, who had been standing next to me, noticed the blood dripping onto the floor.

She didn't say anything as she grabbed my hand. I winced as she did but she didn't let go. she closed her eyes and the pain in my hand started to burn but it slowly faded away. Once she finished, she didn't let it go of my hand. He eyes gave me a saddened look of disappointment and understanding, she leaned against the back of the carriage as her eyes fluttered back. Her skin looked washed as if she would faint right there. I could tell that she just had little energy in her from healing me and the putting fear into the soldiers. "It wasn't your fault." She leaned in and said to me.

"We're about to hit the bottom floor, everyone be ready, they know were are here and we don't know how many soldiers there are down there," Adam said as he pulled readied his javelin. I pulled out my chain once more, still speckled in the soldier's blood, Meg pulled out her obsidian escrima sticks poised and faced towards, Ellie held out her fans ready to throw them. Stephy stood up shakily facing the wall, using my hand as support, but didn't pull out the dagger I gave. The elevator came to a fluid stop and when the door opened up with a ding, eight soldiers aimed their snow-white tinted machine guns at the interior.

We all froze as they stared us down. My heart too afraid to beat. Our breaths too afraid to leave our chest. Even Adam left wide eyed with silent as he stared down a barrel of an automatic rifle.

"Where are they? The elevators empty!" The soldier in the front said, his face lost in a sea of confusion. We were also lost but then I saw Meg had put away her sticks and held her hands up, using her powers to make us all invisible.

"Look! Blood!" Another soldier called out pointing at the puddle of blood I had left on the floor, a soldier started to walk in to examine the blood puddle. We all pressed ourselves against the walls of the elevator leaving enough space for the soldier to enter. I held my breath, afraid that single gust of wind could set him off. He just stood in the centre of the carriage looking around for anything that he could shoot at. "Nothing." He finally said as he turned around.

"Okay, back to your station's people. Protect The Gatekeeper, we cannot let them get to our greatest asset." One of the soldiers said. "You two, guard the elevators and shot anyone who isn't wearing our uniform, now move out." He said as the elevator doors closed in front of us. Meg dropped her and fell against the wall, Stephy ran up to her and held her in her arms, making sure she's okay.

"The Gatekeeper. You think that they're talking about Dion?" Ellie asked as she moved off the wall.

"I'd hedge my bets on it. The Canary wouldn't want any random Amp." Adam said as he began to fidgeting with his javelin. 

"Now we just need to find where they are keeping him and get him out of here. Seems simple enough" Ellie began to crack her knuckles. 

"Two guards outside the door. I think I can handle this." Adam cracked his fingers and pressed the open button, as soon as he did the two guards peaked into the elevator to meet a face-full of lightning. They flew backwards a meter and lay unconscious. Stephy and I helped Megan out of the carriage behind the two adept fighters who did not waste time walking by them. This floor was different from the last, the moonlight silver ceiling was taller than a small building. Pristine marble walls with silver accents pulsing with life as if they were the veins of a beast. They coursed through the single corridor that made up this floor but it extended for what looked like years. It curved in on itself, almost seeming to form a spiral. Unholy noises filled the hall, like the howling of injured animals leaving me filled with despair, almost gluing me to the floor but the five of us cautiously pressed forward. On each side of the walls around us were thick metal security doors with a small window blocked over with bars no larger than a fingertip. Inside, darkness emanated with inhumane groans and yells. Ellie walked up to one of the doors and glanced inside only to jump back as the thing inside grabbed the bars with its dainty fingers.

"No more needles. No more needles. No more needles." The voice inside repeated endlessly, it was like barbed wires against a chalkboard.

"LET ME OUT, PLEASE!" Another voice called out from a door a little further down the hall. The screams echoed down corridor relentlessly.

"The fire dies, the fire burns again. The fire dies, the fire burns again." One more chimed in, then more and more voices through the long corridor. 

"What is this? Who are they?" My sister asked with pain-stricken in her voice.

"They are Amps," Meg said softly. "They must be some of the prisoners Transgress have captured since we were exposed. No wonder they have a power dampener."

"This is inhumane," Stephy said. "We need to get them out."

"They don't see us as humans, so why should we be treated like them right? And we can't free them and you know that. There are too many and that isn't what we are here for." Adam said monotonously.

"Adam you can't be serious, this is our job. Saving and protecting Amps in danger." Stephy went up to him.

"I know that, more than you would but we have to be realistic. We are here for one person and that's what we agreed. We don't even know how to get out of here. We will have come back for them."

"Adam!" Stephy began to get heated.

"Stephanie, he's right." Ellie stepped between the two of them. "Adam and I have been in this situation before. As much he's not showing it, he hates it too. No one wants to leave them behind, but we don't a choice."

"We always come back," Adam said with more empathy, he made eye contact with my sister and seemed to have a conversation with her.

Ellie turned to Stephy "We'll come back for them Steph. We always do." She said with a warm sureness. Ellie put her hands on her shoulders and looked at her with a gentle demeanor.

There was a short pause before Stephy finally spoke. "Their lives are in your hands." She said as she took Meg's other arm and continued to walk forward towards the end of the never-ending corridor.

After a few more moments of silence and chances of finding an end to the hallway began to seem much slimmer, chatter erupted in front of us. Unlike the chatter from the prisoners around us, it sounded like a conversation between two stable people. As the corridor curved around two Transgress soldiers stood on opposite edges of the hall blocking us from being able to pass. They had their guns strapped over their shoulder, their fingers were placed over the trigger loosely.

"Meg, can you make us invisible for a bit to take them out," Adam whispered

"Maybe. I don't know. I'm getting worn thin." She said softly.

"I know it feels like we're asking a lot but we have to try. We're so close, all we have to do is get Dijon and get out of here." He said

"Dion," Meg corrected.

"What."

"You said Dijon, like the mustard."

"So, same thing. Now let's go." He said hastily. Meg lifted her hands and we huddled close to her as she began to walk forward. When we got into the soldier line of view they continued their conversation, we kept walking towards them. Adam walked towards the one on the right while Ellie walked to the one on the left but before they could get close enough two things happened. First, I noticed that there were four more soldiers at the end of the corridor standing in front of a large steel door placed in the centre of a glass wall that was so thick that it looked blue. The second thing is that the two soldiers in front of us jumped up into the air and pointed their guns at our faces.

"INTRUDERS!" The one on the right shouted. Adam threw hands forward to shot lightning, but nothing came off his fingertips. His eyes lit up in shock. In the back, the other soldiers began to notice us as well which was not good. Five good seconds passed of pure silence and fear from both of everyone on the room, none of us had our weapons out except for the soldier.

"This isn't the bathroom!" I shouted abruptly, the two soldiers in front of us took their eyes off Adam and Ellie and they focused on me, Adam saw the opportunity and socked the soldier in the nose. The other soldier pointed his gun at Adam, but Ellie hit him in the back of the head knocking him out cold. Shots from down the hallway whizzed past our faces. We ran backwards and just away from their bullets, but the soldier kept coming closer.

"There must be another power dampener but it's surrounding the cell at the end, which probably means that's where we have to go," Ellie said as she planted herself the wall.

"Lure them towards us and take them out." Adam's hands sparked to life and pulled out his javelin. Ellie's fans flicked into their ring form and I pulled out my chain, the blood coated silver links clang together as they came out of the bag. The sound of gunfire fell to silence and all our eyes watched the way waiting for a glimpse a soldier to come into view. Footsteps pattered through the hall until finally, the white of the tinted barrel of the machine gun slipped past the curve. Somehow I was the first to react, with the chain I flicked it at the barrel wrapping it around it and yanked it towards me, pulling both the gun and the soldier forward. The gun slipped out of his hand and Adam whacked him across the back of the head with his javelin. More soldiers spilt out from around the curve, bullet hurling towards us causing all-out chaos. I could barely keep track of what happened, all I know was there was a soldier in front of me with his gun aimed at my chest and my sister behind me. 

His hands were shaking violently, I was more afraid he would accidentally let off a shot and it hits my sister, so I raised my hands into the air trying to keep her out of his sights. His gun was still trained on my chest, but he started to inch forward toward me, his eyes kept darting to the side to see what was happening with the other soldiers, when he looked away I charged at him with full force. He looked back at me just as I rammed into his gut knocking into the cold metal wall. I could feel the wind being knocked out of his chest. He crumpled onto the floor like a ragdoll, I turned around to see if my sister got injured only to see one of the soldiers barreling at her at high speed. Thoughtlessly, I whipped my hand out at the soldier and a fireball left my palm knocking the soldier back. The flames grew around them, causing the soldier to flailing, trying franticly to put it out. With a flick of a chain, the metal wrapped around the soldier's neck and yanked it down, bringing her face into the floor. 

Ellie and Adam made short work of the other two soldiers, but just as we thought we were out in the sound of gunshots filled the air, but it came from the opposite direction. The other soldiers had come from the behind us, each emptying their magazines on us until large vines sprouted out of the floor wrapping their vines around their limbs. They squirmed around in place dropping their guns to try and pry off the overgrowth off their body, Adam took his javelin and swiped at the air letting out a wave of lightning hitting all the soldier in one blow, knocking them out. The vines holding them suddenly phased out of existence like they were never there in the first place. Behind me Meg was panting heavily, hugging the wall with her back forcing herself upright.

"Let's get Dion before more soldiers get here," Ellie said as she started to run towards the metal door at the end of the corridor shortly followed by the rest of us. When we got to the end of the corridor we were meet with another key card security door, luckily we still had the cards from earlier that got us down here.

"How do we know that this is the cell Dion is being kept in," Meg asked as Ellie started fiddling with the door.

"Like I said before, The Canary wouldn't ask us to break into a Transgress base for somebody who wasn't somewhat important," Adam said almost confidently.

"'This isn't the bathroom' really?" Stephy said out loud as Ellie swiped the card through the reader.

"I panicked, I didn't know what to do. There were guns pointed at us and lots of people who wanted to shoot at us." I said consciously, "Either way I basically saved you guys, so your welcome."

"Whatever you say man, it was a good distraction," Adam said softly.

"Did I just get a compliment?" I asked slightly condescendingly.

"Ellie, are you ever going to get the door open." Adam dodged the question.

Suddenly the door made a groaning noise and slowly swung open. Under her breathe she repeated what Adam said with annoyance. The cell we had just entered was nothing like any of the other cells we had passed, it was a luxury penthouse apartment compared to the others. I understood why they were keeping him on the very bottom floor, the ceiling probably extended to where the first floor we had landed on started. The reason it was so high was because of their were sets of platforms against the walls that went to the very top and on each platform, it looked like there were hundreds of doors on the wall. I felt like I was in the factory from Monsters, Inc. with the variety of doors that were placed in wall. There was only one space on the wall that didn't have a platform, in the space was a giant electronic board with the date displayed on it, today was March 20th. We still had three more days till Akari would pull us from the mission. On the other end of the room, in the centre of the wall maybe a floor above, a glass window peered into the giant room, observing all that happens in this enclosure. In the far corner of the chamber, furniture was thrown around like a tornado had blown through, a couch and bed had been dropped to their sides, a coffee table had fallen legs up and a single lamp stood its ground yet the light inside it trembled. A shadow cast by the light showed the silhouette of a person leaning up against the overturned objects, hands to his face either hiding it or praying for mercy.

"We need to find the power disputer and get the hell out of here. I don't think we'll getting out the same way we entered," Adam said.

"That looks like an observation room." Ellie pointed at the glass window. "If the controls are anywhere, it's probably up there." She passed her brother the keycards.

"Meg, let's go. You turned it off before, you can probably do it again." Adam said to her. She looked confused because she had exhausted herself to the bone but just as he said it he walked to a metal door as Meg followed close behind like a zombie.

"So, we're left to deal with him then," I said solemnly as I looked at the petrified shadow.

"I'll try talking to him first, we don't want to overwhelm him," Stephy said as slowly walked towards the person in the corner. "Hello." She called out. "Dion? Is that you?"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" The voice shouted from behind the furniture, and an object came flying from behind the bed and smashed to pieces on the floor.

"We aren't here to hurt you." My sister's voice was soothing even without her powers she could still sway emotions. "My name is Stephanie, but you can call me Stephy if you want. You are Dion, right?"

There was a long break of silence before he replied. "Yes. Yes, I am Dion."

"It's nice to meet you, I'm here with my brother Oliver and my friend Elaine. We are friendly, you can come out."

There was another long silence before a face peeked out from behind the bed. From where I stood his eyes looked like pools of pudding that had been left out for too long. His charcoal hair was laced with streaks of silver like an overgrown hedge trying to look tidy and there was even fur coat that had managed to wrap itself around his lips. He wore tattered clothes covered in ugly stains, he barely fit in the clothes anyways as he was so thin and malnourished that he was almost bones. "Jesus," I whispered. Then I remembered the sandwich I was harboring in my backpack, I threw it down and pulled the squished sandwich bag for inside. I started to walk towards him, but he flinched back. "Hey, don't worry, you look hungry. Here, it's a ham and cheese sandwich, I'm sorry it's a bit smashed up, but it probably still tastes nice." I said slowly inching closer to him till I was close enough for him to snatch the bag from my hand. He dug into it and started stuffing the sandwich into his mouth.

He looked a lot happier and at ease by the time he had inhaled the whole thing. "What do you want with me? Use me like the soldiers?" he asked cautiously the smile washed away slowly, while he spoke I realized he had a strong South African accent.

"No, we are here to get you out here," I said, he didn't seem phased by what I said though.

"I've been here for a month and they have made sure that any hopes I have of getting out of here is false, they block my powers when they aren't using me."

"We have two other friends up in the observation room turning off the dampener right now to get our powers working again," Ellie said from behind us.

"Why are you really here? There is something that's brought you here." Dion said more suspiciously.

Tension filled the air slowly. "There is a man on the outside called The Canary, he asked us to break you out of here in exchange for information that will help save more Amps from Transgress," I said, his eyes turned from suspicious to disdainful.

"So, you want to use me just like Transgress has been." He began to become defensive and slowly move away from

"No, we are trying to save people." Stephy stepped in.

"That's what the scientist said to me every day before probing me and sticking me with needles, shooting chemicals into my bloodstream and sucking the blood out of me. That's what the soldiers said before using me." His voice wavered as he spoke.

"Think about this," I said to him taking a step closer towards him. "do you want to stay here where you are guaranteed to be tortured or leave with us doubtful of course but a little less fearful. If you let this go you know you will never forgive yourself."

The reluctance bleed through his weak eyes, he started to speak but was cut off by a sudden blackout in the chamber followed by dimmer grey lights that cast an eerie atmosphere. Dion looked at me, his eyes glowed like copper filtered fireball in the pale light. "What have you done!"

"That wasn't us. I promise." Ellie said coming closer to Dion.

"Good news and bad news." Meg's voice echoed from behind us, Adam was walking beside him looking snarky as ever. "Good news is the dampener is off, the bad news is that to do that we had to turn off the power in the facility to do so."

"Why is that bad." Stephy said cautiously.

"Two reasons, the facility is under total lockdown meaning there is no way we are getting out of here the way we came." Meg started.

"Second is that when the power went off it sent a distress beckon out. Reinforcements are on there way and should be here within the hour." Adam finished.

I turned to Dion who looked shaken to the bone, which didn't seem to take a lot. "This is your time to decide whether you want to deal with Transgress or survive with us." I tried to seem confident the best I could.

He scanned the room, looking at all the eyes that gazed back at him. "Okay, I'll come with you guys."

"Perfect, now how the hell do we get out of here," Ellie announced.

"We'll use the doors." Dion pointed at the rows of doors above us.

"I assumed they had a purpose." Adam said as he leaned against the couch. 

"I'm able to link two different doors anywhere in the world to make a gateway as long as I have physically seen the door in the  other location," Dion stated.

"That's why they were calling you 'The Gatekeeper', Ellie said and at the sound of the name, he winced in disgust.

"I hate that name. That's the name these so-called protectors gave me. Every few weeks they would put a bag over my head, chain me up, put me into a van and we would drive for hours to an unknown location. They would take the bag off my head when I am looking at the door they want then bag me up again just to throw me back here. Do you see that date board? They would use it for reference instead of telling me the name of where they took me, they forced me to remember the date or they would torture me till I opened the door to the right place." He spoke with so much hatred in his voice, he purely hated Transgress for what they did to him, but I understood where he was coming from.

"Man, that's rough. I'm sorry." I said as he moved out from behind the overturned furniture. He was a giant compared to all of us, now that he was closer I could tell he was in his 40s, crow's feet stretched against his eyes and splotched against his pale complexion were tiny little black spots.

"It's fine, now we have one problem. Since you turned off the power, the elevator to the doors aren't going to work." He walked towards the elevator shaft clinging to the side of the wall.

"Don't worry, sparky can handle it," Ellie said as she patted her brothers back, who didn't seem very pleased with the nickname. As we walked up to the door, the loud sound of a gong went off by the door. From behind the glass framing around it, we saw a horde of Transgress soldiers lined up at the door, guns out with very unhappy looks across all their faces.

"They're trying to breach the door with explosives. Move!" Adam commanded as we sprinted to the elevator. Once we were all inside Adam put his hands on the control board and let the current surge through his body into it, slowly the light inside it flickered on. Ellie mashed the button for the highest floor and the carriage shuddered up the shaft sluggishly. We watched within the glass walls of the elevator as the steel door shock even more than the last. By the time we passed the third platform the steel door flew off its frame, shattering most of the glass around it in the process, as the soldiers poured in they wasted no time emptying rounds on the carriage. Bullets ricocheted off the glass, but every odd shot would leave a small crack.

"They are using real bullets now," Stephy called out as she watched them bounce off the glass. Adam was physically straining himself trying to bring the elevator to its final stop, sweat began to drip off his forehead and his fingertips would tremble after each platform we passed. Ultimately, a shot hit the corner of the glass and a trail of cracks started to spread quickly. With one more shot the glass shattered into thousands of shards that rained over us, we dropped to the floor but only Adam stood to keep his ground until finally, the doors of the carriage crunched open. 

Meg rushed Dion out of the carriage as bullets flew in. "OUT! OUT! OUT!" Adam screamed as he held the elevator open, blue tracings coursed out of his pores. Stephy was holding Ellie's shoulder in her hands, looking at me with panic in her eyes, red was seeping from underneath her fingertips, Ellie winced in pain on her lap.

"GET HER OUT OF HERE," I shouted to my sister, watching as she slowly helped Ellie to her feet. I stood up facing the bullets, lit my hands ablaze, and like second nature I threw fireballs down at the firing squad giving them time to get out of the elevator. For a while, they stopped shooting, but I still let loose.

"OLIVER! OUT! I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE!" He said, I saw the strain on his face, and I took one more shot at the soldiers below before leaping on the platform.

The elevator started to slowly drop, but Adam stood at the console. "Jump!" I let out my hand, he looked at me, the blue in his eyes dulled to a grey, sweat holding his buttery hair to his forehead. With a shaky inhale, he pushed off the console and the elevator started to drop, Adam with what little strength he had left propelled himself out just before it dropped below the platform. Turns out he had enough strength because he knocked me down on the jump. Below, the elevator landed with a dreadful crash, shouts from the soldiers erupted from below. "Are you okay? Can you get up?"

"Yeah, let's move," Adam said struggling to get up, I took his arm and slung it over my shoulder. We moved forward just as the storm of bullets restarted the barrister on the platform blocked most of the bullets, giving us enough cover to make it to where the everyone else was. Dion was fiddling with the door trying to get it open. Stephy still had her hands over Ellie's shoulder while blood was seeping out from beneath her fingertips.

"Oliver, I need your hands," Dion called out to me, I put Adam against the barrister and moved towards Dion.

"What do you need?"

"Can you pick a lock?" He passed a bobby pin and looked at me with bewildered eyes, as if this was something you learned at school.

"Unfortunately, no."

"Put the pin into the lock and move it around until you feel clicks," Adam said from the barrister. "There are pins inside, push them up with the pin, there are about five in a standard lock. Once they're all up, turn the pin." As he spoke, I did as he told me putting the pin into the lock wiggling it around trying to feel for the pins.

"Where do we go?" Dion asked as he held the handle of the door

"Can you get us to Indiana?" Adam said giving me space to try and pick the locks, finally I felt a click in the lock.

"I've never been there."

"Well, get us as close to Indiana as you can and Oliver, hurry up they're starting to make their way up." Adam grabbed the railing of the barrister and pulled himself up and he was right, I could hear the soldiers trying to make their way up. In the lock, I felt the second click of the mechanism, then a third and fourth.

"Oliver hurry up, I can't help her like this!" Stephy shouted hands still pressed against her shoulder, Ellie's eyelids were hanging like they were attached to weights.

"I'm doing my best, it's the first time I've picked a lock so give me a break!" I shouted back at them, I felt the final click in the lock, and I turned the pin. Dion grabbed the handle and pushed it open to a parking lot lite by the apricot light of the sun. "Get out now!" I ran towards the barrister watching the soldiers climbing up from platform to platform like Donkey Kong. I chucked fireballs down at them, knocking them off one by one as Stephy carried Ellie out the door and Dion picked Adam up by the shoulder and took him through the doorway.

"Oliver, come on!" Meg called to me from out the door, I chucked a few more fireballs down at the soldiers and rushed through the door slamming it shut behind me. My sister had Ellie up against the wall, she used the knife I gave her to dig out the bullet from her shoulder. Ellie had a chunk of her scarf in her mouth, biting down through the pain. Adam was sweating up a storm, he was against the wall next to Ellie, Meg had decided to go check on him. Dion was the person who was really soaking up the rays of the setting sun in the open parking lot. Then the sound of the door opening behind me sent a surge of adrenaline through my body, I spun around with my hands blazing only to be met with the face of an older man looking up at me, shiny round glass reflecting light of the flames, he looked like he had just woken up from being dead for a week. Crust flacked of his stained vest that might have been white at one point, below he had only cream shorts with what looked like an imprint of a pizza slice on them. 

"Git out of my way chump before I deck you, there's no water and I need to take a dump." He said with disgust in his voice as he pushed me and walked away. Watching him walk away I studied the environment around us, the American flag rippled softly in the gentle breeze that sent the smell of food towards us from the Sonic across from us. Waves from the pool filled my body with calm and release. The wall everyone was leaning against was lined with more doors and windows between them all giving me the impression that we were at a motel somewhere. I walked up to Dion who was still staring into the sunset with tears in his eyes.

"Hey man, are you okay?" I asked placing my hand onto his shoulder.

"It's been so long since I've seen the sunset." He stated, eyes still fixed at the dimming orange. "You forget to appreciate all the things in the world that surround us, but the moment you are no longer in reach of them. You realize those are the things you miss the most." All of a sudden, he was embracing me in a hug. "Thank you, Oliver."

"Don't worry about it." I patted him on the back, his eyes were filled with joy. "So, where are we?"

"We are in a little town in Missouri, I came here while on the run from Transgress. This is the closet place I could remembering being to Indiana."

"You did great man, you have one cool power. Now there is just one thing..." I said as I looked back at Meg who was looking at the both of us, I gestured for her to come. Dion's eyes began to lose its joy as she got closer.

Meg pulled out the piece of paper from her pocket which was now creased and crumpled. "This is the place The Canary wants you to go, he isn't going to hurt and you don't have to go right now. I know that you don't know us and now we are telling you to go somewhere with zero information on it, but you could help us save a lot of people."

Dion stared at the paper in her hand and took it for himself, he scanned the words on it before sticking it in his pocket. "You and your friends saved me from torture, the least I can do is go to this place and hear what he has to say. I see the intent of your hearts and I have a feeling that you wouldn't knowingly send me to get hurt."

"Thank you so much," I said to him as he walked to a random door of the motel and opened it up to a violent blizzard. With the wind chill blasting in, he let out an involutory shiver. 

"I hope you find what you are looking for." He said as walked into the storm of white, letting the door close behind him.