Under the cover of darkness, the guards of Umbra continued to advance on the one mutant in particular they needed to retrieve. Normally, Ryder could use all of their tech as a beacon to determine their proximity, but the strange material she couldn't get around was making that problematic. If she tried to focus through their visors, all she could make out was foliage. So Ryder needed to think very carefully about when she's ditch the guy she could telekinetically feel was tailing her, to prevent him from realizing she wasn't going to Umbra after all. But if she lingered too long, then the guards would inevitably catch her and open fire. She
knew they had live ammunition, because she could see through their own eyes. Ryder lied when she said she was going here, so if Cyclops felt like that lie existed, then she'd have to shake him off more and more.
Ryder heard a twig snap, and instinctually punched the air before her, causing a wave of dense telekinesis to fly forward. Trees were uprooted and the ground shook. Someone screamed, because their organs had just been ruptured, and bullets began to fire.
She walked too far, and lost track of distance. Umbra Biogenetics could be seen over the trees that still stood. Ryder tuned back into their night vision goggles, and saw herself through at least four of them, and quickly flung herself directly up into the canopy of leaves. A felled tree went through through one guard completely. His limp body was sent hurtling towards his buddy like a bullet, and both of them because an obscene, red paste. Their visors were telekinetically ripped from their gored heads, helmet and all, and Ryder turned the helmets into moons, to which she was the planet. Blood dripped from them, as shattered craniums slopped out before the helmets orbited around Ryder, enhancing her ability to see the surroundings. She was blind, but now she could see better than any single one of them. They were trying to flank her.
Ryder reached for a tree to lance another one, when a bullet ripped clean through her leg, going out with a wet
snap. Those weren't hollow points. Ryder shrieked like a banshee. White hot pain streaked up her leg, to her knee and down her ankle. It made her head spin.
Why couldn't they just leave her alone? Why did she have to be just a tool for them? A lab rat, stripped of all humanity, and dignity. That was all she was to the scientists. To Becker. All for
him. The pain in her leg was unlike anything she felt before. Ryder was no stranger to aches, surgical pain, even being set on fire once or twice by accident. But this... She wasn't prepared for that shot. Ryder didn't anticipate it, it caught her off guard.
Something in her
broke. Ryder had been telling herself, deep down, that she didn't want to think about the corpses she might pile up if she really stopped caring. But this was the reminder she needed. Umbra didn't see her as a human being. They'd rather kill her right here and now, and harvest her brain to run their lifelong experiments again if they had to. She was a maggot to them. She
knew this, and yet she had the stupid, naive nerve to show
mercy on them.
Mercy, that she should've spared for herself.
The air grew thick around the guards who closed in. It felt like walking through syrup, and then it became concrete. Of the eight that circled her, five were crushed inwards as though black holes had manifested in their lungs. They screamed, but bones and gristle snapped louder than they could cry out. Blood spewed from tears in skin, wrung like water from wet hair. The other three eluded her sight, obscured by brush, and fired more bullets into her, only to find their rounds stopped mid-air. They still spun, in fact they spun faster, faster and
faster before being flicked back to their origin points. One man's throat exploded from the pressure, another lost his eye from the velocity of a bullet leaving the back of his skull. The third fell limp as a bullet severed his spine, just below his heart.
Again, bone snapped as helmets were torn free, adding to a cluster of gazes that all alerted Ryder to the next wave of guards training lasers on her. She flicked her wrist and the dead bodies broke like dry spaghetti, into chunks of bloody shrapnel. Shattered remnants of trees joined the debris, and Ryder sent it all forth like a hailstorm. Screams erupted, but several guards opened fire all the same. Two bullets landed. One in her right shoulder, and the other in her collarbone. Ryder fell back, temporarily losing all the breath in her lungs from the sudden force. Something felt fractured, by in this state, Ryder didn't feel the pain. No, all she felt was rage.
Looking through the visors of the wounded, Ryder could tell there were still a
dozen waiting for her to stand up. And she did.
They went to fire, but the rifles and handguns flew out of their hands. The dead lackeys, too, lost their weapons as all of them joined a firing line in front of Ryder. Spare magazines that she could loot were lined up as well. Someone gave an order to retreat, and yet no one could take a step. Their feet were telekinetically rooted in place. Even the wounded were hoisted up.
Ryder pulled every trigger at once. The sounds of gunfire, which were previously stagnant and and organized, were now a cacophony. Round after round, the soldiers were torn to shreds. Ryder didn't even care if she hit anything vital, she was only concerned with leaving them in tatters, too weak and broken to lay a scratch on her. Through her powers, she saw most of their visors crack and break, rendering her unable to see through their eyes. Blood pooled the ground, and as the bodies slumped dead into a pile, Ryder saw none of them move an inch.
She took in a monumental breath. The floating helmets dropped to the floor, shattering their visors.
In a haze, Ryder limped over to them, feeling around with her powers to rip the radios from the dead. Over two dozen floated up to her, and they all crackled to life.
Ryder could barely find the words, her focus split between making a connection, and standing on a foot that felt as though it was both numb and on fire. She spat blood.
"Umbra... Becker. I know you hear me, you pathetic sack of shit. How many more- How-" She coughed up a glob of thick blood, all over her shirt.
"How many more of you fucking worms are coming for me? Because I can kill all of you. A̴͕͑L̵̡͂̚L̴̦̈́ ̸̙͝O̵̡͙̎F̶͓͓́ ̸͈͂͑Ỳ̷͔Ở̶͚Ų̶͎̐!̸̞̽͜!̷̲̑ͅ!̵̭̌ͅ I am not your fucking TOY anymore!!!. D̷̮͕͔̤͓̤̮̺͎̲̾̍̍̐̉̒̓̐̂̈́̂͌̾́́́͜͝ͅo̵̡̢̼̱͎̳̗̗͉̰̼̙̳̻̯̬͓͒̏͛̇̎̃̃̽͝͠n't come near me a̷g̴a̶i̸n̴, because I will fucking-"Ryder heard something click behind her, and spun around before feeling around with her telekinesis again. Someone was alive. There was a
bang, and all she could do was soften the blow. Something collided with her skull- No doubt a bullet- but only' left a crack where it would've gone clean through. Ryder put all her weight on her bad leg, and the pain made her vomit. Blood, acid and whatever amounted to food desecrated the corpse.
There was silence, before she stood up and and hurled a radio at the shooter. It exploded against his head.
"Die..." She said, weakly.
He raised his gun to shoot again. Another one blew up against his temple.
"Leave me alone..."Even still, he weakly pointed the pistol at Ryder's face.
DIE!!!!
Ryder flung the remaining two dozen radios at him. Each one crackled into a burst of electricity, cascading off of each other like a bundle of grenades. The force incinerated everything above the man's neck, and flung debris up at Ryder. Bits of molten plastic, wires and metal slammed against her like a shotgun, knocking her over once again. Her skin was shredded in some places, and burnt to a third degree in others. And somehow, Ryder was still standing just long enough to feel the pain, before slumping against a tree.
Her vision fell back, and Ryder's body went into a slumber once more.
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