“You know, I feel like we don’t do this enough,” Bella said as they climbed a boulder before crossing a stream by the falls. Bella was careful not to get wet yet but she knew part of being out there meant getting in the water which she was totally okay with.
“Get out of the city, explore around, there is so much here.”
Shielding her eyes from the sun for a moment as they reached the other side of the stream, Jill nodded. Being out here is want the most comfortable thing for a moroi, but on a day like today, it was worth it. She’d also gotten more used to it than some other moroi after all the time she’d spent in Palm Springs and working some with the guardians at Court even after leaving there.
“We really should,” she agreed easily. “Do this more, I mean. It’s so nice out here. I bet there’s a lot more to Atlantis that we haven’t seen yet.”
"Seriously, I feel like we are always so busy with everything that it's hard to enjoy getting out." She said as they paused looking down at the pool of water at the bottom of the falls.
"So, what's the plan?" She said with a smile. "Swim? See what you can do and my magic can do and we can walk down to the water?"
Jill nodded as she twisted her hair into a knot at the back of her head. “Swimming is our reward after we do a little work,” she decided.
“Do you want to bring the water up and I’ll try and jellify them.” Okay, so that probably wasn’t a word but she didn’t really care.
Word or not, Jill nodded. Focusing on the water below them, she reached out with her magic and brought a small, but steady stream arcing up toward them.
Bella focused as she started to make gel steps out of the floating water she was just about to suggest they try one when she heard a strange metallic sound from behind them. Glancing away one of the steps plunged down into the water. “Did you hear that?”
Nodding, Jill started to shift into a defensive stance as she reached out with her senses to try to figure out what the sound was.
Bella frowned having hoped that she was just imagining things. Staying quiet she could hear the metal legs moving towards them. Pointing down she knew she could try and trap one in jelly water but she didn’t really know how helpful that would be, regardless she pointed motioning towards the one coming closest to them. “Aim water, I’ll try and trap it.” She said knowing the moment she did she’d want to contact command.
Using water as a weapon was something Jill had trained for and she acted quickly, pulling the water from the stream and sending it towards the [...] it looked like some kind of mechanical bug when it came into view.
Without hesitating, Bella pulled the molecules of the water together around the bug looking thing but it didn’t seem to do much good as it just kept well, moving. “Shit,” she whispered. “I’m going to send a message.” She fumbled as she pulled her device out sending a message. It took her a couple of moments and as she did she watched as even more bugs started to come towards them.
Jill tried to buy Bella some time to get a message out, pulling more water from the stream to shoot at the creatures in an attempt to distract them. She knew there were way too many of them to hold them off for long. The best she could hope for was that they could get out a call for help.
Bella was just finishing as one built on top of another and started to eat her phone. “Run!” Bella squeaked as she jumped to the side watching her device disappear and more bugs appear.
Jill wasn’t going to take off without Bella and she moved toward her. She knew Bella could take care of herself, but her instincts were still to make sure her friend was okay before worrying about herself.
Bella tried to tell Jill to run again but the bugs had lost interest in her and were going for Jill’s device. It was weird how they didn’t seem to care about them, only the technology on them.
Yelping, Jill let go of her grip on the phone as she realized the creature only seemed to care about that. “What are these things?” she asked Bella as she started to back away from the machines.
“Evil metal bugs?” Bella offered but didn’t know, as they moved it felt like they were cornering them and there wasn’t really a good path to take to get away from them. As they kept getting pushed to the sides Bella all of a sudden felt hands on her shoulders and screamed.
Someone grabbed Jill at the same time and she tried to struggle against the grip, using the moves the palace guardians and Eddie had taught her, but she wasn’t strong enough to finish get against her attacker. Confusion and perhaps some amusement over the mechanical bugs turned to real fear as she realized the kind of danger they were really in here. As she tried to scream for help, she felt a hand clamp over her mouth, but she couldn’t get a good handle to but into it and no matter how hard she struggled, she couldn’t get out of that grip. She couldn’t even tell where Bella was now or if her friend was okay.
Bella kicked and tried to get to any kind of water but she couldn’t and as she fought she started to feel more and more faint as she drifted off into unconsciousness. Her last thought being she really hoped the message went through.
It was a few hours later, or so she thought as she started to blink awake, a massive headache causing her to shut her eyes tight before carefully opening them again. She was tied up and could feel Jill tied up on the other side of the pole, COS agents and the little bugs were all around, she tried to open her mouth but found no matter how hard she tried to talk she couldn't get a word out, she managed to move her hand enough to tap on Jill's arm to see if she was awake, or okay, or something.
Jill groaned as she started to wake up. At least she tried to groan, but no sound actually came out of her mouth. Slowing blinking against the light which seemed to make her head hurt more than whatever they’d used to knock her out, she looked around the room as much as she could. Jill could feel the bonds securing her to the pole, but she also felt Bella’s hand on her arm and felt grateful for that small sign she was okay. She still couldn’t speak but managed to she her hand enough to squeeze Bella’s, to try and let her know she was okay, too.
They were both okay, well as okay as they could be but they couldn’t exactly move. The hours passed slowly as Bella watched as COS Agents and the little bugs were working on something but it was hard to focus, almost like she’d been drugged.
“Jill wished, not for the first time, that her bond with Adrian went both ways. She had no way of telling him where she was, not that she even totally knew. How long had they been gone? Did he or anyone else even know they were missing yet? She was relieved to know she and Bella were both okay, but she had no idea how they were going to get out of this. All she could do for now was hope Bella’s message had gotten to the right people before her device was destroyed by those things.