Kiera
"Here's the deal," Mei said clasping his hands together, "The others out there who are like us, need our help. We aren't helping them by staying in here. Prepare yourselves to go above ground again. We will make our final stand."
The Rebels rested for the night while Mei and I kept watch. We didn't speak at all, but knew what was going through each other's minds.
My skin prickled, the hairs on my arms raising.
Demon.
Mei swiftly stood up, walking silently down the hallway to come face to face with a small demon.
It only reached the height of his chest. The demon had long, lanky arms with a mouthful of razor sharp teeth.
"Get down!" I yelled as a vision of the demon swiping his claws across Mei's stomach flashed through my mind.
Mei dropped to the ground right as the demon attacked. It's arm swung cleanly over Mei.
The demon gurgled, lava flowing from its mouth. It caught some in its claws. I knew it would dump the lava on Mei if I didn't do something.
"Hey! Over here!" I yelled, waving my arms over my head.
The demon looked my way, drawing its arm back to lob the glob of lava at me.
Mei, still on the ground, slammed his fist into the ground. Suddenly, there were two of him. The demon looked just as surprised as I felt.
Both Meis attacked the demon at the same time. One of them grabbed the throwing arm with the lava and snapped it off. The demon shrieked so loud I had to cover my ears.
The other Mei whipped a sword around, slicing the demon's head off the body. It rolled to my feet where I felt ready to vomit.
The duplicate Mei dissolved. Mei wiped his sword on his pants and slid it back in the sheath attached to his back.
"Shit. More demon attacks," he said.
I never felt so helpless in my life. Without Declan, I couldn't use any other power besides my stupid one. I would have to rely on normal weapons from now on.
We returned to our watch spot, breathing heavily. We agreed not to tell the Rebels about the demon to not increase their worries more.
"Mei," I began, "I know what we have to do."
~
In what we guessed was the morning, Mei and I woke up the Rebels. We had maybe sixty members total. Hopefully that girl was right when she said there were more of us out there. The hard part would be to find all of them.
Mei set up his camcorder that he still somehow had after everything we had been through. When I asked him how he still had it, he dodged my question and I let it drop.
"It's all set," Mei said as he aimed it at my face. Even with his girlfriend gone, he could still use her power to hack into the live broadcasts.
With all the destruction in the sectors, I wasn't sure how many of the large screens were still functioning. I figured it was still worth a shot.
I ran my fingers through my knotted hair to make myself a little more presentable.
Mei nodded his head to signal me to speak.
"Hello, Rebels. "We need to band together; there is still hope for change. We have lost so many lives in this pointless war. We have the power to end it."
The Nephilim underground with me, surrounded around to be in the camera.
"Our time has come. This is the moment for us to fight."
I placed my fist over my heart, then raised it to the camera as if I was going to fist pump it. The Rebels around me did the same.
Mei clicked off the camera saying, "Well done."
I smiled. I hoped the Rebels would be able to see the secret message in the video. If anyone supporting the Known Families found it, we would all be dead by nightfall.
"Time to go," I said.
The Rebels packed up and we were ready to leave. They were all so brave. I knew I could rely on them.
~
I prayed that other Rebels had read the message we wrote on our hands in the video. We smeared dirt from the tunnels on each of our hands to write a letter. Anyone watching the feed should have been able to read the message when we raised our fists to the camera.
The words scrawled across our hands had said, "We are Known."
From that, I hope they were able to figure out to meet us at the Known Family's mansion where our first rebellion had gone down.
I walked alongside Mei as we led our group to the scene. I wasn't nervous. This could have very well been my final hours before I'll be killed. I knew that whatever happened, I would go down fighting, or not go down at all.
Stepping over the remains of buildings and dodging the craters in the streets, we marched to the Known Family's home.
We stopped about a block away, hiding behind a fallen structure.
The Known Family mansion looked completely out of place in this wasteland.
The green grass was cut neatly, flower garden healthy and blooming, fountain running with water. Absolutely no marks of the war marred the front lawn. The mansion was just as immaculate as before.
"There's a ward around the house. I've seen this type of thing before," someone said from the back of our group, "Virtually nothing can break through."
"Except us," Mei smirked.
We gathered in a circle, putting our arms around each other's necks. Mei looked each of us in the eye like Trev had done so long ago. He beamed and said, "It's now or never. Don't back down. Nothing can stop us now."
Because of the dense smoke, we couldn't see much. We would have to walk slowly.
A shape took form through the fog. Then many others began to formulate behind the first shape.
"Shit," Mei cursed.
The Guardians and Supporters working for the Known Families had decoded our secret message. We were as good as dead now.
At least two hundred of them were coming toward us. I couldn't tell if they could see our small group yet or not. There was nothing we could do. There was no where else left to run.
This would be the last battle of the war. Whoever came out on top was the winner.
The other Rebels wouldn't be showing up. We were all doomed from the start.
It was two hundred versus sixty. The odds were heavily in their favor.
"Stand your ground," Mei commanded.
The smoke cleared as the Guardians and Supporters met head on with our group.
Except, they weren't with the Known Families.
They were Rebels.
All two hundred of them.
And leading them was Declan.
~
Declan
Kiera bolted from her group of Rebels. Her hair flew wildly as she flew into my arms. I caught her and pressed her firmly to my chest.
I could feel her shaking against me.
"H-How?" She stuttered.
"Shh. Not now. We have a war to win," I said, smoothing her hair down.
I had found about one hundred and fifty Rebels on the way here. The other sixty or so had survived the building collapse because of me.
They would all definitely be dead right now if I hadn't been there. When the roof had finally caved in, I had thrown up a shield protecting us. It was a very weak one because I didn't have time to make a sturdy shield.
The building did collapse on us, but with my shield no one was harmed. We were able to shove the remnants out of the way and climb out unscathed.
Kiera unlatched herself from me and turned to the smaller group of Rebels.
"All of these Nephilim are with us. It's time to give it our all," she said, green eyes sparkling.
Both groups came together to form one of about three hundred Rebels with Mei, Kiera, and I at the front.
We had been lucky to catch Kiera's broadcast. Almost every screen had been destroyed and we just happened to be walking by a functioning one when it went off.
"Attention. This is a warning. All Guardians and Supporters report to the Known Family Ward immediately. I repeat, immediately," the Queen's voice rang out from one of the screens.
We didn't even have a second to prepare ourselves as the Guardians and Supporters bearing the Known Family armor swooped down from the sky.
They landed right at the front of our group. In uniform precision, the six hundred of them formed even rows. We were outnumbered, two to one.
At the same time, both groups began firing. Weapons, water, fire, lava, rocks, and every other sort of power flung between our groups.
I kept throwing up shields around us while trying to freeze the attacks in the air at the same time.
The groups ran at each other and clashed. For every one Rebel, there were two Nephilim attacking them.
An earthquake violently shook the ground. Everyone toppled over, the battle momentarily forgotten.
It wasn't an earthquake. It was a demon.
It was larger than any building that had been made. The huge black beast demolished the few standing buildings with just its clawed paw. Four horns protruded from the skull and sharp spikes ran down its back to its tail that ended in a poisonous scorpion stinger.
It roared and spit flew from its jaw. Just one glob of the saliva drenched a Nephilim. They screamed as the saliva burned holes in their clothing.
No one could fight this demon on their own. We would need everyone here to fight it.
We all needed to put away our differences and drop the war if we wanted to survive this attack. There was no way we could fight a war at the same time as fighting this demon.
This was by far the largest and deadliest demon I had ever seen. For all we knew, there could be more of them coming.
More and more Guardians and Supporters flew in. They saw none of us fighting each other and instead focused on the new threat.
Everyone picked themselves off the ground and as one, we attacked the demon.