Reflection

It's awesome, great chapter

And yeah, I just remembered the "my lady" part at the end Meant to have it before.

I just figured it was being overly formal

It's sucking up to witches

Awww

After that, the respect of the others had grown visibly. Not that they'd disbelieved what she was, beforehand - not exactly - it was just that they'd now seen her use power, seen her prove it, seen her save one of their own. The respect had turned almost to awe. These days, they all called her "my lady", despite her awkward protestations against it; they all would watch her as she entered a room, they'd defer to her. It made her feel surreal. Nick once tried to explain that it was just their way of showing respect and gratitude, but she still didn't really grasp it.

"What else can I do here? Are there any real tasks?" she asked, after having been there for over a week, jumping there every night. She still hadn't done anything major. Just healing work, mostly.

At her question, a few began offering half-hearted suggestions, weak ones, but one man silenced them with a simple gesture.

"With a witch amongst us, we can aim higher," he stated.

"You mean a raid? A rescue?"

The voices questioning that were sceptical, nervy, but filled with lightly suppressed anticipation, too. They were afraid of what they were considering, but they wanted it. Needed it.

"Rescue?" she queried. "From where?"

"There's a prison complex, to the north of the city, about 14 miles out. That's where they keep those they capture - the ones they haven't executed yet. The defences are impossible. It'd have been suicide to even try raiding it....."

"Suicide before this," another corrected, grinning. It didn't take long to see that the majority agreed with this second speaker. Neither did it take long for the decision to be made.

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Over the next three days, they had all planned earnestly, and now they were crouching in the shadow of the prison complex's first guarding wall, awaiting a signal. Sophia was looking upwards worriedly. She still couldn't fully believe that she was really here, doing something like this. It sounded insanely dangerous.

From another group, Nick glanced over at her briefly, and his expression looked like he could see right through her to her anxiety. He smiled briefly, encouragingly. Before they separated and went ahead on their own jobs, he crossed over to her side.

"I doubt you'd even need this, being what you are," he began. "But I thought I'd give it to you anyway.... just in case...."

He reached out a closed hand to her, and she opened hers reflexively. When she felt the small weight, however, she could only stare at the pistol he'd handed her. Would she really need such a thing? It felt so wrong in her palm.

"Good luck," he whispered, and walked back to his team. She wasn't sure if he'd missed how suddenly lost she had felt in that moment, or if he'd chosen to ignore it.

She shook her head, dismissing the issue, and hid the gun at her waist as she turned again to watch for the signal. She didn't have to wait for long. Once they'd received it, each team moved swiftly and quietly about its work, a silent reminder that they'd done such a thing many times by now. This was routine for them. It was alien to her, of course, but she tried not to show that, and just followed her own group, quietly. They led her to a small side entrance in the shadow of the heavy, threatening walls; then waited for her to deal with that.

Closing her eyes, she simply focused, and winced at the force of the resulting explosion. The remnants of that doorway had turned to rubble even before she'd opened her eyes. In her peripheral vision, she could see their faces, awed again; but she just shook her head, and reminded them that they should be proceeding ahead. They did so. Moving quickly through the building, they met little opposition - suspiciously little, really. Only a handful of times did she have to blow up more doors or push groups of guards into the corridor walls. Too rarely, she was certain. She didn't voice this concern, though.

They continued onwards, much in the same way for around another hour. There wasn't much warning. One second, they were simply rounding another corner in their path through, and the next, the air was ablaze. Sophia was thrown backwards, and she only just managed to catch herself as she crashed to the floor. Others weren't so lucky. She winced, seeing their mangled forms, not daring to look too closely. She should have protected them.... forcing that guilt away with difficulty, she knelt beside the nearest, tried healing. Nothing happened. It was already too late. It took what felt like an age to admit that, and move onto the next. The number she could aid was pitiful.

"Don't hold yourself responsible," one woman whispered to her, eyeing her cautiously. The second Sophia had turned to face her, she'd turned away, almost as if she feared that she'd overstepped her mark. She winced.

"You can face me, you know..." her voice tailed off even as she spoke, and she knew it'd have little effect. Nick and a handful of others seemed to remember she was a person as well as a witch, but they were in the minority. The awe was sometimes isolating.

"We have to keep going," she changed the subject, glancing around again. "It's this way, yes?”
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Their group, pitifully small now, continued onwards. The corridors had returned to their pre-ambush eerie emptiness. Sophia wondered briefly if this meant their enemies had expected the attack to kill them all. They walked on, and each stark grey wall they passed was identical to the last one, marked only by the occasional locked grey door. There were no branches, no openings. Just walking on, and on, and on.

She’d just about started thinking that they’d be walking round in circles until they dropped dead of exhaustion when they finally arrived at a different sight. They rounded a corner, and there were a pair of elevator doors in front of them. She recognised them at once. They were exactly the same as elevator doors back home. That familiarity sent a chill running through her. She couldn’t explain why – other things hadn’t seemed that alien, the people here where people just like everywhere else – but something so normal and modern made the place feel unreal, as it hadn’t since her first arrival.

The others with her rushed to the doors, forcing them open, pouring in. No one noticed her daze. Eventually, she managed to pull herself free of it enough to follow.

“Where are we going?” she asked as she felt the machine begin its motion. Her voice was hoarse, she found. Slightly shaky. She’d spoken more to just hear herself than in any real curiosity about the answer.

“Downwards, my lady,” was the answer she received. “Cells almost always are placed underground.”

“They try to make us despair of ever seeing daylight,” another added.

That idea made her shudder. She hadn’t really questioned the purpose behind the war they were fighting, or what kind of people they were fighting against. If she had, she suspected, she’d have thought of it like any other war: two sides just as human as each other. That was likely why she hadn’t let herself think of it. Now, though, with the idea of losing daylight forever in her mind, and the memory of being told how they’d targeted her ancestors specifically, she did question. She questioned what kind of mindset would guide anyone to act so cruelly.

As the lift slowly descended down the shaft, Sophia could almost feel her own spirits sinking likewise. Her thoughts were caught in the morbid idea of losing daylight, of the cruelty of those they fought. It frightened her. She knew, from previous experience, that being hurt here was a very small risk, since she could easily leap back unharmed to her own world just by waking up. But it still frightened her.

The doors suddenly burst open with a clang. Having not expected it, she leapt a little at the sound, and then felt foolish. She was glad that no one seemed to have noticed her surprise.

They stepped out and walked onwards. The corridors here were as echoingly empty as those above. They were poorly lit, with several passages where they had to test their way using touch. Sophia supposed that those who worked here would know the place well enough not to need that. It was another advantage in the case of a raid. She shivered. They continued onwards for another twenty minutes, until the lead of her group indicated silently that they should pause. There was a door to the side, and a keypad lock barely illuminated by the nearest lighting.

“Should I force it open?” Sophia offered. She found that her words came out in a hoarse whisper. Even so, her voice sounded too loud.

The leader shook his head.

“No, my lady. I can deal with this part.”

She watched, curiously, as he began running his fingers across the keypad, tapping ever so lightly. The pressure wasn’t enough to activate any of the buttons. She wondered what he was doing. Some way of detecting the correct combination? How did that work? Eventually, she saw his face relax and become more confident, then he quickly tapped a series of five digits and the lock snapped open.

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Sophia rushed forwards, so that she was one of the first through the door. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe she was reminded of the earlier ambush, and was subconsciously thinking that if she moved first she’d be able to deflect something similar. Or maybe just that as the most powerful, she should go first.

The prison block she found inside was very similar to the corridors they’d passed. The same unremarkable, dark grey walls, looking black because of the lack of light there. She couldn’t yet see any cells. She supposed those were deeper within. She walked inwards, searching, and the rest of the team followed. They were all tense, still. Seeing that was obvious. Briefly, Sophia wondered why. They’d found the prison section – surely they were over halfway through the mission here? In retrospect she’d laugh at that naivety.

“I think we’ve found them,” a male voice muttered behind her. It was the same man who’d hacked the lock before.

“Where?!” she asked, startled. She couldn’t see a thing.

She sensed rather than saw him smile in response.

“There’s another door here,” he replied. “We’ve had information, maps of this place leaked for years. Raiding it has just been too dangerous. We’d all have died upstairs if not for you, my lady.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she just remained silent, grateful of the darkness hiding her blush.

He turned away from her, focusing on the door he’d mentioned. Again, he ran his fingers as if testing the keypad lock. He figured out the combination previously pressed and then used it. That door too slid open. Immediately, the light within was so bright, so painful, that it was blinding. She screwed her eyes up tightly, but she still had to manipulate the lighting to a lower level before she could see a thing.

As it adjusted, the room behind the door was revealed. Row upon row of cells. Stretching out beyond sight. Most of the prisoners within didn’t react to their new presence, but one, in the nearest, stood up. His expression looked incredulous.

Sophia rushed forwards to the cell door. She searched around looking for a way to force the lock open, before realising and just breaking it. Then she proceeded to dismantle the next cell’s lock. So focused on this task she was, it took her a while to register the sound of gunfire.

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When she did hear it, she immediately dove down to the ground. It was instinctive. She curled her arms around her head, trying to protect herself, and crawled forwards a bit. She stumbled onto a fallen body. Not even knowing if it was one of her own team or a guard, she attempted healing, but she was too late. She pulled the gun from the dead man’s grasp and cautiously raised her head a little.

It was as bad as the previous ambush had been. Disorientating, flashes of light from firing muzzles, the noise so loud she couldn’t focus.  Figures everywhere. Unable to make out much more. She tried raising the gun she’d stolen, but her hands were trembling. The shots she fired missed. She began thinking that her involvement here was pure insanity. Another bullet skimmed past her head and she flinched, curling up again, hiding. The next second, a man to her left was hit and his body collapsed on top of her. She struggled not to scream.

Slowly, she felt shame beginning to seep into her. People – people on her side, who fought and depended on her – were dying here. And what did she do? Curl up? Hide? Scream?

Again, she cautiously raised her head. She got back to her feet. The weapon she’d previously used had been kicked away by this time. Surely she could still do something, though.... Another shot stuck close nearby, and she flinched, but she forced herself not to hide. Not this time. She began focusing, thinking of creating a shield, deflecting the bullets away. Agonisingly slowly, it strengthened. Some of her allies noticed the effect, and she could see the confidence growing on their faces. She was doing this. She was saving them.

“You can do this,” she muttered to herself. She began wondering what else she could do. Attack the guards? She wasn’t sure she wanted to do that. Using her ability to kill. But otherwise... what else was there?

“Tough, you have to do this,” she muttered.

Unsure of herself, she raised her hands. Some instinct was telling her to do so. She aimed her eyes at the nearest guard, identifiable because of his uniform, and thought of electricity. That’d be merciful. Quick. She couldn’t afford an explosion like the one she’d created when she first came here.

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Sophia only realised she’d lost consciousness as she regained it. Groggily, she lifted her head, and wondered how many times she’d find herself lying on this particular piece of floor. She didn’t comprehend what had happened. Had she caused an explosion, even while trying not to? Had she herself been caught at the edge of it? No, she couldn’t see enough damage for that. Her head had been hit by something, though. She pulled herself to her feet. Her entire body was aching now. She could see that her earlier shield had fallen, and the fighting was even more intense than before, guards intermeshed and combating with her friends in all directions.

She tried to focus again, building up another attack. Her head throbbed. No, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t think.

The next second, what she saw made her panic. She recognised Nick, part of the new influx of raiders who’d entered while she was out of it. His back was to her, but she still knew it was him. And between them both, there was another guard, already aiming a shot directly at the back of Nick’s head. Nick had no idea. He was caught up in fighting a second one.
Her fear made it impossible to think. She needed to do something, needed to block the bullet, or attack that man, stop him. But she couldn’t think. This was different from before, this was Nick, and because of that she was too frightened. She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t. Panic bubbled up inside her, blinding her, rising in ever increasing circles. She’d raised her arm before she even was aware of what she was doing, fired. Only then did she recall the pistol Nick had given to her before. It was cold in her palm now. Her hands began shaking, delayed shock kicking in, and she quickly pocketed the weapon before she could drop it, since she didn’t want to lose it.

Nick had glanced up at the gunfire. His eyes widened fractionally, seeing what she’d done. Then they moved upwards. Quick as thought, he’d taken aim, and before she could freak, he’d fired too. The guard attempting to sneak up behind her collapsed. She threw a nervous, awkward smile back at Nick. He nodded in response, then turned back to the fighting.

That made her realise she should be doing the same. She should bury this fear, this reflexive guilt at her first ever kill, deal with it later if she ever got the opportunity. People needed her now and they needed her to focus. She took the gun back out of her pocket, aimed it carefully, fired a shot. Then another. Then another. She didn’t realise it, but she was subconsciously using her power to block out her own unwanted thoughts and emotions, keeping her calm. She callously moved on, killing guard after guard after guard. Perhaps she’d been unknowingly improving her aim as well. Her shots were blurring past her allies, passing through the tiniest gaps, hitting their target every time – she’d definitely improved it. This was becoming almost autopilot. She didn’t think of attacking with her ability, lightning or explosions or anything else, just coldly pulling the trigger over and over, reloading, burying ammunition in every guard’s head.