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"Sure you won't reconsider?" Jubilee yelled into Daria's
ear. Even so, Daria barely heard her for the force of
the wind rushing by.
"No! I have an idea!" Daria yelled back, diving steeply
to avoid another plasma blast. Jubilee squeeled,
grabbing tightly to Daria, squinting her eyes shut.
'Guess she doesn't like being a thousand and more feet
up!' Daria thought hysterically.
For that matter, even she wasn't very
comfortable up this high, not that Daria would ever
admit it to herself. It wasn't too long ago that she'd
thought of herself as a normal human girl, before she'd
found out that there was nothing left of her humanity
but a few shreds of DNA and alot of machinery.
A second and third plasma blast shot by Daria, making
her pull up sharply and almost knocking Jubilee off.
"We need to get away! We have to hide!" Jubilee
screamed.
Daria kept silent, her eyes searching the ground below.
A steady murmuring sound behind her was coming closer,
the sound of Prime Sentinals hunting their prey. "Hang
on!" she yelled back to Jubilee. 'I hope she heard' she
thought numbly 'because if not, she's in for a surprise!
'
Then, without another word, Daria fell from the sky.
If Jubilee screamed, Daria couldn't have heard her over
her own fear. The wind rushing by...the agitation of
Primes behind her, sensing their escape...the shock of
the impact, so close she could almost feel it, smashing
her body, spreading pieces of atoms over the desert floor
below...
For one precious moment, Daria didn't act.
Then, all that was left was action. Daria pulled up as
gently and slowly as she could, still going fast.
Above her, a sound like a falling bomb overtook them
and passed. The Prime hit the ground and exploded, an
arc of fire drifting lazily upwards before any sound
could be heard.
The light illuminated a nearby canyon, and hardly
thinking, Daria turned landed in it. The walls rose up
thousands of feet, blocking out the sky and the
hunters. It was peaceful, quiet inside, almost as if
the fight above was from another world. Daria dropped
hevily to the ground, Jubilee sliding off and hitting
hard.
"Jubilee?!" Daria asked anxiously. She looked over to
where Jubilee was.
"Ohhhh, my head," Jubilee moaned. She weakly lifted
her head up from the ground and looked around. "Oh,
good, we lost them. Wake me up when the world stops
spinning."
Thunder came from the sky, disloging a few rocks and
causing a small landslide. "I didn't hear that,"
Jubilee said, "It was a figment of my imagination."
She sat up suddenly. "Can they see us?!"
Daria looked around her, then pointed to a small
building in the distance, on top of another plateau.
"No, see that up there? That's a radio station, it
confuses the Prime's senses below a hundred feet.
You should be safe enough if you stay down here."
"If I stay down here? What about you?" Jubilee
asked.
"There's a highway about twenty or so miles away from
here. Stick to the path through here, and you'll come
up to it. You can hitch a ride somewhere if your
lucky." Daria ignored Jubilee's question.
"What are you going to do? Daria?" Jubilee asked
again, stubbornly.
Daria looked Jubilee squarely in the face. "Someone has
to drive the Primes off. They're not the brightest of
all, but they're smart enough to figure out that if
they're up there, then we're down here. If the Primes
dont' get us, the Hounds will. One of us has to drive
them off, make them think we're still running scared."
"And your going to do it." Jubilee state flately.
"Yes."
"NO! You can't do it! The XMen never left a friend,
and I'm not going to start the tradition." Jubilee said
empethetically, stabbing her finger at Daria.
"Try and stop me then. You still have a chance to
escape, Jubilee. TAKE IT." Daria turned and was in
the air before Jubilee could so much as open her mouth.
Soaring into the line of fire, Daria had no hope
left...not for herself, anyways. There was plenty left
over for Jubilee. Every lost dream Daria could not
recall...every hope she had lost...every fiber of her
being...all joined together for one, final strike.
:There's the Daria unit! Get her!: :Where's the
mutant?: :Get the Daria unit, and Bastion will
force it out of her!:
The drone of the Primes behind her chilled Daria. To
think of murder so coldly, so cruelly, as if it was
only a tool to be used. This, she relizes, is why she
helped Jubilee escape. Why she now sacrifices her own
existance for anothers.
Daria didnt' even have to look over her shoulder to
know that the Primes were right behind her. 'Fine'
Daria thought furiously 'You want to play, we'll play!'
She banked to her left, and dropped a few feet down.
An overeager Prime, anxious to catch her, grabbed her
leg. Daria kicked out viciously, hitting him in his
face and sending him off balance. It fell, hitting the
one behind it, and with comical slowness the two fell.
A third Prime on the sidelines opened up with his plasma
blasts. Another came up on Daria's other side, trying
to box her between them, but with a twist and a kick,
Daria was away, the Prime's last shot scorching her
shirt before taking out the other Prime dead center in
the chest. 'Four down, several hundred to go,' Daria
thought darkly.
A bullet suddenly ripped thru Daria's arm. Drops of
blood followed her down as she lost her balance and
fell a few precious feet. The Primes closed in,
sensing her weakness, not allowing her a moment's
respite. With an effort, Daria closed off her pain
sensors, concentrating on staying out of reach.
A movement off to her side. Daria's head whipped
around, but she was too late. The Primes where all
around her, their red eyes glaring, murmuring mechanical
voices speaking in a code that surely meant nothing
good for her. With a feral grin, Daria devised a plan.
She fell...
She smashed herself into the ground, the Primes falling
after her. Dust and sand flew up into the air, the
explosion right behind them. A fireball blossomed.
And when Daria hit, she did it with a smile.
