Chapter 10

CRASH!

Asher burst through the doors of the campus library with his fists lit in dark red flames.

"WOOOO!" Asher yelled. "Want some of thi-" Asher looked around the entrance of the library.

"Where are the robots?" Asher asked himself, confused. "There's usually hordes of 'em!" Asher calmed his flames a little to just his fingers. He made his way past the front desk, coming across many overturned bookshelves, tables, and chairs. Almost all the books were dripping wet from burst pipes or scorched from the invasion. Papers littered the floor. The beautiful carpet designs were destroyed and covered with torn book pages and old school assignments. Every step Asher made had the crunch of dried papers or the squish of old soggy papers. He looked at the moldy walls of the library, finding holes everywhere from fires and blasters. As he continued through the main hall of the library, eventually spotting two heavy duty doors.

"That wasn't there before," Asher whispered, confused. "Oh well, it shouldn't be too bad. Asher walks up to the doors, with his arms flaring hotter and hotter. His arms began to glow into a more bright red color. Asher then slowly placed his hands on the doors, gently pressing against the cold steel doors. Asher's hands slowly fell through the doors. Once Asher reached the middle, he flared up his flames as hard as he could, melting the doors from the inside.

"Whoo!" Asher yelped. "It's hot!" Asher pulled his arms out of the molten door. He looked on as he laid witness to a wall of bright orange liquid metal. The metal began to drip slowly, causing Asher to grow impatient.

"This is taking too long!" Asher said, readying his fists. "I'm punching my way through!" There were still several parts on the front and back that were solid and cool. Asher readied his fists with bright red flames, preparing to puch through the doors.

YIIIAAAH!

Asher yelled out as he punched the doors rapidly. His punches were light enough to not be stuck in the metal, but not too light as to not do any damage. The steel doors began to slowly be chipped away, soon becoming scattered pieces of metal across the library. Asher stood under the doorway, which was covered in molten metal. The glow of the metal illuminated the room in shades of orange and gold. On the other side of the doorway lay two giant spiral staircases coiled around walls of bookshelves extending to four stories in the air like a helix. The top of the staircase led to a small balcony overlooking the library with a glass dome on top as the roof. In the center of the room was a circular platform with communication screens and defenses, one of which was the controls to the now melted door.

Due to Asher's luck there were several robots in the room, all staring at him. With their blasters at the ready, they aimed and fired at Asher.

"CRAP!" Asher yelped. Asher used his fists to block the laser blasts and protect his chest and head. Asher found cover and ducked behind a fallen metal table.

"Now what?" Asher asked himself. "I count twelve robots and two zevers in the room with me. How do I beat fourteen aliens?" Asher decided there was no time to mope and thought quickly about what to do. Asher saw the bottom of the staircase only a little bit away from him. With quick thinking, Asher used the metal rods from the table legs to melt a brace onto the table for his arm to fit. He used his cover as a portable shield and immediately booked it to the stairs.

Asher ascended the stairs as quickly as he could with a light metal table on his right arm. There were already hundreds of dents in the table from the blaster fire. It was only a matter of time before it looked like swiss cheese. As Asher got higher, the blaster fire began to lighten. Due to Asher now being three stories higher than the robots, the blaster fire was much less accurate and blocked by the bottom of the stairs. Asher peered over the edge carefully, finding the robots had started ascending the stairs as well.

"Alright, time for plan B," Asher said. He set his fists ablaze again and punched the stairs as hard as he could, destroying the top of the stairs and separating him from the robots. Asher looked on to the other side of the room at the opposing staircase. The robots had begun their accent, already on the second floor. Asher looked around, trying to find a place to run when he saw two barricaded doors covered in books.

"Time to ditch!" Asher said. He ran to the doors, closing them behind him and barricading the entrance, concealing his escape.

"Alright," Asher began. "Now what?" Asher looked down the hallway, seeing a window to his right. He ran to the window, which showed the main quad, at least it was meant to. When Asher looked through the window, he saw metal tiling the ground on top of the grass. There was heavy machinery and a tarp over the main quad which was attached to the buildings surrounding the now metallic plain.

"I've always hated the main quad," Asher began. "But now I despise it."

"ASHY?" a voice yelled out in joy. "Is that you?" Asher's head immediately turned to his left, finding the hallway to take a left turn. With zero hesitation Asher sprinted to the bend, he saw rows and rows of repurposed study rooms. They were prison cells, holding several of the students that once called the campus home. People immediately began to take notice and their faces lit up.

"Finally another human!" one student said.

"Isn't that the weird kid in physics?" another asked with confusion.

"I don't care!" a third one answered. "Hey Brock! Ashy's here!" Asher was pleasantly surprised with the amount of excitement his former classmates showed.

"Brock's here?" Asher asked.

"Fifth cell on ya right," Brock answered. Asher ran towards Brock's cell with a certain bounce in his step not yet seen. 

"YO! BROCK!" Asher yelled out. "I got your swords! Lemmy melt this glass and get everyone out."

"Wait, don't!" Brock warned.

"Why?" Asher asked.

"If anyone touches any of the glass doors, an electric shock shoots out of the cannons on the ceiling." Brock answered. Asher looked up to find what Brock was talking about. There were small cannons every meter or so and one in every cell.

"How do I disable the cannons?" Asher asked.

"I bet it's in a control center downstairs," Brock answered.

"You mean the one with several zevers and robots guarding it?" Asher asked in an annoyed voice.

"Zevers?" Brock asked. "If those are the aliens, yes."

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" Asher groaned. "I JUST came from there!"

"Well, unless ya have another idea," Brock began. "I have no clue as to how ya gonna get us out."

"Alright," Asher said in a slightly less excited voice. "Time to backtrack. Once I disable the controls, meet me at the base of the helix stairs. Got it?"

"Got it!" the students said. 

Asher then made his way back around to the doors he came through. As he placed his hand on the doorknob, he had an epiphany.

"Might as well give them hell!" Asher said, setting his arms ablaze once more. Asher stepped back a few meters, creating distance between him and the door. Asher stared at his legs, thinking of recycling an old idea.

Asher began to heat up his legs, creating pressure in the air around his bottom half. Asher's legs began to glow, with the bottom of his pants beginning to burn away. As Asher turned his pants into shorts, he released the pressure by expanding his flames, causing an explosion, hurling him forward into the door. The sound from the explosion sounded like a cannon shot, creating a deafening echo across the hallway. Asher extended his fists forward, destroying the door and creating a beam of fire across the top of the cylindrical library. Asher's momentum wasn't enough to keep him airborne and began to plummet after reaching just past the middle of the room. He looked around, counting seventeen zevers in the cylindrical room.

"Guess I miss counted," Asher began to himself. "Anyway, if I can land on one of them with a big enough impact, it should take out the few around it." Asher dove with his feet facing the ground, aiming at one of the zever robots in the center of their formation. Asher's legs ignited again, burning brighter than ever, almost a sharp orange due to the friction from the air. Asher's legs slammed into the ground, with his legs only surviving due to the air pressure keeping the legs intact. The resulting impact expelled flames into the robots surrounding him.

"Six down!" Asher cheered. "Now only ele… WAIT NO!" Asher began to be shot at by the remaining robots, narrowly avoiding each lazer before creating a smoky flame to hide himself. The entire lower floor was covered in a coat of smoke. The remaining nine robots and two zevers turned on flashlights in a futile attempt to find Asher.

"Zzt! I have no visual!" a robot shouted out. "I need back u-" The zever robot's head was snapped off violently and tossed to the ground. The neck joint had scorch marks everywhere due to Asher's flames.

"Unit 6872!" another robot yelled. "Do you read?" There was silence. Only moments later, a small but hot plume of fire hurled at the robot, burning right through its center. The sparks from the robot's chest flared up with the flames from Asher's fist before swiftly dissipating into the ground. 

"Alright! ALRIGHT!" one of the zevers shouted. "Open the windows and turn on the air filters! I want eyes on that bastard as of to-"

SMACK!

Asher smacked the zever with the back of his now dulled fists. The zever fell to the ground, now knocked out hard from the impact. The smoke began to rise quickly, exiting the room through the now opened windows. The remaining zever along with the now seven robots looked at the carnage in front of them, finding no trace of Asher.

"Fan out!" the zever commanded. "Search for the human!" The robots spread out, with two covering each of the top three floors. The zever remained at the ruined command station.

"This is unit 6873," the robot on the first floor said. "No human spotted yet." The robot combed through every bookshelf there was, finding only scorch marks. The robot eventually found a trail of burnt papers. Finding it peculiar, it followed the paper trail, eventually leading to a small room with several blank papers and a printing machine. The robot looked around, eventually looking up.

"SURPRISE!" Asher yelled, jumping on top of the robot from the ceiling. Asher's legs and arms were in flames, causing the robot to be dismantled immediately and efficiently.

"Welp!" Asher started. "That was easy." Asher continued his way to the command station spotting only one zever attempting to fix any broken parts.

"No way this guy is just standing there with no protection after the amount of damage I did!" Asher said in disbelief. "It's gotta be a trap!" Nevertheless, Asher decided to sneak up on the zever. His plan was to go all the way around the zever, sneak behind it, knock it out, and then improvise.

SMACK… AGAIN!

"Well that was easy," Asher said, standing proudly. Asher looked up, finding blasters pointed at him from every direction above him. Asher's jaw dropped.

"Human below!" a robot announced. "You have ten human seconds to surrender yourself before we open fire!"

"WHAT DO I DO!" Asher panicked in his head. He looked around with the fear of a child that was about to get a scolding. Asher looked straight up, seeing the fire sprinklers, remembering the fire countermeasures in the library. In the case of a fire, the library floors would become separated by thin transparent protective coverings. The stairs were the only portions not covered so as to not prevent an escape. Asher spat fire at the sprinklers, triggered the fire suppressors, causing the floors to separate and the sprinklers to activate. The robots began to shoot at Asher, but were unable to due to the protective coverings. The protective coverings were a little decayed from the repetitive usage over the last few weeks. Asher stared at the robots with the smile of a child who got away from stealing money from their parents' wallets.

"HA!" Asher yelled out. "Whaddya gonna do now?" The robots stopped shooting so as to not waste any ammunition. Asher set his right leg ablaze and destroyed the control console. All that was left was a pile of melted and destroyed metal. Asher looked up only to see the sprinklers shutting down. Asher then did a double take at the control console.

"Oh shoot," Asher said with dread, realizing what he did. Asher ignited his limbs and launched himself into the bookshelves, crouching and hiding himself from the lazer fire he was about to receive. The robots continued their onslaught as the protective coverings retracted. 

"Alright," Asher told himself. "On the count of three, I go! ONE! TWO! THR…" The firing stopped. 

"They wouldn't be dumb enough to try the same trap again?" Asher asked himself. Asher got on his legs again, ready to make a run for it… again. As he stood up, a jagged blade was brought only inches from his neck.

"Is that you bud?" Brock asked.

"IT WORKED!" Asher yelled out. The jagged blade retracted as Asher and Brock shook hands firmly.

"Nice one man!" Brock said. "So now tell me, how the hell did ya get your butt all the way here by yourself?"

"Uhhh…" Asher started. "Well I met this one guy who was a lieutenant colonel under my dad and he found me in Chicago. From there we made our way to Kankakee and then here. We found… Ruby on the way here. She's apparently aiding in the escape."

"Nah, not buying it," Brock said.

"Meeting the lieutenant colonel or Ruby helping?" Asher asked

"Ruby's probably using ya and the other guy as distractions for something…" Brock stated. "What is that guy's name anyway?"

"Zack," Asher answered. "Now where is everyone else?"

"Come with me," Brock said. "They're all on the top floor. We're gonna use one of the old conference rooms to come up with a plan."

"We need to get Zack first," Asher said. "He's never been to the campus before and judging by the lightning strikes coming from his direction, I have a feeling something is wrong."

"Alright then," Brock started. "What's our plan of attack?"

"You and I go get Zack while the others formulate a strategy." Asher began explaining. "Once we get back, we'll hatch an escape plan and then go back for Ruby."

"Fine," Brock said with satisfaction. "But I don't think we'll need to have an escape plan."

"Then what?" Asher asked.

"You'll see," Brock said. "The others and I already got an awesome plan.

"Alright," Asher sighed. "I know better than to question your tactics.

"Great!" Brock said with delight. "Now I'm guessing we are heading towards where those crazy lightning strikes were happening?"

"Yup!" Asher said as he started running. "Follow me!"