The Writers' Circle

Foley had remained in motion, rolling towards the gun the huntress had cast aside. He gripped the its handle as he tucked it under and spun. The third alien whipped around towards Renata in order to ward off the threat from behind but he was nowhere near as quick enough. Foley pulled the trigger as soon as he brought the weapon to bear sending a ball of energy hurtling towards the alien. Engulfed in the concussive blast, he tumbled to the rooftop.

Foley turned his attention towards the first alien to exit the portal. Barely four or five seconds had past and she managed to get to her feet, but her legs were shaky. He cast the weapon to the floor and took a tentative step towards her. She retreated a step, looking nervously over her shoulder at Renata who kept her weapon trained on her. Foley raised his hand to warn Renata to freeze. Renata held her position and watched carefully.

The alien had humanoid features. Her hair was silver --not the silver of someone who's lost their hair color with age, but shiny, lustrous silver. She had a luminous, complimentary grey complexion that seemed to go with her hair. Her eyes were solid white and seemed to glow. She coughed hard and dropped to her knees. He took a step towards her, but she threw her hand up in a pleading gesture to leave her be. She coughed again several times violently until she gasped and took in a deeper breath of air.

She didn't have a chance to protest as he reached her side in mid cough, grabbing her gently by the shoulders and helping her back upright. The instant her eyes locked with his they began to take a more human guise, forming deep iridescent blue irises. Her skin took a more human tone, becoming a rich caramel brown like his; her hair darkened to jet black. Within few moments, she had assumed a human appearance of a young girl approximately his age, perhaps a little younger. She gasped, looking more than a little puzzled and scared, pulling the gloves from her hands and looking at her them as though she were seeing herself for the first time. Her eyes widened in horror as she looked over his shoulder and gasped.

He'd made a mistake.

He smelled the hint of burning ozone as the air past his left ear burned with the energy of the laser shot. With Renata where she was, she couldn't see that the huntress had regained her senses and tried to fire a shot at them both. Whether or not it was a warning, or she was still groggy from the blast he didn't know nor care. He grabbed her by the shoulder, pushing them both to the right and out of the way. She sensed his motion and did her best to move with him but she was nowhere near as adept at the motion of battle. Another shot passed just where their heads had been a moment ago. Renata didn't have enough time to set for a shot and move at the same time, so she fired several shots to back her down from drawing a bead on the two of them.

Her shots went wide on either side of the huntress. Foley recognized
what she going to try to get in between the two of them and the huntress to allow him time to move. She leapt from her perch turning sideways and firing her pistol as she did so. The huntress had collected her senses quickly and moved into a crouching position with a clear bead on them both. A bubble of concussive energy came from the air above. The blast hit underneath Renata, propelling her with greater speed up and outwards over the side of the building.

He couldn't leave the woman in front of him, and save Renata at the same time. He felt very deeply that the consequences would be disastrous if she fell into the hands of the huntress-though he couldn't fathom why he felt that way. In a split second, his mind sifted through his options, calculating trajectory, force, and the reaction speed of his opponents. Without hesitation, he grabbed the startled woman in front of him, and flung her with all his might over the side of the roof.

She sailed over the ledge. Physically, Foley was many times stronger than he looked. His entire body had been tested, and along with his agility and balance, his physical strength was considered prodigious. The doctors observed his entire physiology had naturally developed to be more efficient than even the finest human athlete.

He pushed his body to the absolute limit, bounding over the rooftop after the two of them, marking their respective trajectories instantaneously. Renata's motion was a slow arc up and over the railing, while the woman in the space suit had more lateral momentum. Renata would begin her descent to the street below before the alien girl ceased moving forward and begun to fall as well. He intended to catch Renata before then and throw her through the window of the office building across from them. He used his greater momentum to overtake her.

His heart pounded, but he remained in control. Renata had gone limp and released her weapon as she went over the railing. He plucked it from the air as he rotated past her. He aimed with one hand and fired at the window while upside down and spinning forward. The glass shattered as he tucked the gun into his waistband and caught her by the lapel of her blazer. Bringing her around him, he flung her with all his might towards the window across the alley below them. She crashed through it and landed in a conference room --concussed, but still alive. With his forward motion all but spent, he straightened out and pointed himself downwards.

The alien woman was just beneath him as he'd intended, reaching out for him. He reached out as well, falling faster and faster until they clasped hands. They both ended up falling together head first as he grasped her tightly and pulled her to him. They fell as one mass towards the street below. He'd marked the positions of the wires that spanned from building to building beneath them, taking note of their position. If he grabbed for a wire too close to the ground, their velocity would snap it, and they would continue to a sudden stop and death on the pavement below.

He looked for a higher wire closer to the side of one of the buildings. Catching a wire at the end and allowing the slow arc of its swing to redirect their motion would allow him to halt their descent. The only problem with that is that placement of the wire's other end could smash them both senseless if it's arc brought them into another building instead of through a window, or towards a softer landing spot than the streets below them.

She managed to reposition herself as they fell so that her legs were wrapped around his midsection and his arms around his neck. She held tightly to him as he pulled the Smith and Wesson from his belt and fired three shots at the base connector of the wire. The third shot dislodged the wire from its connecting harness. He reached out with both hands, and grabbed the end of the wire at the connecting bell as they passed it, where he could grip tightly. As they dropped, he felt the tug of the wire begin to pull them in an arc away from the approaching ground.

They were still some four stories away from the ground as the base of the arc began to pull them away from the ground. Glass shattered as he heard the report of the alien's concussion rifle. The blasts rocked the building just above them, but they were now in the full arc of his swing moving away from the debris that exploded outward. The blast felt more intense than before. Apparently failing to capture their target meant seeing to her death was the alternative command. Capture or Kill.

"Hold on!" He shouted. He was amazed that he could get the words out, but he did.

She clutched him tightly as he could feel them moving now fully backwards and upwards on the backside of the swing. At this point, he had no idea of where they were going to hit as they came to the point in their arc where they were actually starting to move back upwards. He strained to look behind them at the last second. He'd made a blind calculation that they would end up facing towards windows but he was wrong. They were heading towards the brick face of the building across the street and behind where they had been. His body was going to hit hard concrete and he knew that it would break. He only hoped that when that happened, he would be able to turn them so that his back remained towards the ground for the rest of their fall.

For the first time in his life, he felt fear. Not fear that he would die, but fear that he would fail. This was an impossible situation. They were going to hit a smaller tenement building across from the backside of the skyscraper. More shots, though this time they were not directed at him. There were more flashes of light and the pressure wave of impacts behind them. Images in flooded his mind. He could see the building behind them being obliterated by concussive blasts just behind where they were going to hit. He couldn't see it directly, but somehow he knew that she could see it.
At the last second, he'd felt them slow far more than they should have.

"Null Motion pulse" came into his mind in a distinctly feminine voice. She was communicating with him!

The shot was wide so that they only skirted the outer portion of the pulse. Had she been more accurate, they would have stopped altogether. Images flooded his mind and he somehow knew that a null motion pulse was a capture weapon that nullified kinetic energy within an area.

His back impacted against an interior drywall instead of the outer wall of the building. The impact nearly knocked them both senseless but he managed to feel effects of the Null motion pulse rob them of velocity just before their impact. Still, his hands were on fire and he'd cracked his ribs with the impact. There was a large chunk of the building suspended by the null pulse in front of the building. The huntress destroyed the side of the building then fired the null motion pulse. She wanted her prize intact.

"Three seconds" came to his mind.

He knew now that the thoughts were hers. She was telepathic. He suppressed a chuckle at the thought that a comic books and sci-fi actually had concrete value in this encounter. The huntress needed her alive and for some reason he knew that she would have to take them both but her thoughts were not clear enough to pull the reason from her mind. The size of the corner chunk of building was huge, and while it wasn't a perfect plan, he knew what he had to do to give them both some time.

"Two seconds."

He moved forward toward s the debris as fast as his legs would carry them both. The Null motion pulse was localized to a small epicenter, with the field dissipating as it moved outward. By the looks of it the center of the pulse was directly beneath the exploded sections of building suspended over the street below. The corner of the structure had come off in one big piece, with enough room for them to hide beneath if it landed properly.

"One second."

He was reaching the edge of the building's demolished wall as he leaped forward carrying them her with him. His timing was right as he felt the field dissipate as the rubble resumed its motion downwards. He'd gotten them both under the largest section of rubble --the top corner portion of the building, as it fell. They fell underneath it towards the street below. Foley's acrobatic skills were such that a fall from two to three stories was something he could survive with difficulty if he landed properly. He did. The Chunk of building however, did not land entirely in one piece and the sidewalk and rubble collapsed beneath them both. They both ended up as mice underneath a teacup --trapped underneath the rubble.