Chapter 1Another day. Another mission.Hundreds of feet in the air, four teenagers prepare for another mission. However, these aren’t ordinary teenagers. They have been chosen by four powerful extraterrestrial creatures that have granted them extraordinary powers. They are Sword Dancers.No matter how loud the plane engine roars, Colin can hear his heartbeat accelerate. He had been a part of dozens of missions but he always felt nervous before every jump. His cypher, Razor, had become used to this.“Ground yourself, Colin,” Razor told him, “calm is steady.”Colin had heard the advice so many other times that the words were starting to lose their power. He and his other team members were all in their sword dancer armor. Tyree, his best friend, was slowly bouncing up and down like a wrestler getting anxious before a match. Ashley, Colin’s girlfriend, always stayed sitting and away from the group before every mission. It was her way of staying calm before the chaos began. Olivia, Tyree’s girlfriend, paced back and forth behind Tyree. Out of all of them, Olivia hadn’t quite yet gotten used to the responsibilities of being a Sword Dancer. She seemed to have always arrived at the fight last and was the first to leave. She pulled her weight on every mission, but everyone had began to notice the behavior.Tyree’s father, Russ, emerged from the cockpit. He was an original member of the Sword Dancers. In fact, he and Tyree shared the same cypher, Crush. Now, he was one of the team’s commanders.“Alright, round up!” he barked.The group huddle around him. While Russ was a serious military man, he had seemed to have found his stride in speaking with the group before missions. He was direct but had a softness to his words that made everyone feel slightly less anxious.“Do we remember our roles?” he asked.Gun smuggling operation. Dangerous men handling dangerous weapons. This is the type of mission that could go south fast.“Distract so Olivia can find the stache,” Tyree quickly replied.The less violence involving Olivia was always the best route. Besides, she had developed a great skill to move quickly and quietly despite wearing the bulky Sword Dancer armor. “As soon as the stache is destroyed, let us know Olivia,” Russ looks over at her, “we’ll then extract you guys.”Olivia quickly nods but her nerves were beginning to overpower her. Tyree gives her a supportive pat on the shoulder. She smiled at him but only for a brief moment.“Alright, let’s jump!” Russ radioed the pilot.The back of the plane began to slowly open. The night sky outside made it look like they were flying in a dismal black hole. Violent gusts of wind bounced between the walls of the plane. The Sword Dancers bent their legs in preparation of the order.“Dive! Dive! Dive!”Without thinking twice, Colin sprinted forward and dove into the unknown. Far below, a few small spots of light could be seen. Landing just outside of those areas was the target area. Colin turned his head around. He couldn’t see anyone but he knew his friends were around him.As each second past the light below grew and grew. Razor went ahead and opened some valves in the armor that began to slow down the freefall.“Ten seconds until impact,” he informed Colin.Those ten seconds passed by in the blink of an eye. Colin rolled onto the ground when he landed. The night setting made his depth perception inaccurate. Once he pushed himself off the ground, he saw his friends landing. Russ’s voice came through via radio.“Status?”Tyree replied to his father.“Code four. We landed.”“Proceed to target.”The Sword Dancers sprinted through the light woods until they reached the compound. Each of them hid behind the trees while they surveyed the landscape. There were at least a dozen men loading weapons into trucks. Tyree saw a giant warehouse behind a convoy of trucks.“Liv, I bet the stache is in there,” he told her.No response. She seemed frozen.“Liv?” Ashley nudged her.Olivia snapped out of her daze.“Sorry, what?” she was flustered.“Are you alright?” Ashley bluntly asked her.Olivia nodded and gave a thumbs up. The others didn’t believe her but there was no turning back now. Tyree looks over at Colin and Ashley.“Alright, let’s make some noise!”The three of them sprint out of the woods and immediately begin to attack. Colin used his sword to cut through the vehicles with little ease. Tyree and Crush engaged in the firefight with his dueling pistol blasters. These goons seemed quite shock to face a foe with better firearms than them. Then Ashley and her cypher, Flair, flanked them from behind with her hook sword.While those three pressed the attack, Olivia managed to sneak around everyone and broke into the warehouse. Inside was enough guns and ammo to make the NRA blush. Her cypher, Haze, chimed in.“Alright, let’s burn this down,” she calmly told her host.Olivia pulled out a few grenades she had been given. She pulled the pins and tossed the projectiles into the weapons. The grenades quickly disappeared behind the boxes storing everything. The explosion was going to be big. Olivia sprinted towards the exit and knocked the door off its hinges by running straight into it.Boom! Boom! Boom!The warehouse exploded behind her. The force knocked her to the ground. Somebody lifted her off the ground and back to her feet.“Hey, you alright?” Tyree asked her.Olivia smiled. She seemed relieved that she went through a mission with minimal conflict. The rest of the goons had been defeated. The mission appeared to have gone about as smooth as it could’ve gone. The Sword Dancers regrouped.“Nice job, Olivia!” Colin told her.“Thanks,” she replied.Suddenly, a hideous shriek pierced through the night. It came from behind them near the warehouse location. Olivia turned around and was horrified to see that a man was on fire and burning alive. He must’ve been inside the warehouse when she blew up the building.“No!” she screamed.The charred body fell to the ground. Olivia was in such shock that she couldn’t speak. The plane swooped down to pick them up. Colin and Ashley rushed inside but Olivia stood still in a trance. Tyree had to shake her multiple times to get her attention.“We got to go!”
Ad-Free Sword Dancers: Volume 2, Chapter 1 – Into the Fire
