Story

“Hey, thanks for promising to help me out today, trust me when I say that the place is a mess.” Sam laughed. Kazumi returned a smile.
“Don’t worry about it, I was just wondering why the ‘protégés’ not helping.”
“Oh, Vi? She’s training with Luna, it’s great that I can finally leave the two alone together... At least I think I can…”  The two walked side by side in conversation, it had been a while since they had spoken last. In fact, Sam was kind of glad that her garage had ended up so messy, just so the two of them could catch up. She would definitely have to make something for Zumi as thanks, though.  “Just wait til you see how far I’ve come with the Spectral Stryker, it’s so close to being finished, I can feel it.”
“Why aren’t you working on it right now?” Kazumi joked. “Hey, am I the only one helping out today?”
“Yeah, why?”
“No reason, I was just wondering who that suspicious person is.” Sam followed the direction of Kazumi’s pointed finger to see a cloaked figure at the garage doors. Maybe they were just stopped exactly where the lock was while the checked their phones…Maybe not, the figure had begun to play with the locks at the door.
Sam and Kazumi looked at each other silently; Kazumi lifted her finger to her lips and led the charge, whisper-quiet. Sam wasn’t used to being quiet; she would have preferred to walk straight up to the guy and said ‘hey, you know this is my garage right?’, if his intentions were bad she’d get to see him squirm. Maybe she’d even get to chase him. He was really serious about breaking the lock; he hadn’t heard the two girls behind him despite the fact that Sam had knocked a can…twice. He froze, apparently having sensed the two people behind him, and slowly reached for his pocket.
“Sam!” Kazumi warned, but Sam was already onto it. She snatched at the figure’s wrist. The next few moments happened slowly, or at least they did in Sam’s mind. Her fingers snagged on the metallic wristband of the cloaked figure, at that time it let out a long distorted beep. Sam locked eyes with the figure as white light spread out from the wristband. Neon green. There wasn’t even time to tell Kazumi to run before the white light absorbed them all.  

‘Could we go to the park tomorrow? It would be fun, right? Right Sam?’ Sam sat up, Vi’s voice already fading away with the dream. What had happened? She was sitting in the middle of a grey city next to two others. Kazumi.
“Zumi!” Sam crawled over to the blue form next to her and shook her friend. “Zumi, do you know what happened?” Kazumi stirred and blinked slowly. She sat up, pulling her hair away from her face, looking as sluggish as Sam felt.
“Woah.” She placed her head in her hands after sitting up. “My head hurts, what did we do?”
“That’s what I was trying to figure out. Oh wait…Do you think Cloakey could tell us?” Sam pointed at the third person lying in the middle of the street. Where was everybody? Why was it so quiet? Where were they? “Hey! Cloakey, what’d you do? Where are we?” The cloak sat up almost immediately and turned to them.
“For god’s sake!!” The voice was familiar; Cloakey definitely wasn’t male like they thought. “I cannot believe this. You-arhhh” Cloakey roared. She stopped and breathed in deeply before standing. “Okay, we need to get out of here.” Sam and Kazumi stood warily.
“Where is here?” Kazumi asked, regarding Cloakey with suspicion.
“We don’t have time for that!” Cloakey whispered. “We need to go, I promise I’ll explain, okay?!” Kazumi looked at Sam, the two exchanged varying glances, which if translated into speech would have gone something like:
‘What do ya think?’
‘I dunno; there isn’t much else to do.’
‘So yes?’
‘Yeah…’
Sam nodded at Cloakey. “Okay, but don’t try anything funny.” Cloakey breathed out in irritation and went to take a step forward. As she did so, Sam noticed a flash of something shiny down one of the side streets. “Hey!” Cloakey turned as a blue pellet hit her on the side of the head, knocking her sideways. The pellet swelled and foamed encasing her neck, tugging the hood down, revealing a very familiar face. The blue foam seemed to be charged and Sam’s doppelganger began shuddering.  
“Sam?” Kazumi looked between the two, they looked almost identical. She pointed at Cloak Sam, “Why does she-“ another pellet shot out of the side street and hit Zumi’s wrist. At once it began foaming and hardening around her hand and arm. Kazumi yelped as the blue shocks travelled up her arm. At this point Sam would either have to get caught or leave behind Cloak Sam. Kazumi was more important, she decided. She grabbed her friend’s wrist and pulled her away as the ambush of blue pellets began. They ran as fast and as far as they could, Sam only looked back once to see Cloak Sam being dragged away by their attackers. A group intercepted their paths and Sam prepared to fight but they ran past her, forming a blockade. They stood in a line, shielding the backs of Sam and Kazumi while they fired strange bullets at the other side. Zumi was looking pale, the blue foam had hardened and was spreading slowly. Sam coaxed her into sitting. A young woman crouched in front of them, her armour was more impressive looking than the others, she seemed too young to be so high in rank.
“Hi,” she spoke softly, “my name is Faline, and before we go any further I need to know; what call do you answer?”
Sam looked at her confused. “What?!” Faline stood humourlessly, sweeping her purple hair back.
“They aren’t with us, fall back.” She instructed before turning to leave.
“Wait!” Sam yelled and Faline stopped, spinning slightly. “I don’t know what’s going on here, I don’t care what’s going on here I just want some help for my friend.” Kazumi looked like she was having trouble focusing.
“We can’t take chances, you may be a spy.” She smiled sadly at them. “Sorry. I really am.”
“We aren’t spies!” Sam screamed. “This is Kazumi, I’m Sam-“
“Wait, you don’t mean…” Faline looked down for a second, calculating. “Bane, we’re heading back to camp; escort these two. Don’t forget to contact the rock.” Sam hadn’t even noticed the guy standing behind her, he helped her up then helped Kazumi to lean against Sam. Bane ushered them forward, taking the tail with two more soldiers watching his back. He placed his cuff near his mouth and spoke.
“Boulder, two out of three targets apprehended, good call mate.” He lowered his arm again and a response crackled out, he seemed to ignore it though.
“I told ya right? Was I right? Or was I right?”
“yeah yeah, you were right.” Bane mumbled, rolling his eyes. Sam couldn’t even have a silent conversation with Kazumi. Where the hell were they?