Each squad was composed of five people and named by the first ten letters of the alphabet. A squad was the best and J squad had the worst. Or at least the military’s ranking system J squad was considered the worst of the Powers.

I landed in C squad was Ash and Seth plus two others. They were two men. One was Levon Davis, age 27, who had the power of super strength and was this giant hulk of a man. He had dark brown hair and brown eyes and a dark complexion and while he looked intimidating due to his size he was actually a nice guy. The other was Jamison Hanes, age 25, who had the power of fire and actually had a fiery temper to go along with it. He wasn’t too happy about getting grouped with a girl and made it very clear to Ash as we were getting to pick out gear to take with us.

“I can’t believe we’re going to have to protect this chick and fight the Reapers,” he huffed.

“I can take care of myself just fine,” Ash snapped as she put first aid supplies in her bag.

“No, seriously. How does the power of empathy even help in situations? It’s not like the Reapers have feelings to empathize with,” Jamison laughed a little too loudly. I was getting annoyed. Not only was he insulting Ash, he was trying too hard at it.

“Look, if we don’t figure out a way to work together then we won’t be able survive for very long out there. Can we treat each other as teammates at the very least? You don’t have to like each other,” Levon said, saving me from having to step in and knock some sense into Jamison.

I was glad that Levon stepped up. I wasn’t really into leadership roles and mostly flew solo when I did missions as a Contractor. “Yes, let’s all get along as teammates,” I said trying to be cooperative.

Jamison narrowed his eyes at me. “How come you’re in this squad? I thought for sure that you’d get put in A squad being the former Contractor and all.”

The reason I was in C squad was because it would’ve been suspicious to put someone with Ash’s skill level in A so the higher ups thought I should get a lower squad to meet in the middle somewhere. I was truly surprised but happy that Seth made it into the same squad as us.

“It must’ve been the discipline charges. Probably dropped my rank a bit,” I lied smoothly.

Jamison seemed to buy it and went back to packing. Ash stared at all the different guns on the wall not knowing which one to pick. I went over to her to help. “Having trouble?” I asked her.

“I know we practiced with guns, but I still don’t like them. Can you pick out a good one for me?”

I picked out a handgun and a lightweight assault rifle for her that way she would be able to at least defend herself against a Reaper if she were to run into one. I helped her strap them on with the handgun in a holster at her waist and the rifle had a shoulder strap to help carry it. She looked so out of place covered in military clothes and weapons. I felt my heart sink as I thought about what we were about to experience. I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms and reassure her everything would be fine, but I knew that was far from the truth.

Twenty minutes later we were in the debriefing room getting our assignments. Squads A through D were going to be the leads in going to the meteor. The other squads were going to be in charge of Reaper extermination and supporting us getting to the meteor. I felt bad for them since they’d be the ones in the most danger, but I was also relieved that we wouldn’t be on the front lines.

I could feel the tension in the room and I could only imagine how Ash was handling all the emotions with her power since she felt everything on a heightened level. She seemed calm, but her hand was gripping mine under the table we were sitting at so I knew she was also tense. The meeting ended and people started to filter out of the room. I looked over at Ash and she was just staring at the table in front of her with her brows furrowed.

“Tell me what I can do to make you feel better,” I told her.

She looked up at me before reaching up and pulling my face to hers. Her lips crashed against mine in a rough, passionate way and I was surprised at her forwardness. It wasn’t like I minded, but it was unexpected. Cheers and claps rang out as the others continued to leave the room. She pulled away and sighed. “I didn’t want to die without having done that at least one more time.”

Since it didn’t seem like we were going to get in trouble for PDA anymore I pulled her into my arms and hugged her tightly, wanting more contact with her. “I promise to protect you with all that I have. We will make it out of here and they promised that once the Reapers were taken care of you could live in the cities with normal people since your power isn’t offensive,” I told her.

“I’m not living anywhere that you aren’t.” With that she stood up and went to the line to exit the room. I felt guilt wash over me. How was I going to tell her that I made a deal with the military to stay on as their loyal dog in order to keep Ash with me? There was no way that I could let her know that if we survived the Reapers I wouldn’t be going with her to make a new home.

Seth was standing with Ash also looking very defeated. He tried to lighten the mood though. “Maybe this’ll feel like old times. We were a pretty dangerous team when we would raid houses. But I’m so out of practice having gotten soft over the past two years.”

“Hey you landed in C squad. That means you are one of the top people,” Ash stated. “Oh yeah! I almost forgot!”

She pulled the mini bag of Oreos from her pants pocket and handed it to Seth. His eyes widened in excitement. “I saved the rest for you. One last piece of luxury before going back to eating whatever we come across,” she smiled.

“Thanks sis! This is truly a treat.” He ate the Oreos in two minutes and tossed the bag as we left the debriefing room. Things were starting to feel real as we were loaded up into a truck with Jamison and Levon plus the members of D squad.

“So you two dating or are you looking to have one last sexual experience before dying out there? If it’s the latter you can always come to me darling,” Jamison smirked at Ash.

“Teammate or not, if you touch her I will kill you,” I warned Jamison. Then my red eye sensed he was going to activate his power and analyzed the move he was going to use. My predictive power was truly the reason I was able to survive this long. I knew he was going to use a fiery fist and take a swing at me at least 10 seconds before he even activated the flames around his hand. I brought my hand up to block the punch and used my negating power to dissipate the flames around his fist.

“Jamison! If you can’t stop picking fights we are leaving your ass behind for the Reapers to eat,” Levon snapped at him. Jamison grumbled knowing that he wouldn’t be able to lay a hit on me before shutting up.

Ash stared out the windows as we drove. I was sitting beside her so I had to lean over to see where we were. We were driving through the wall that surrounded the exiled area. The truck was going to take us as far as it could that was still safe considering the wall was at least 100 miles away from the meteor. The area looked a lot different than what I remember it to look like. The buildings were mostly destroyed which meant that it would be mostly rubble the closer we got to the meteor. This didn’t look good for us finding lots of places to seek shelter.

Over the past month scientists had conducted a number of tests on Reapers to figure out the best way to fight them. They had a hard outer shell that protected them like an armor. Only high caliber guns and explosives could get through the armor to kill them. The weapons we had could damage the Reapers, but probably not kill them unless we filled them with bullets. They were weak against the elements like fire and water so I guess that was one advantage to having Jamison with us. The problem was whether or not we could trust him in the heat of battle.

“What are you thinking?” Ash asked me out of nowhere.

“I’m trying to strategize how we are going to find shelter at night when all the buildings are barely standing,” I replied.

“It doesn’t look too good does it? I haven’t seen a Reaper yet though,” Seth stated.

“Just wait,” the driver of the truck told us. “We’re still in the safe zone. I’ll only be able to drive you about another hour so that’ll put you all about 30 miles from the meteor.”

“30 miles!” A member of D squad complained. “I should’ve packed lighter. I didn’t anticipate carrying all this gear for 30 miles.”

An hour later we were dropped off at a small base that the military had set up 30 miles from the meteor. We were greeted by Lieutenant Jackson who I recognized from the Contractors. I was surprised by this, but I wasn’t going to mention anything first in case the military didn’t know he was also a former Contractor.

“Liam? I’m shocked to see that they were able to capture you,” Jackson told me.

“I let them capture me because they caught my girlfriend and my friend. I couldn’t let them be captured and just escape,” I replied.

“Did the military find out who you are?” Jackson inquired.

“Yes, how about you?”

“Unfortunately. I’m assuming they offered you the same deal of not executing you right away if you helped them after-“ I placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him from speaking. I didn’t want Ash to overhear about the deal.

“Yes, but let’s not mention that now. We should be preparing for our trek to the meteor,” I said.

“I’m glad to have you on my team. This is the first time I’ve felt hope, kid,” he smiled at me before going into the base to give out instructions. Jackson was an interesting guy when I knew him in the Contractors. He had the power to become invisible so he was used a lot for assassination jobs when we worked together. I think after a certain amount of time the job got to him and he started to get really detached from emotions. I understood how he felt, but I thankfully never got to that point. I believe it was Ash and Seth that kept me grounded. The fact that we could have normal experiences together balanced out my life as a Contractor.

I went into the base and sat with Seth and Ash as we waited for Jackson to speak.

“Alright. A and B squads will be under my command. According to my reports you all are mostly elemental users so that should give us a big advantage as we push forward. C and D squads will be under the command of Liam since he’s been in similar combat situations before. He will guide you all to the cave we discovered last week that seems to be where the Reapers nest is.”

I stiffened when Jackson announced I would be the leader of C and D squads. I didn’t want to lead anyone and was about to speak up, but Jamison spoke up first. “I’m not following some 19 year old hot head. He’ll lead us straight to our deaths!”

Jackson went invisible in front of everyone and then Jamison started choking and gasping for breath. Jackson reappeared in front of Jamison, with his hand around Jamison’s throat.

“This isn’t a democracy. You only discovered your power a year ago so I doubt you’ll know the hardships that Powers have had up until now. If you question my decisions again I won’t hesitate to leave you for the Reapers,” Jackson said in an eerily calm voice before releasing Jamison’s throat and walking back up to the front of the room.

Jamison sat back down, coughing and rubbing his neck. That was what I meant by Jackson detaching from emotions. He always used force and violence to get his way, which wasn’t an issue if you stayed on his good side.

“Once C and D squads are at the cave you will find a safe place to set up a base and wait for A and B squads to come before all of us will enter the cave together. We will need all the Powers we can get to see if we can get samples of the nest as well as collapse the cave so Reapers no longer have an exit.”

“This is a suicide mission. They just want to kill all of us Powers and what better way than to say the Reapers killed us,” a member of B squad huffed. People agreed and started to get rowdy. Jackson called everyone back to attention.

“As your Lieutenant I will personally try to protect you all with my life. And the reality of the situation is that unless we follow orders we will be hunted until we are killed. So might as well try to save humanity and show that Powers are the real heroes in all this.”

That seemed to increase morale and I certainly felt better about the situation. If we could pull something like this off then there was a possibility that Powers would be accepted to live in the cities. We were dismissed to rest and get ready for our departure in the morning. I had to come up with some sort of strategy since I was the lead for part of the mission.

Seth and Ash were sorting through their supplies while I strategized with Jackson. It felt like it took hours and by the time we had finalized out plans it was time to eat our crappy MRE meals. I found Ash and Seth by a heater already eating their bags of mush.

“What type are you enjoying tonight?” I asked them.

“Chicken Alfredo for me,” Ash stated.

“I got Beef Stroganoff. I’ve never had the real thing, but if it tastes anything like this I don’t know why anyone would eat this,” Seth laughed.

“Can’t be any worse than mine,” I added.

“So leader, did you come up with a good plan for us?” Ash said elbowing me in the ribs in a teasing way.

“It still feels like a ridiculous mission, but I think Jackson and I were able to make the best plan for what we have. We will be using everyone’s power in different scenarios to maximize the effectiveness. Although, we still have to figure out if your power will work on the Reapers,” I replied.

“Let’s hope it works otherwise I’m completely useless in this situation,” she sighed.

“I planned for that. You’ll be the medic and support if it doesn’t, but I’m hopeful.”