A/N: Disclaimer in Chapter One. In case you couldn't tell, this chapter is told from Eight's point of view. Yes, I said Eight's. There's a reason we haven't heard anything from her. Anyway, same deal as before. If you enjoy this, or even if you don't, please let me know. Thanks to everybody who has already reviewed. By the way, this won't be my usual update frequency. I already had the second chapter written, so I decided to put it up today.
My name is Rena. I have blonde hair, brown eyes and crowds of guys following me wherever I go. Which is actually annoying when you're a person like me. Perhaps you would understand me more if you knew my other name. You can call me Eight. I know- I hate my parents for giving me a number instead of a name. Just kidding. Eight isn't my real name- I don't know what my real name is, or even who my real parents are. Eight is my number- I am the Eighth of the Loric Nine. There. Now you know who I really am. My Cèpan and me were doing a pretty good job of evading the Mogadorians until a couple months ago. They caught up with us in Leicester, England. We were unprepared for a fight. We were both exhausted, and my Legacies were no use in combat. I was captured, but my Cèpan managed to escape. Strictly speaking she should have stayed with me, but at least this way there's somebody out there who knows what happened to me. The Mogs tried to kill me, but of course that hurt them a lot more than it hurt me. Finally they gave up and sent me here to this prison inside a mountain in West Virginia. I've been stuck here since, bored out of my mind, until yesterday. There was a prison break yesterday. The first one in the time I've been here. I've been preparing myself in case something like that happened, but I wasn't ready. Two guys in their teens broke in here, and at least one of them was definitely Loric. It was a pretty stupid idea for them to come in here, but at least the Loric one made it back out. They found Nine, and he helped the Loric kid escape. Nine also paved the way for my own escape some time soon. The Mogs placed the other kid, the one they captured, in the cell to my right. If he's a Loric ally then I should take him with me when I escape. I place my palm on the wall between my cell and his and it turns transparent. The kid there looks about my age and he's wearing a NASA t-shirt. It's definitely him. I look at his leg, but he has no scars. He's not Loric, then. Could he be a spy? Or was he actually trying to help the other kid? I sigh. There's only one way to find out.
"Hey, newbie!" I say, my voice carrying easily through the wall.
"What?" he says, looking around for the source of the voice.
"To your left!" I say exasperatedly.
He turns to his left and sees me. His eyes travel instantly to my leg, and the scars there.
"What number are you?" he asks. He certainly seems inquisitive. I place a mental tick in the spy column.
"I saw you first, I ask the questions. You don't have a number, so who are you?"
"My name's Sam. I'm a friend of Four."
"How do I know you're telling the truth? Four isn't here to vouch for you." I make a mental note that Four was the kid who broke in here and is now with Nine.
"Um... well, you don't." he admits. He thinks for a while and then says, "Why don't you ask me something that only someone who knows Four would know?"
That's actually a good idea; I should have thought of that myself. The only problem is that I don't know Four either. I decide to ask him something that only a friend of one of the Garde would know.
"All right then, Sam. If you can answer this correctly I'll know I can trust you. When does a Garde receive his inheritance from his Cèpan?"
He answers without hesitation. "After the Garde develops his first Legacy."
I smile. "Nice to meet you, Sam. I'm Eight. So, that was you and Four who broke in here yesterday?"
"Yea. Well, mostly Four- he killed most of the Mogs."
"So then why did you guys decide to spring Nine and not me?"
"Sorry," he says sheepishly. "We didn't know you were here."
"Fair enough. I'm planning to escape myself anyways. Care to join me?"
There. I said it. If the Mogs don't come and kill us now, we'll know they haven't bugged the cells.
"I'd love to, but I don't think we'd be able to pull it off." he replies. "It took me, Four, some Xitharis, two machine guns, flaming green lava and a lot of luck just to get in here. I think it'd take an army to get out. Besides," he says, gesturing to the force-field, "I'm not immune to electricity, and if you were, you probably would've escaped by now."
He knows what he's talking about. Escape from here is almost impossible, unless you have the right equipment. I'm glad I do.
"True. But I've been working on an escape for a long time, and yesterday I finally got what I needed."
"What is it?"
"I assume you've heard of an EMP?" He nods. "Well this is a Loric EMP. It's smaller, detonates quicker, and has a two-mile range." I say, showing him the green crystal in my hand.
"But how did you get it?"
"It was in Nine's Chest. On his way out yesterday he tossed it to me. He knew he didn't have time to rescue me, but he made sure I'd be able to get out. That'll get us past the force-fields, and once we do I've got another secret weapon."
"What?"
"You."
"Huh?"
"Have you ever wanted to be able to move objects with your mind?"
"Yea, but I'll never be able to. I mean, even if you had some Xitharis with you it wouldn't work on me."
This kid knows a lot, even for a Loric ally; he must have been close to Four.
"It's a good thing then that I'm more powerful than a little yellow piece of rock. One of my Legacies is called Transference. Nine has it too. It allows me to temporarily transfer one of my Legacies to another person. Even if they aren't Loric."
"Sweet."
"Your telekinesis, my Legacies, and the fact that so many Mogs were killed yesterday means that we should be able to make it all the way out."
I add mentally, "Of course, if we don't it'll be the last thing we ever do." I don't voice this aloud though, and Sam seems optimistic.
"So when do we pull off our great escape?"
"Tomorrow. You'll know when it's started."
I place my palm back on the wall, turning it back to opaque and ending the conversation. To be honest, I pretended to be far more optimistic than I am. Nine is way more powerful than me, which is probably the only reason he escaped. We need to escape too though, and as soon as possible. The charm was broken when me and Nine were put in the same prison. This means they could kill me any time they want. My only hope is that we escape before they realize. We may only have a 25% chance of making out, but if we don't try I'm going to die for certain. I feel bad for not telling Sam that we'll probably fail. He could die in a fight that isn't his trying to escape because of me. I banish those thoughts. What matters now is the survival of the Garde. Escape gives me the best chance to survive and save our planet. I close my eyes. I need some sleep before we make a break for it.
