A/N sorry for present tense first person but other than that I like this chapter so just ignore it, if you wouldn't mind.

Sixteen months ago

In the mirror I see a very short boy, no older than sixteen, with close cropped brown hair and aged brown eyes that carry flecks of red. He's dressed in a classic army style uniform: heavy boots and those weird trousers with the pockets on the knees, and the whole thing's black instead of camouflage. A swirling pattern of scars climb like ivy up from his left elbow into his shirt sleeve, where they climb across his chest, stretching down to his navel. An ugly molten mess greets the scars just below his ribs, and two large lumps of muscle and bone stick out from his sides, ready to become arms at any moment, of only his powers were freed. He doesn't know how any of his scars got there. They feel new.

Around his neck glints a silver collar. Underneath it are livid red burns from its regular use of punitive electricity.

I study his face, tilting it this way and that, trying to match the plain expression to everything the boy had been put through.

A taller boy with blonde hair falling over his eyes stands next to the first boy, failing to hide his sadness at the sight of me. His large blue eyes dart from the boy in the mirror to me, then back again.

"What do you think?" he asks, as if I were appraising an item rather than my own face. I'm not sure of what to say. I feel a bit empty. I hadn't thought about my appearance until now.

"I thought I was older," I say. I look back again. My reflection speaks with me. "But I feel younger. Less experienced. Even though I still know some things." I snort.

"The old me was a massive geek. There's a bunch of computer and science nonsense in my head - so much that they didn't even have to put much in there, in the way of techno mumbo jumbo." I mentally run over all the methods of hacking and creating chemical formulas - one sticks out in particular, some kind of glue, I think - that the first me must have learnt. I've never even touched a computer before. Kinda.

"He must have really cared about that stuff," I continue. "It doesn't feel important to me. But I still know it all. Like the knowledge was dropped into my head, you know?"

He tilts his head and puts on his thinking frown. After a few moments, he shakes his head. I understand. He doesn't understand. He's had a few memory dumps but that's not the same thing as having your memory wiped. I'm pretty sure I'm unique - I don't think many amnesiacs had the same experience as me. They'd probably have had a mirror nearby. And loved ones.

I wonder if I used to care about people. I must have.

Would I recognise the original me's friends if I met them? Somehow, I doubt it.

Binary nudges my arm and I walk after him, disappointed that the novelty of movement has already worn off.

"Who are we meeting?" I ask, not because I don't know but because I want to fill in the silence that makes it far to easy to think.

"My friends should be in the sparring area," Binary says. "I'll introduce you when I find them."

He pushes open a set of double doors and I find myself on a balcony that circles a massive room, the floor of which is swarming with figures, fighting each other in neat spinning pairs, like homicidal dancers.

Looking closer, I see that - rather disturbingly - many of the dancers couldn't be older than seven and the few elders aren't much older than me. Worst of all, the younger they are the more violent they seem to be, although the 'deadliest' scale seems to peak at around eleven years old. There seems to be a cut-off point there too: there are few assassins over that age.

"There!" Binary points towards two boys at the edge of the arena, a small kid with black hair, and a taller boy with fair hair. They're both dressed in the same combat uniform as I am. I'm led to a staircase running around the room and am taken down to them.

I try to avoid looking at the pint-sized assassins scattered around the room, slightly embarrassed by the knowledge that they could probably beat me up. No, wait: They could definitely beat me up. Easily. I swallow and focus on Binary's friends.

The two of them circle each other with snarls on their faces and their hands arched into claws by their sides. Without warning, the black-haired kid lunges forward, striking out with a right jab to the face that his opponent blocks with his forearm, ducking under to punch black-hair in the stomach. Black-hair dodges backwards, taking a hold of fair-hair's wrist as he does so, trying to get him off balance. I quickly lose track of the two of them, they're too fast for me to even follow the fight.

Black-hair is the fastest though. He gets in a jab to the shoulder which he then follows up with a second to the stomach. Fair-hair steps back but he's clearly winded. Black-hair hits him with a solid right hook to the chin then crouches and sweeps his opponent's leg out from underneath him, his movements blurred with speed. Fair-hair topples to the floor and in an instant Black-hair has him pinned underneath his knees.

He taps Fair-hair on his exposed throat and says, "Dead," with a massive grin. He waits for a few moments before he gets off of his partner, offering him a hand that Fair-hair pointedly refuses.

Binary snorts a laugh and Black-hair turns at the noise. With a quick glance towards the guards, who seemed to be paying more attention to the centre of the room, he walks over, still smiling, leaving Fair-hair to get up on his own.

"Binary!" Black-hair calls by way of greeting. He turns to me with one eye shut and his face tilted. "Who're you again?"

"Bug," I say.

"Oh, yeah," Black-hair grins. "Great name. Really stupid!" I'm not sure if he's serious or not. Somehow, I don't think his approval is a good thing.

Fair-hair appears at his shoulder and says, "Don't mind him. He's an idiot." He has a slight Australian accent that makes him sound a lot happier than he looks, which is like he doesn't know how smiling works. He's tall and generally intimidating with toned but not bulging muscles (even though he's a year or two younger than me), and has the kind of tan and serious, chocolate-brown eyes that girls fawn over.

"I'm Hunter, by the way." His accent almost makes it sound like a question, somehow.

"Crow," Black-hair/Crow steps in between us and holds out his hand. I look at it.

"This is the part where you shake my hand. As opposed to staring at it, like you're doing." I decide to go ahead and like Crow. I shake his hand and examine him. He's a half foot shorter than me (and I'm pretty short) and can't be older than ten. He doesn't seem to have any kind of accent, but maybe I just don't know much about accents. His hair is long but doesn't quite cover his eyes, which are so dark they're almost black. They look even darker in contrast to his white skin.

I let go of his hand before he manages to send anymore snark my way. I pause, and realise I can send my own snark at them.

"Do either of you have real names?" I ask. "Or are you so caught up in this whole assassin business that you've forgotten them?"

Crow grins and Hunter looks away. "Here we go again," he mutters, seemingly to himself.

"Well," Crow starts, "Hunter and I are keeping our names secret from each other so that neither of us can find the other again once we get back to our old lives."

"That's my cue to leave," Binary butts in, already walking away. "Enjoy the story, Hedgehog!" He calls over his shoulder. He must have other work to do.

With Binary gone Crow looks at me expectantly and I sigh, just glad he didn't mention the 'Hedgehog' thing. "What were your old lives, then?" I ask, knowing he's waiting for the prompt.

In a stage whisper he says, "Hunter used to be a top secret-y secret super spy!"

I raise an eyebrow. "Uh-huh."

"It's true! I met him a few times, that's how we know each other."

"Cool," I say and I can see the little bundle of frustration in his eyes. I'm not asking him what he wants me to ask.

"We met on his missions," he says.

I stay silent.

"They're actually really great stories."

"I'll take your word for it."

He looks like he's about to have a tantrum. "Do you want to know what happened?"

"Not really."

He pauses, and although I want him to tell me, I also want to annoy him. Unfortunately, annoying people wins over curiosity every time.

Hunter sidles in. "Crow worked for the Assassins Guild," he says. Crow punches him.

"Wow, that's really interesting," I say with mock politeness. "Do tell me more."

Crow turns around and does a funny dance where he seems to punch invisible people. It's very amusing. Hunter and I pause to watch. (I try to ignore how obvious it is that he is, in fact, a child.)

When he's finished I cover my uneasiness with a joke, "Why are you an assassin? I think you'd make a lovely ballerina."

He turns to Hunter. "He's bullying me."

"I can see that."

"I thought we were friends."

"Then you're an idiot."

He gestures between himself and Hunter. "I meant the two of us."

"So did I."

Crow looks like he's about to do his dance again.

Hunter turns back to me and ignores him. "Crow and I worked against each other on the outside. I was with the Australian secret service, ASIS, and he killed people for a living."

"It runs in the family," Crow protests.

Hunter ignores him. "We'd met each other a few times before we were captured by Lightfall."

"Lightfall?"

"This lot," he gestures vaguely at the room. "The group that are keeping us here, that's what they're called. Didn't you know that?"

"There's an awful lot I don't know," I admit.

The two of them stay silent for a while. Predictably, Crow's the one to break the silence.

"So before we even ended up here we were mortal frenemies," he wiggles his fingers in the air for emphasis. "And now we're best friends."

"We've been over this, Crow, I don't like you."

"You love me."

"I've tried to kill you before."

"Then you only love me a little bit."

"I don't love you."

"You couldn't live without me."

Hunter said nothing.

"He loves me!" Crow yelled, a little too loudly

"Shut up or the guards will hear you," Hunter hisses, suddenly angry.

Crow stays silent for exactly 3 seconds.

"Right, so we've known each other for about 5 minutes now," Crow grins, "I think it's time for a group hug."

Hunter whispers to me, "I'll go high, you go low." We share a rare smile and dive at Crow.

Line break*

"So what does that do anyway?" Crow points at my collar with his spoon, sending little bits of grey...something across the table.

I look down at my chest, unable to actually see my collar and ending up choking on it. After Crow finishes laughing I say, "It stops me from using my abilities."

"Your what?"

"I don't know really, I haven't had the chance to try them out properly."

Crow gives me a sceptical look. "What would happen if you weren't wearing it?"

"Probably something involving a lot of dead guards and a me-shaped hole in a wall somewhere."

"Uh-huh."

"You don't believe me?"

"I can't see why else they'd want you but that sounds a bit far-fetched."

I ignore the insult. My fighting isn't that bad. He just thinks I'm crap because he's been trained since he was four.

"I've got the collar thing to prove it, but you can ask Binary next time you see him if you still think I'm talking nonsense."

Crow tilts his head one way, then the other. After several awkwardly long blinks he says, "Alright."

"You believe me?"

"Oh, I did that ages ago," (ages meaning three blinks), "I was just wondering how we can use this."

Catching the look in Crow's eye I say, "I can't get it off. The collar. Trust me, I want rid of this more than you do."

I don't think Crow is listening anymore. His eyes are vacant and his spoon hovers between his bowl and his mouth, completely forgotten. I'm tempted to wave my fingers in front of his face like in the cartoons I've never seen, but I know what his reflexes are like. And he knows where to find nerve clusters.

Hunter slams down a tray of the grey food-like substance right next to Crow, making him jump so much he almost falls over. He stares at Crow for a long time, then turns to me and asks, "Do you know what he's planning?"

"Ask him."

"He'll just giggle like a schoolgirl and say something stupid."

I turn to face Crow. "What are you planning?"

Crow giggles like a schoolgirl and says, "Something stupid."

After giving him the appropriate amount of insults (and punches) Hunter looks back at me. "That's his planning face," he nods at Crow. "Do you know what set him up?"

"Told him I've got weird powers. This stops them," I tap the collar, "but I don't know if he understands that that's important."

Hunter's sighs in frustration. "Now I have to talk him out of another escape attempt. I have to do that every Taken day."

"Every what?"

Hunter sighs. "On every fifth day the Colonel, the guy running this place takes people out of here and adds people in."

Something about that disturbs me - leaving Lightfall? It's a very odd thought. That shouldn't be an odd thought. Then again, where would I go?

"Why would anyone worry about that?" I ask. "I'd have thought leaving would be a good thing," or at least I should have.

Hunter glances around us, his expression even more serious than usual. Crow picks up on this and raises an eyebrow at me. Then the other. After enduring three seconds of his weird eyebrow waggling I explain the conversation he had been ignoring.

Uncharacteristically, Crow's features settle into a sombre expression. I realise that I'm definitely missing something important.

With a small swallow I ask, "What's so bad about leaving?"

Crow shakes his head. "They don't leave, they're Taken. There's no choice."

"I didn't think there ever was around here."

"There's not," says Hunter curtly. "But this is different. People who are Taken never come back."

"Never?"

After exchanging an infuriatingly slow glance with Hunter, Crow continues, "There were two occasions where we saw them again. Each time, two friends. Good friends. Like we are."

I wait for him to continue but he doesn't speak. Eventually, Hunter takes up the thread of the story again. "Since we've arrived it's happened once, the other time we were told about. It could have happened more than we know about, but I doubt that anybody still here was there when it happened."

"What happened exactly?" I ask, slightly annoyed at how long they're taking.

With his eyes fixed on the table, Hunter starts talking. "Their names were Jake and Max. They had both been here long before the two of us, but we had spoken a few times. They were alright." Hunter's voice catches for a second, and despite his casual dismissal I suspect that they weren't just acquaintances.

"Two days after they were Taken, both of them at the same time, everyone was herded to this massive room. We hadn't ever been there before. We all stood on these balcony things around this...this pit in the floor.

"And there they were. To be honest, I'd half thought they were dead. No one ever comes back. But they were there, alive and well. Except they weren't. Well, I mean, they were alive but something was wrong. We could all tell.

"The Colonel appeared above us on his own balcony and he threw two swords into the pit. He said, 'Only one comes out,' and then they...they tried to kill eachother."

I can't believe what I'm hearing. Even though it makes perfect sense. It's exactly what this place would do. I don't doubt for a second what Hunter is saying, even though I really wish I could.

"Jake won," Crow says in a hollow voice. "No one saw him again after that. We don't know what he's doing now. Or if he's still alive."

I do all I can to push away the little voice that can see my fears. If they were as good friends as Hunter had said, as good friends as the two of them, soon to be the three of us, then...

"How's that plan coming along, Crow?"