Absentmindedly Theodore listened in to his uncles' conversation from where he remained huddled on the bed with the towel serving as a shield between them. "…Former employer?" Uncle Luther sounded skeptical, "What's this really about, Five? And don't give me this 'it isn't any of your business' crap! Alright?"

"Well, it's a long story…" Uncle Five sighed, the bed squeaking as he shifted. Just as Theodore was lost in his reverie, Uncle Five soon became lost in his. "They turned me into the perfect instrument for rehabilitation of the timeline continuum—or corrections, as they called it. I wasn't the only one, there were others like me; beings out of time, fractured, extracted from the lives that they knew. I dunno how they got there, but I do know that none of them were as good as me. They didn't realise it, but I was biding my time, trying to figure out the right equation so I could get back. If I could just get back, I could stop the Apocalypse…save the world—"

Theodore clutched tighter to his legs as Uncle Five's story continued, the tones of his voice and the details of the story sounding very much like the memories he bore of the Ragnor-Ra Rehab Center in Arizona. The kids there had had it drilled into them that they were there to learn, and so it had affectionately been referred to as 'the School'. Everyone had been given codenames—the kids were known as 'Students', the human soldiers as 'Teachers' and the Mogadorian scientists as 'Deans' and so on. It was why he had been terrified of attending Saint Gregory's when he was younger—sometimes he still saw shadows and ghosts of his past in those hallways.

"—So I broke my contract" Uncle Five continued, dragging Theodore out of his darker thoughts.

"So…you were a hitman?" Uncle Luther queried, trying to wrap his head around what Uncle Five had been saying. Theodore was still wrapped up in his own mind to really understand what was going on; it just seemed to float in one ear and out the other.

"Yes"

"You—you had…a code, right? You didn't kill just anybody?"

"No code—we took out anyone who messed with the timeline"

"What about innocent people?"

"It was the only way I could get back here"

"But that's murder!"

"Jesus, Luther! Grow up! We're not kids anymore; there's no such thing as good guys or bad guys, there's just people going about their lives. But when the world ends, all those people die. Including our family…time changes everything"

Sometime later after Uncles Five and Luther had disappeared (one teleporting elsewhere, and the other to the gym's bathroom), Theodore's cellphone sang its ringtone from where it sat snuggled in his blazer pocket. It served to knock him out of the reverie he'd fallen into following his nightmare and the blazing eyes of his uncles when they stared at him as he quietly cried.

Heaving a shuddering sigh, he peeled back the towel far enough for him to poke an arm out and give him enough of a view of the room for him to see that Uncle Diego had also left at some point. Splaying his fingers, he silently called forth the singing device into his waiting hand. Retracting his arm back into the safety of his little halo, Theodore went about answering the singing phone.

Unravelling from the position he had curled himself up into, Theodore scooted back until his back met the brick wall, still keeping the towel atop his head as he unlocked his phone and flicked through the many messages that filled the screen. The first few included selfies, miss yous and wish you were heres from Milton and Helga (the selfies morphing from the pair laughing over lunch to sloppily drinking from solo cups amongst their peers at whomever's party), following that the tone of the messages turned worried as they begged for him to answer his phone following the news of Meritech's destruction.

The last of the messages made his insides turn cold as his stomach dropped; there were many short messages—all of them sounding harried and documenting their situation as the two were confronted by something unknown. A shiver of dread filled him and his mouth ran dry as he stared at the last picture sent to him from Milton. The picture was grainy, but Theodore could pick out that symbol anywhere; no matter the size, no matter the quality, it wasn't something one forgot easily, not when you went through that kind of thing.

The symbol in question was simple, three coloured rings that intersected each other like a three-way Venn diagram. The bottom left was blue to represent Lorics, the bottom right was green to represent Humans and the black ring on top represented Mogadorians. The trio of rings was then encircled by a thick white ring. All strong, all equals, all fighting—Theodore often thought that the placement of the rings was a nod towards the outcome of the war, what with the Mogadorians' ring on top.

A quick glance at the background showed him the polished golden railing of the academy's cafeteria and before he knew it, he had jettisoned from the bed and was the door, sprinting down the street on loralite-fuelled limbs. Loralite flooded his veins and blue pulsed beneath his skin as Theodore ran, the alien powers within him helping to push him further, faster than what he could have done alone. Theodore paid no mind to the looks he received at his state of dress nor the (muttered) comments thrown at his back.

Crystalline blue shredded through his school shirt as it sprouted from his arms and spine; the same blue erupting from his bare feet and thighs as he fell onto all fours and ran like hell was on his heels. Theodore didn't even pause when the front doors to Saint Gregory's came into view; thankfully the school was mercifully empty (owing to the annual fumigation of the science building) as he charged forward, crystallised head bowed like a deer, and smashed through the front doors.

Glass showered around him but Theodore raced onwards, mindless of the injuries he sustained as he caught whiff of his friends and the sound of gunfire. Hurrying on towards the noise, he was met with the sight of Helga and Milton cowering behind an upturned table and a large group of Teachers firing mercilessly on them. Occasionally Helga would reply in kind with her lumen or telekinesis, but for the most part the two teens were stuck there.

"THEO!" Helga cried over the din as the teen spun out of the way of incoming fire. Bullets bounced uselessly off of the loralite encasing him, though a few did manage to chip a few shards off of the tips. "WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

"WHAT THE HELL, MAN?!" Milton peered around the blonde to glare at his suddenly blue friend. "DON'T YOU EVER ANSWER YOUR PHONE?!"

"Busy" Theodore growled, his voice layered with Loren's as more loralite spread across his crouched form; now tucked behind a free-standing menu board nearby. A quick glance was towards his two friends showed that they were a little out of sorts, but otherwise unharmed. Helga's floral dress and Milton's old Star Trek tee were rumpled and wore holes upon the hems as if the moths had had a field day with them.

"I DON'T CARE!" Milton retorted.

"THEO—!" Helga cried as the feminine voice of an identification drone announced his arrival in a detached and robotic tone. The same tingly and warm feeling he had first felt when arriving at the camp overcame him.

"Student 2419 detected" The voice intoned as the gunfire paused momentarily, "Status: active. House: Frija, safe to approach"

"2419! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!" Demanded one of the Teachers, all weapons now trained on his hiding (poor) spot.

"What happened?" Theodore asked, instead turning to his friends.

"They just turned up at Hemmings' party" Milton replied, "Pretended to be a concerned neighbour & told us we to go with them—tried to say it was about Helga's sister, but—"

"—But I don't have a sister" Helga ended. "So we ran for it, made it to the Dover street before they were on us again—it wasn't hard to figure out what they wanted"

"Which you still haven't told me, by the way!"

"You haven't seen Teachers before?" Theodore puzzled, ignoring Milton's question.

"Teachers?" Helga furrowed her brow in questions, "Like the professors?"

"No" Theodore shook his head as the soldiers grew steadily impatient. "They're enforcers for the Ragnor-Ra Centres. They always hunt in packs—send the Teachers in first, then the Deans clean up the rest"

"So if these humans are the Teachers, does that mean…?" Helga paled at the revelation, her brain going a mile a minute as she connected the dots. Loric she may be, but even she knew what the centres really entailed.

"Yeah, the Mogs are probably waiting outside" He nodded grimly.

"So, what do we do?" She panicked, eyes searching his partially crystallised face.

"There's the tunnel out of the locker rooms" Milton interjected, "It leads out on to the field"

"2419! COME OUT OR WE WILL FIRE!" The call came again.

"Get to the tunnel" Theodore growled towards the pair huddled behind the table; the sound coming from somewhere low in his throat. Helga gave him a shaky nod as he emerged from his hiding place and stood in the middle of the room with his friends to his back and the soldiers in front of him.

"Whatever you say, buddy" Milton squeaked as he watched his best friend disappear beneath layers of sparkling blue crystal before he was dragged away by the terrified blonde beside him.

"ON THE GROUND! NOW!" With a pause in the assault, he was now able to see that there were more than just the soldiers gathered on the cafeteria floor; in fact several lined the mezzanine walkway above them as well.

Instead of verbally replying, Theodore pulled back his lips into an animalistic snarl and bared blunt fangs at the heavily dressed men as Loren took hold. Refusing to bow to his tormentors, they proceeded to escalate the situation.

"MASKS!"

"COPY!"

"LOREN NEUE VERNER! LOREN TIVAR!" Loren decreed.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?!" Some shouted from the back of the dimly lit room and the pounding of his friends footsteps echoed down the hall, away from the inevitable carnage as Theodore relinquished control.

Pure bloodlust roiled within Loren as he sneered down at the human soldiers before him; the scent of their fear smelling sweet to him and served to drive him forward even as their bullets proved ineffective. It had been a long time since Loren had had use of this body—eight years in fact—when he had last faced off against these creatures. He had been younger then—they both had—but he was stronger now, and they smelled oh so delicious!

A clawed hand shot out to grab the object thrown his way—"Tear gas! Watch out!"—crushing it between his hardened claws as it hissed out gas that would have hurt his host, but left no dent on him. The opaque gas filled the air, accompanied by the rain of bullets as the soldiers backed away. "HE'S NOT GOING DOWN!" Someone cried, the panic clear in their voice. Snapping out with hungry teeth, Loren easily snatched the second canister from the air and again, crushed it into oblivion.

"HOLD YOUR FIRE!" There was a pause as the smoke settled around them before the humans moved to attack again. "FLARES!"

The next few moments passed in a blur of flashing flares, snapped bones and broken wails as Loren moved. He easily took out human after human with a flick of his wrist or the crunch of his powerful jaws. Some were flung like rag dolls into the rafters above them, others over empty tables and more were suffocated by the loralite he generated or eaten like the delicious little snacks they were. He moved like a shadow in the night, revelling in the freedom to do as he pleased without the restraints that Theodore usually placed on them. Here and now, when the two shared the same goal to protect and avenge, there was no barriers or rules to be had. It was the most fun he'd had in ages.

"HOLD!" Came the cry. All attacks paused and Loren felt triumph course through him. That was until the familiar feeling of electricity echoing from the base of his host's neck caused him to roar in pain. Shards of loralite broke off of his form and shattered into ash at his feet as the smell of burning flesh reached him.

"FIRE!" The onslaught of bullets returned stronger than ever, even as Loren roared and struggled against the pain radiating from his neck. Clawed hands scratched uselessly at the source of his pain, and his anger grew tenfold.

Unable to remove the chip from his neck, Loren pushed through the pain and instead turned on the soldiers once more. Red hot anger fuelled by pain enveloped his vision as any sense of morality disappeared and he tore through the humans like they were made of paper. His pained roars turned to threatening growls and the taste of blood lingered on his jagged lips as more and more fell to his might. Loren massacred the humans until nothing was left, until not even their bones could be used as toothpicks.

When he deemed himself full, Loren let his loralite body fall away once more until he was nothing more than the voice inside his host's head; until they were two souls in the one body, just as they had always been. A shared fogginess faded between the two as Theodore returned to gain control of their fleshy body once more.

The remains of the soldiers merged with the ashy remnants of loralite and squished between the boy's toes as he tried to remember where he was and what was going on. "Eurgh!" Theodore moaned as he shook away the fogginess associated with the full shift and glanced around at the broken bodies at their feet. He then began to furiously scrub his tongue against his bare arm (the rest of his shirt now lay in shreds off to the side somewhere, alongside his [under]pants) as if he were trying to remove the taste from his tongue. "They're in my mouth!"