Five and I have been in the Everglades for weeks, maybe even months now. Our time has been spent split between briefings on the Mogadorian Expansions, which is where we plan the Earth takeover, and visiting other Mog bases in other parts of the country. At every base, we are introduced as the highest ranking officers in the Mogadorian Empire, second only to Beloved Leader Himself.
Five has become quite popular amongst the scientists, who he says have been using his drawings to create monstrosities. He showed me a drawing he made of a three headed gator, it looked terrifying and definitely not something I would ever want to come head to head with in a fight.
I had made a mistake asking about the other garde once, the ones we left behind at the West Virginia compound. Deltoch merely smirked and grunted something about how they were only good for experiments in the lab, and how weak they would be in a fight. I never asked about them again, but I was glad that I didn't end up like that. I wonder what kind of experiments they have going on? Are they like the ones with Five's drawings?
It's a weird feeling to be standing onstage in front of thousands of troops who are saluting and shouting my new name, 'Commander Ten,'. All of them are ready to fight for me, defend me, or even die for me if that's what I wanted. Soon, the entire world would know that I was their superior. I wonder if Melody or my cepan would even recognize me now.
I scowl at myself internally, forcing their memory down, as I did every time they tried to surface. It was unhealthy to think about them, now that I'm so powerful, they are merely weaknesses. I couldn't have any. It was easy to fight the thought of them most days; Five and I were constantly training when we weren't at briefings. Despite being Setrakus Ra's disciples, we still constantly wanted to impress him. Every once and a while though, their memory surfaced and I couldn't fight it off.
I had learned how to use my Mind Control legacy very well; testing it out on many soldiers by making them dance, hop around, shoot each other, and many more things. It got quite amusing, and I was never short on vatborn soldiers who volunteered to serve me.
Five has taken a liking to reading the Garde files to learn everything about them, which he constantly reads aloud to share with me.
He says that Six and Four have been working together, and our forces in Spain reported that Six attacked them and took another suspected Garde under her wing. Five says that it has to be Number Seven, as he believes that Eight was somewhere in India. He had read something online about a powerful boy who lived there, the people believe he is their god, Vishnu reincarnated. Five seemed pretty convinced that he was actually loric. There was a battle there not too long ago and Five was right; another Garde joined their resistance. That should be it, according to Five. Now he is the only one missing from the party.
"Guess what?" Five tells me when he returns to the room that we share. I had finished my legacy training early, as usual, and was sitting on my bed when Five burst through the door.
"What?" I ask. He only got like this when he was really excited about something.
"I had a talk with Beloved Leader," he tells me. "He told me of his plan."
"Plan?" I raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
"I'm going to be one of them," he grinned. "It's time that I meet my fellow Loric."
"Are you saying what I think you are?" I secretly hope that I'm wrong, that Five will be staying here, with me, but I understood completely. I always knew that one day we would be split up, but I hadn't prepared myself for it to happen so soon.
"He wants me to infiltrate their ranks and learn their secrets," He explains. "Then I'll break up their group so that when our army shows up, they'll be weakened and caught by surprise."
"That's perfect," I smiled. "The smart ones will join us."
"Yeah," Five nodded. "And those dumb enough to turn their backs on reason will die. Divide and conquer."
"How are you going to split them up?" I ask him.
"My chest," He tells me. "They are supposed to be important to the future of Lorien. If I stash it somewhere, I can convince some of them to escort me to retrieve it." The chest. I have memories of a chest like Five's hidden somewhere in my home, though my cepan had never told me or Melody what it was for. MY chest. How dare he keep it hidden from me. Where is it now? Will I ever get it back? It's probably long gone now. I never even got to peek inside.
"Maybe you can get Nine to go with you," I grin, changing the subject. I didn't want to think about my lost treasure. "Sounds like a great plan."
"It will start with a cornfield," He starts, a glimmer of excitement sparkles in his eye. "I'm supposed to make like a crop circle; a burning loric symbol for Five."
"That should get their attention," I laugh. "A little extreme, don't you think?"
"It has to be," Five shrugs. "They won't notice it otherwise."
"When will this happen?" I ask, immediately regretting the words. Once I know, that's it. Time will just be ticking down to when he leaves.
"I leave tomorrow," he says quietly. "I need to leave now, to hide my chest. You'll probably be asleep when I return."
"Alright," I nod, watching him collect his chest. As he exits the door, he shoots me a look over his shoulder before stepping away. As I fall asleep, I think about what it will be like to be alone here, without Five.
"Andy," I awake to Five standing over me, shaking me roughly with his telekinesis. "Andy, wake up." He's the only one who still calls me this, and only ever when we are away from the Mogs.
"What?" I ask groggily, too tired to process what was going on.
"You're coming with me to see me off," He grins. "Now get dressed,"
"Okay," I nod, springing out of bed. As soon as I'm dressed, I make my way to the door but Five steps into my path.
"Hold on a sec, okay?" He says, "There's something I feel like I need to say. You know, before I take off for who knows how long."
"What's up?" I ask, yawning and rubbing my eye with the ball of my fist.
"Look, just take care of yourself, alright? Do whatever it takes to survive." He locks eye contact with me, and I see something in him that I haven't before, something that had been buried deep down. I realize he has said those exact words to me before. "I don't know what it is, but from the moment I met you, I've had this feeling,"
"Feeling?" I prompt. I think I already know what he is about to say because I have felt it too, something distant.
"A feeling that I know you." He nods. "Or would have known you, on Lorien. We would have been really close. I know you feel it too. You're like the brother that I never had,"
"I do feel it," I tell him. "And I don't know what I'm gonna do without you here."
"Just do whatever it takes to survive," He repeats. "Those were my cepan's last words to me," he explains and suddenly I understand. There was something attached to his words, something that no one listening would understand.
"Take care of yourself, Brother," I smile. He wraps his arms around me and for a brief moment, I feel a connection to him, a distant memory comes to mind, and for some reason I just know it's from the old days on Lorien, but before I can grasp it, it's gone.
"Let's go." Five sniffles, and I realise that he has been trying to stop himself from crying. "Can't keep Beloved Leader waiting." Without another word, he turned away from me and began the trek to the ship's bay, and I had no choice but to follow. Setrakus Ra is already on board our ship when we arrive.
We had already said everything we needed to, so we silently boarded and the ship took off. When we get to our destination, Five exits and begins his work. I watch from above as he activates his Externa and flies around like a flaming torch. After he has finished, he reboards and the two of us take our places on either side of our Beloved Leader.
"This is the beginning of the end for the Garde," Setrakus Ra says, his voice low and steady, there is no glimmer of doubt in it. Our Beloved Leader's eyes are fixed on the fiery symbol that's burning down below, Five's masterpiece, the loric symbol for Five. "Are you worried at all?" He asks us, then turns to Five. "Worried you might not blend in among them?"
"No," Five shakes his head. "I can be an excellent liar when I need to. It will be simple. I just won't tell them anything true. It'll be like a game that I used to play when I was very young, before the Mogadorians saved me."
"I have no doubt that you will make an excellent double agent," Setrakus Ra grinned, placing a hand on Five's shoulder.
"They'll be given the same chance that I was, yes?" Five asks. "I can try to get a feel for who might have the intelligence to join us."
"Of course, you are my right hand. And Ten, my left." He smiles. "But I have foreseen that another must join us. You will have to help her see reason. My granddaughter." Granddaughter?
"What about Nine?" Five asks. I can hear the resentment in his voice as he tries to keep a steady tone.
"I'll leave that up to you when the time comes," he shrugs, and a smile creeps onto his face.
"I'm ready to meet the rest of my kind," Five tells him, and I know without a doubt that he is telling the truth. Goodbye, brother. Good luck.
