"It's been too long," Five whispers, tapping his ear slowly, silently telling me not to speak in case we are heard. He is alone, so I assume the others are not far behind. If they were listening in, they might think Five was talking to his buried chest. "I'll be back soon," He says quickly before launching himself into the air and flying off in the direction he came.
I'm concealed in the tall grass, watching the clearing with intense focus as I wait for my time to strike. Five has insisted that I stay hidden until after he tries to talk the Garde into submission. Fine by me. Bring me in for the action. It's so hot, and I've been outside for so long sitting here, waiting, that sweat has soaked through my uniform shirt, sticking uncomfortably to my skin. I'm sweating in places I didn't even know could produce sweat.
This could technically be an island, I guess, closest thing I have ever seen to one at least. Really it's just a pile of mud in the middle of a murky swamp, holding up a really old and weird looking tree whose roots are deep rooted into the whole land area.
Blowing gently with the light breeze, the ring of tall grass around the edges is what hides me, keeping me out of sight when the sound of an engine draws close, and a small boat comes into view. I watch as Five guides five others to the base of the tree, holding my breath as if they might hear me, waiting anxiously to make my move.
At first I think I have miscounted, delirious from sitting in the heat for so long. Five had said that Four was left behind in Chicago, yet there was still one more than what he had told me to expect. My eyes settle on each of the figures, taking them all in before resting on one, the last to leave the boat. A tall man, with a scraggly beard that is much longer than last time I saw him. Though it had been years, I still recognized his ugly face. That piece of shit! This is Five's surprise? My worthless cepan? How did he even find the Garde?
"It's under here!" I hear Five say to the others as he kneels down by the roots at the foot of the tree. I'm barely paying attention to him though, or the grass that starts to move somewhere to my right. I'm too focused on thinking about what to say to the asshole ahead of me. I will show him just how wrong he was to keep me in the dark about my powers.
I see Nine, joking with the others before his expression hardens, staring at the moving grass that has just now caught my attention. Five doesn't seem fazed as he hovers his chest to a less muddy area. I direct my attention to where Nine's is and it takes a lot of concentration to not laugh in amusement. I know exactly what Nine is seeing, before it even emerges completely from the grass.
Three heads rise out of the water as one, a thick scale-covered neck connecting them to a single body, with oily black fur on the beast's torso dripping water droplets as it stretches it's large, leathery bat wings. Five's drawing. This is the work of our scientists. The Beast stands on a pair of almost human legs, nearly fifteen feet tall. The Garde don't seem prepared for him as he takes to the air.
Five unlocks his chest, ignoring the others as they launch a futile strike on the beast. A girl seems annoyed with him, Number Six, if I'm correct, and shouts something that I don't catch over the beast's howling roar.
"It came from underwater, how could I see it?" Five replies, and I hear a hint of amusement. "I've got just the thing in here."
I hear the others talk to each other, but I'm not listening to them. I'm watching Five rummage through his chest, waiting for my signal to strike. All this waiting was making me very impatient.
I see Eight teleporting around the beast as if that would make a difference. It starts to rain slowly, and when it picks up I make a mental note that it is the doing of Number Six, whose hands are extended in the air. I had forgotten that this one could control the weather.
Five finally settles on a leather sleeve that I remember all too well from our training days. After equipping it, Five smiles as the hidden blade extends, before retracting it and continuing to search in his chest. I watch the Beast sink its teeth into Eight's shapeshifted shoulder, some kind of lion creature as Number Seven screams and races towards him, presumably to heal. The storm around us gets stronger, nearly exposing my hiding spot as the grass blows around wildly. With his silver pipe staff, Nine attempts to hold off the beast to no avail. Lightning, from Six's homemade storm cascades down and strikes the beast, barely doing a thing. The second strike tears a hole through the poor creature's wing. All they seem to be doing is making Five's pet angrier.
Five chooses this moment to let out a high pitch whistling sound as he blows into an intricate obsidian flute. As the monster hears this, it slowly sinks to the ground, folding its wings around its body and crouching still.
"See?" Five grins as he lowers the whistle. "Easy," The others don't seem to know what to say to him, and after a few moments, I'm not surprised that it is Nine who breaks the silence.
"If you had that thing the entire time, why the fuck didn't you use it?" Nine snaps angrily.
"I thought you might want a workout," Five smirks. The others seemed just as pissed as Nine, although they held their tongues.
"Would you just kill that thing so we can get out of here?" Six asks Five with a hint of annoyance. He nods, his skin turning to steel from the ball bearing that I knew he was holding in his hand. He never let that thing go, or the rubber ball that accompanied it.
"I made the thing." Five tells them, taking two steps closer to Six. "The least I can do it put it down,"
"You what?" Number Seven asks in disbelief, but it's too late. Although I should have seen it coming, I'm just as surprised as the others when Five suddenly delivers a powerful upper cut, using his flight to add speed, directly into Six's jaw. The force of his hit sends her body into the air, landing at Seven's feet, conveniently. She's bleeding and seems to have been knocked unconscious. Concussion at best, a fractured skull at worst. When Seven tries to heal her, she can't move and I know this is Five's doing with his telekinesis. It's Eight that breaks the stunned silence this time.
"Why'd you do that?" Eight yells at the same time that Nine screams out in pain. Five's arm had turned to rubber, wrapping tightly around Nine's throat as he lifted him ten feet into the air, before quickly bringing him down, his rubbery arm diving into the murky swamp. Drowning Nine. His arm vibrates from Nine's struggle but this doesn't seem to faze Five as he takes a seat on his closed chest, staring intently at Seven and Eight. So these are our recruits.
"The four of us should probably talk," He says calmly. My useless cepan is still near the boat, silently watching as he had been this whole time. Seven steps near the water's edge, looking where Nine is held prisoner.
"What have you done with the real Number Five?" Eights growls, and I can't help but laugh quietly at that ridiculous question. The others don't seem to notice me. Yet. Five seems confused at first but laughs too.
"It's cool, Eight." He shakes his head while still laughing. "I'm not Setrakus Ra. See? I'm the real deal." To prove his point, he puts his hand on the lock of his chest and the others seem satisfied with this answer when the lock pops off. My chest. I'll get that coward to reveal its location.
"Let Nine out of the water, Five." Seven says with a leveled voice, although I can tell she is just as freaked out as Eight.
"I will, but in a minute" Five promises her. "I just want to talk with you two without Six and Nine around to interrupt us." He glances slightly at my hiding spot, which the others don't seem to notice.
"Why Five? Why would you attack us?" Eight asks angrily, although he does sound genuinely hurt by Five's sudden betrayal. "We're your friends!"
"No, you're my species," Five corrects him, and though I can't see it, I know he is rolling his eyes. "That doesn't make us friends."
"Nikio, Rey wouldn't want you to do this." My cepan speaks finally after not saying a word this entire time. I think Five forgot he was even there because he whips around to face him in surprise. Nikio? Why would my cepan call Five that? How does he even know Rey?
"My name is Five." He growls. "And Rey is dead so who cares what that weak asshole wants." This seems to shut him up because my dumb cepan goes quiet again.
"Please Five," Seven pleads. "Just let Nine out of the water, and we swear we will hear out what you have to say." Five sighs, but compromises by lifting Nine out of the water, smiling as he gasps for breath, struggling to break free.
"Not so strong now, are ya?" Taunts Five. "Okay take a deep breath, bro. You're going back under." He dunks Nine back into the water as the others watch helplessly. Seven makes yet another move at trying to heal Number Six, but Five doesn't let her, holding her back gently with his telekinesis. He doesn't want these two harmed. They must join us. The others will have to die.
"Why are you doing this?" Seven shouts at him through tears. Five looks taken aback by her reaction to this whole situation. Five must have expected less resistance from these two. I don't think they will come easily.
"Because you two were nice to me," He says like it should be obvious to them. "Because unlike Nine and Six, I don't think you have been brainwashed by your cepans," He takes a moment to glare at Thomas before going on." -into thinking resistance is the only way forward. Eight, you proved that in India, when you let those soldiers die for you."
"Don't talk to me about that," hisses Eight. "I never meant for anyone to get hurt."
"Brainwashed?" Seven exclaims. "Did you say that we're the brainwashed ones?"
"It's okay," Five says calmly. "The Beloved Leader is forgiving. He will welcome you both with open arms, just as he did me and Andy. There is still time for you to join us on the winning team."
"Resistance is futile. Beloved Leader will prevail. " I added. Thomas was looking at me weird but I didn't care.
"You're working with them," Seven scoffs in disgust, finally piecing it together. "This whole damn time. You sound like a robotic zombie."
"I'm sorry I lied to you guys about that, but it was necessary. I had only been on this planet for a handful of years when they found me," Five explained, ignoring her zombie comment. "My cepan was already dead of some vile human disease; that part was all true, it just didn't happen when I said. The Mogadorians took me in, helped me. Once you read the Great Book, you'll understand that we shouldn't be fighting them. This whole planet, hell, even the universe can be ours! Screw Lorien!"
"That's how they know where to find us in Cumberland." Eight growled. "You took Melody."
"Technically that wasn't me, I mean not exactly." Five grins, again shooting my hiding spot a quick, knowing glance. This time my cepan seems to notice, although he doesn't speak. He just scans the surrounding area, his eyes darting around quickly.
"The Mogs did something to you, Five." Seven says sadly, almost a whisper so I strain to hear it. "It's okay though. We can help you. You belong with us. Just tell us where Melody is, we need to help her too."
"And let Nine go." Eight adds. "We don't want to hurt you."
"Hurt me?" repeats Five, laughing. "That's a good one." He yanks Nine out of the water and hurls his body against the giant tree. They try to catch him, but Five is too strong and it happens so fast. I smile as Nine's spine smacks against the tree's truck, making him cry out, his body contorted. He's probably got a broken back, maybe even some ribs if we are lucky. I take this as my moment to make myself known, using my mind control to subdue my cepan. Now is the time.
"Andy!" My cepan shouts through gritted teeth, trying to fight the pain of my legacy. As if as soon as I touched his mind, he could feel it was me. He knew I would be here as soon as Five revealed he was with the Mogs. "Please stop this,"
"Pathetic." I growl, making my assault more intense.
"Welcome to the party, Andy." Five grins, standing up from his chest to greet me with a hug now that his rubber arm was free. I let my cepan go and took Five's embrace, focusing my attention on the now three garde in front of us after we separated. He can't stop us. I'll just let him sit back and watch what I can do. No thanks to him. "I was wondering when you'd get antsy and just pop out."
"Told you we would meet again soon, Nine," I grin, watching him try to prop himself up but failing. The hatred in his eyes is glorious, and I know just what to say to make it better. "Melody says Hi,"
"Do you guys have any idea how dull it was pretending to be weak? Like you guys?" Five asks the others while his slithery rubber arm returns to normal. "You were all trained by pitiful cepans, if you were lucky," He shoots my cepan yet another accusing glance before going on. "Mucking about with your chests and your legacies, always in the dark." he chuckles.
"Five and I here were trained by the most powerful fighting force in the universe." I added, making sure to linger my gaze on my cepan. His eyes reveal a mixture of emotions that I can't quite place them all.
"We'll see about that." Eight shapeshifts into a ten-armed lion, towering over Five, who still has the flute in his hand and decides to blow into it. Instantly, the sleeping beast reawakens, leaping into the air and slamming into Eight. Five seems amused to watch Eight roll around, scrapping with his pet monster.
"Don't hurt each other!" Five calls to them. "We can all still be friends." While we are distracted, Seven tries to make a third attempt to heal Number Six. Five and I both react at the same time, using our combined power to lift Seven off the ground, away from the motionless girl.
"Stop!" She yells at us. "Just let me heal her!"
"I don't want her healed," Five shakes his head so I shrug in response. "She's like Nine, she'll never understand. Don't fight me, Marina. Please? You're so much stronger than this. Let us show you." A branch strikes Five in the back of the head, I didn't even see Nine sit up, but I see the next assault and stop it, dropping my concentration on Marina.
"Cute," Five sneers, leaving Seven and hovering closer to Nine while he deflects the next volley.
"Come on," growls Nine, who is now sitting completely upright. "I don't need my legs to kick both your asses."
"Talking shit till the very end," Five sighs. "You know what's happening in Chicago right now?"
"Hope you kissed your penthouse goodbye," I sneered.
"No," Seven gasps as she takes in my words. "Five you didn't,"
"Your fancy suite is being blasted and burnt to the ground as we speak," Five laughs maniacally.
"For the record, I wanted to take you all out while you were still in Cumberland." I tell them. "Would have been real easy too, to just obliterate that village with all of you trapped in it. But Five ordered me to hold off. He insisted that the wait would be worth it."
"Oh and it was," Five grinned wickedly. "The stupid look on your face right now was totally worth it. How does it feel, Nine? Knowing you're going to die while your precious home burns?"
"How could you do that, Five?" Marina says angrily. "What about Ella and the others?"
"Ella will be fine," Five tells her. "You won't need to worry about her anymore."
"Beloved Leader has plans for her," I added vaguely. "Your human pets however," I trailed off, letting them connect the dots.
"He wants her alive?" I hear the panic in Marina's voice and I know that those two must have had a close bond. Take comfort in the fact that at least she gets to live. You only live if you submit. "For what? I thought we all had a death sentence on our heads." Five doesn't answer, but instead turns back to Nine. "What does he want with her, Five?" She screams at him while he stalks towards Nine.
I'm about to stop Seven again from making her way towards Six, when a flash appears at my side. Eight. Suddenly I'm not on the grass anymore, but plunging into the gross swamp water. It takes me a few moments to breach the surface, the water making it difficult to concentrate. Eight was holding me under the water's surface with his telekinesis, but he's not like Five so he lets me go before I'm anywhere near drowning. Before I can turn on him, Five's beast attacks him. He shifts back to his lion form and rolls around in the mud, trying to fend it off. He manages to get six of his paws into the beast's mouth and wrenches the jaw apart, nearly tearing its body in half. The creature thrashes for a few moments before its wings go limp and the body slowly starts to disintegrate.
"Well done! I knew you could do it!" Five exclaims to Eight as I pull myself out of the water. I see my cepan has made his way to Six's side, along with Marina who was now focused on healing her. I push her away from Six with telekinesis, and I hope that she didn't heal her enough to wake her up. "Believe me though, there is much more where that came from." Eight looks nearly defeated, back in his true form, I can see bites and cuts all along his bare chest and torso. Shakily, he picks himself back up.
"You gonna hit an unarmed man?" Nine snarls. Five is now looming over Nine, his steel skin glinting in the fading sunlight. Before Five can answer him, Nine uses his telekinesis to reach for his staff, which he must have dropped earlier. Five catches the thing out of the air before Nine can grab it, bringing it down across his metallic knee to snap it in half like nothing.
"Yeah, I am." As Five goes to punch Nine, Eight teleports in between them. Five stops and I can tell he doesn't really want to hurt Eight. Eight would make a great asset, but he doesn't seem to be giving in. Neither of them do. We may not be able to break them. They might have to die. I'll leave that call up to Five. My Mind Control has its limits, I can't force them the join us.
"Stop this madness, Five." He's hunched over, breathing heavily and bleeding from multiple wounds. Even so, he stands his ground. I almost admire him for that. Stupid idiot would make a great leader if he would just give in. I think Beloved Leader would really like him.
"Get out of the way, Eight." Five hisses. "My offer to you still stands, but only if you let me finish this asshole off." Just do it, Five. End Nine's pathetic life.
"Let him take a shot!" Nine shouts from on the ground. What an idiot. He'll die stupid.
"Shut up," Eight snaps over his shoulder. "You're not thinking straight, Five. The Mogadorians, Setrakus Ra, they've done something to you. To both of you." He locks eye contact with me for a second before continuing. "In your hearts, you know this is wrong. It isn't too late to join us, together we can stop them." How ridiculous. All the Mogs did to me was show me who I really was. And we can't stop them, I mean us. We won't be stopped.
"You wanna talk about right?" Five scoffs. "What's right about taking a toddler away from his family, and sending him off with a bunch of other kids to a strange planet, just so they can fight for a war that they don't even understand? A war they never asked to be part of? What's right about stripping those kids of their identities and giving them numbers instead of names? It's all just sick."
"So is invading another planet." Eight counters. "Wiping out an entire people."
"No! It's not like that," I shook my head. "You guys just don't understand yet. The Great Expansion has to happen,"
"Genocide has to happen?" Eights shouts back. "You're both insane."
"Once you read the Great Book, it will all be clear." I tell them.
"You fight because cepans like him," Five points accusingly at my pathetic cepan, who can barely make eye contact with me. "Told you that's what those dumb Elders wanted. Have you ever stopped and asked why? Who they even were?"
"You all take orders from dead old men and don't even question it, yet we're the ones who are insane." I roll my eyes. I never thought the Garde would be this dense.
"Yeah," growls Nine. "Are you even listening to yourselves? You're both fucking mental." Five flinches slightly and I know Nine has struck a nerve.
"You're both confused," My cepan finally speaks after his long hiatus. "You've been their prisoners for years, without even realizing it." We're far from prisoners.
"Please just calm down." Eights tries to settle Five but I can tell it's futile. "We shouldn't be fighting. We're not your enemies." Five drops his shoulder and attempts to barrel through Eight but he holds his ground.
"His left hand!" I hear Marina yell and before I can stop them, Five screams out in pain and frustration as they try to pry open his hand with their combined powers.
"Please don't fight us," Marina pleads. "You're just making it worse." I try to make a move against Marina but Eight stops me.
Using my mind control, I try to reach out to her but Eight knocks into me again before I can properly focus and then teleports out of reach. I don't know if it's just the heat, but it's harder to focus my mind control out here. Or maybe I'm just not used to using it on worthy opponents. It took a lot of concentration to take out Nine last time, and that was just one garde that I had caught off guard. Now there were three. Plus a useless cepan. I divert my attention to him. He drops to his knees, trying desperately to fight it off to no avail.
"I hate you," I seethed to him, voicing the only thing I ever thought about when his face popped into my mind. "I wished you dead for so long."
"I know," He says weakly. This answer throws me off guard, and makes me angrier. "I know."
"Why?" I snarl, yelling the one question I had on my mind since the day I was rescued from his pathetic care. There are so many why's. I couldn't narrow it down to just one question so I left it at that, letting him piece together what I wanted to know.
"I couldn't tell you about who you really were." He says slowly, as if he had been planning this day. "It was easier for us all to just forget about everything, and start over." I let up just a tiny amount of pain to let him answer properly.
"Why?" I ask again, my emotions taking control of me.
"It was just too painful," He says softly. "For me." He stands , his legs shaking as if he could collapse again any moment. "And I wanted to save you and Melody from the truths."
"What truth?" I hiss. His vague answers were pissing me off more and more.
"I still can't tell you," He shakes his head, looking briefly at Five before turning back to me. "What you both have become," he trailed off, his eyes darting between me and Five. "Your grandparents would be disappointed."
"No thanks to you or Rey." I spat angrily. "And they all are dead. Who cares what they think? Answer my damn questions. It's the only thing your pathetic life is good for at this point."
"My father Rey and I never wanted this for either of you." He continues, speaking to both of us now. "We planned on training you both together on Lorien, but the Mogadorian's stole that chance." Rey was his father? So it's true, that feeling that Five and I both had, we really would have known each other on Lorien.
"Wrong," I scoffed. "You stole that chance when you were late to the fucking ship. If I had made it in time, who knows what coulda happened. The Mogadorians saved me from your pathetic ass." I sneered.
"Is that what you think happened that night?" Thomas frowns. "I saved your life."
"They saved me, not you." I hissed. "They gave me the chance to train with Five, not you. If your Dad really was his cepan then we could have found them when we landed." I spat, shoving him down. "And they taught me to be powerful, which was a chance that you were given but failed. Every fucking chance you ever had, you failed. This is all on you." I raised my hands to him and unleashed such an immense amount of pain that he began convulsing on the ground, unable to speak. Despite the pain, somehow he manages to inch closer to me. He's right at my feet now, like a bug I can squash if I really wanted to. And I did. His pathetic life ends now. Let them all watch the last cepan fall.
"It's ok-kay, little b-buddy." Thomas says weakly through his pain, as if reading my mind. "D-do you what you g-gotta do, Makai." I had every intention of bursting his head open in front of the garde like I had done with Evan, but something about his words struck a nerve. He stumbles, reaching for me but only manages to touch my boot. I'm about to kick it off when suddenly I'm not in the hot swampy mess of the Everglades anymore.
I'm somewhere else, somewhere scary and loud. At first that's all I can sense, but then slowly the image seems to become clear. The sky is on fire, and there are screams all around me. Distorted blobs become figures, and I see a tiny boy sniffling on a burning lawn while a beast charges down the road, tearing people limb from limb before moving on to the next target. I feel a sudden protective urge to help the little boy, but deep down I know exactly where I am, and know that nothing I do will change a thing. I am on Lorien, somehow, and that little boy is me.
This is when it first got hold of me, the darkness inside. The carnage I witnessed, though I never realized it till this moment, had always been stuck with me. Ever since this night. Sitting in the back of my head, the images of blood and torn limbs had always been there, that twisted darkness ready to claim me again. It's no wonder the Mogs like me so much. In a way, I'm a little like them.
I hear the little boy say something, reaching his tiny hands towards two other blobs that soon became clear, one is alive and crying, the other is lying motionless in his arms. He responds to the boy's voice, dropping the body and instead turning to him, to face me.
I see the younger face of Thomas, his beard only a small stubble. He looks like hell, covered in blood from whoever it was lying in the street. Their face is still a blob, and somehow I know this is because my younger self wasn't really paying attention to them. Only Thomas.
"It's going to be okay, little buddy." His voice says softly. There it is. Little Buddy. I forgot he used to call me that. He opens his mouth trying to say something else to me but then I'm suddenly whipped back to the field in the Everglades.
It takes me a moment to realize what has happened, how long I was out of it, and it seems during my struggle I had collapsed. I was on the ground, beside Thomas whose chest was slowly rising up and down. He's still alive, for now. What the hell was that? What did he do to me? How did I see Lorien when he touched me?
"It's going to be alright," I hear Seven say. I look over at Five, who's lost his two balls and has reverted back to his normal skin. He looks so defeated, and glances at me for a moment. He knows I failed him. If I hadn't passed out, I could have helped. I still feel weak from whatever happened, but slowly feel my strength coming back. Eight has his hand on Five's shoulder, and it looks like Five has given in. Is this it? Have we really lost?
"Crying like a little girl," Nine sneers. "And you're little bitch over there is taking a nap."
Immediately, I see Five's expression darken and his body goes stiff. I already know what is about to happen.About fucking time. Before anyone can stop him, he shoves Eight to the ground and takes flight.
"Don't!" I hear Seven scream but Five is already barrelling towards Nine at high speeds, equipped with his mounted blade. I smile as it lets out a screech as he unleashes it. Nine sees it coming and tries to roll away, but he's hurt and Five is holding him still with his legacies. I combine what power I have with Five's, holding him in place firmly. I wait for the killing blow to end his pathetic life once and for all, but it doesn't come.
Or rather, doesn't come to Nine. It all happens so fast; one moment Nine's about to get stabbed and the next, he is screaming and Eight is bleeding while falling backwards. The dumb ass teleported, trying to stop Five and in turn got a blade to the heart.
Five seems genuinely shocked at the outcome, lurching backwards as he realizes what he has done. They all only have about a minute to process this, not even, before a fresh scar starts to burn into all of their ankles. I guess I can thank Thomas for not having to go through that. That probably hurts like a bitch.
