Nurse Prim gleefully rolled her seat over to the table I lay strapped to, doing nothing to restrain her preternatural smile. With the press of a button, the amethyst lenses flipped open, revealing her eyes.

“Wow, okay, that felt good. Really, really good! Let’s do it again.” She propped herself over the table and positioned her lips close to my ear. “I’m Hexecute,” she whispered madly. “Is this what it's like to come out as transsexual? No wonder you were so intent on doing it.” She kicked off the table and wheeled away. “Whew! Do you know how long I’ve been dying to tell someone? Oh, whoops!” She pivoted her chair towards me. “Poor choice of words.”

I tried to scoot away from her as far as my bindings would allow, which was effectively an inch of leeway. “Y-you’re He-Hexe--”

In a flash she was towering over me again, smiling wickedly. “Come on, Gabrielle! Say it loud and proud!”

“B-but that’s not possible… Hexecute isn’t a… a...”

“A woman?” She made a tsking noise with her tongue. “Color me disappointed, I thought you of all people would understand, Gabrielle. Sure, I’m not exactly a shining example of heroism these days. I swear, you get your hands a smidge dirty while wearing a full-body suit of plexi-titanium enriched armor that just so happens to flatten your breasts into pancakes and suddenly you’re a ‘bad guy’.”

My head slowly moved side to side in disbelief. “You’re — you’re actually Hexecute...”

“Bingo!” she jubilantly exclaimed. “It only took you, what, two months to figure it out? I was worried it was obvious. Luckily for me, you’re not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, huh?” Her finger tapped against my nose condescendingly, nearly prompting me to bite her.

“You —” I snapped my limbs upward against the restraints, struggling with all of my strength. They groaned in protest but held firm against my struggling. “You killed them. You killed Kayden!”

She sighed. “Oh Gabrielle, somehow I knew you’d bring that up. Technically,” she continued as she spun around the table while fiddling with items spread across the counter space, “you dropped the bomb. Or, well, I guess technically-technically it was Explo-Dirk’s bomb in the first place. It’s settled — Explo-Dirk is responsible. Luckily for our friendship, I already beat him into a coma. No need to thank me.”

“You killed them you — you crazy psycho!” I spat back at her.

She adopted a faux-hurt expression. “Me? I was just trying to quiet someone who, may I remind you,” she slammed her hands on both sides of the table and lowered her face until it was mere inches from mine, “was shooting at me! With a gun!” Her eyes narrowed into slits. “Don’t you ever call me crazy again, got it?” She held her stare into my eyes expectantly. “Nod if you understand, girl.”

Recoiling, I hesitantly nodded. Tugging at the restraints was no use; I didn’t have the room to build momentum to help. Wait, momentum! I didn’t need forward momentum, I just needed to phase through the restraints, like I had done during Markus’ lesson. Four times successfully. While a megalomaniacal supervillain was lording my worst fear over me.

I was so boned.

 Prim jerked away from the table and straightened her jacket. “I mean, really, anyone else would have done the same thing. I was supposed to get my hands on you at the prison, but you know what they say,” she finished with a wink. “Always have a back-up plan. Oh, on the subject.” She retreated to the head of the table and began to fiddle with something just outside of my line of sight. I craned my neck to try and get a better view, much to her chagrin. “Oi, hold your horses. You’ll love this.” The sound of machinery whirred behind the walls of the room all around us. Portions of the wall opened up almost exactly as they had in Mel’s lab, allowing monitors and unidentifiable equipment to slide through and power on. The holes closed up behind the technology, leaving us in a room much more akin to a laboratory than a nurse's office. The monitors clicked on, displaying a figure on screen with listed vitals next to it, presumably mine.

A loud thud suddenly clattered against the table, compelling me to flinch. Inches from my head rested the gauntlet; the very same one I’d seen adorning Hexecute’s arm so many times.

I jerked away in terror as ice solidified in every vein throughout my body.

“Wait, wait, no! H-hold on! Don’t take my powers!” I screamed, engulfed by utter fear and terror.

She held her hand up to her ear. “I couldn’t quite hear you. What was that?”

Tears began to well up at the edges of my eyes. “Don’t take my powers! Please — fuck, please don’t take my powers!” I begged, unable to mask my sobs as anything other than pathetic whimpering.

She stepped back, now sporting a self-satisfied grin. “Okay, now what did you just learn?”

Left gaping in confusion, I mumbled,. “W-what?”

She pointed eagerly at the surrounding walls. “Soundproof. Just in case Markus was a screamer.” 

Markus? Wait, she’d said she was after Markus back when I had first run into her at that laboratory with Kayden so long ago. Had she been — My eyes widened in realization.

Holy shit.

“You set up shop at the school to steal Markus’ powers, didn’t you?” I accused.

Perching her arms onto the gauntlet, she nodded earnestly. “Atta girl, Gabby! Now you’re getting it. See, you’re not as stupid as everyone says. As a reward —” She lowered her voice. “Wanna see something cool?”

“Uh… s-sure?”

“Oh, this’ll make your day, trust me.” With the snap of her fingers, a panel in the wall opened up, revealing two objects. One was an odd-looking device suspended by several wires, almost vase-shaped with robotic appendages attached at the circular lid. Immediately next to it sat a glass-like jar containing a small, incredibly bright and dazzling light within. Like a caught strand of fabric, I could feel a soft, languid tug at my chest as my eyes landed upon it.

I tried to avert my eyes from its brightness, wishing desperately I could make use of one of my hands as a makeshift shield. “What the hell is that?”

“That,” she said, her voice reverent and awed, “is a speedster. Or, well, what makes a speedster. Potato-potahto.”

That couldn’t be true. That was ‘what made a speedster’? My breath grew shallow; she couldn’t mean —

She chuckled. “Mhmm. Markus’ version of what you have riiiight --” She dragged her pronunciation out to allow her to close her goggles and look me over. “Here.” She jabbed a cold finger roughly against my sternum. “I’ve been waiting years to find this baby. What’s the point in taking the powers of one speedster if the other one you need hasn’t yet reared her shapeshifting little head from the boy’s locker room?”

She kept going, but I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from the near-pulsing light within the container. That was what my energy looked like. The energy that made being me possible. And she could rip it out, easy as pie.

I needed to keep her talking. Anything that would buy me time to get the hell out of this. I tried to focus on vibrating my fingers, but even just that was proving too difficult; the amount of concentration I needed was far too immense. I needed more time. “You mentioned before that you needed both of us; both of our powers. Did you want to be a super speedster or something?”

She flicked her goggles up coyly. “Gabrielle, I could become a speedster by laying a bare hand onto your forehead. No, nothing quite so... benign.”

Her bare hand? So she was a mimic! “Then why? Why us, specifically?”

Her smile flickered back to life as she retreated behind the table once more. “Simple. You’re both speedsters of the same plurality, and, based on my research, your combined essence should allow me to open a door I don’t currently have the... Shall we say ‘horsepower’ to open.”

“You’ve said that before… a door. A door to what, exactly?”

She chuckled deeply. “Playing detective, huh? Trying to suss out my master plan?”

I cracked a timid smile. “Guilty as charged.”

Her ears perked up. “You know, Gabrielle, it’s a shame I have to do this. I do like you. Maybe I’ll meet another one someday.”

“Another… what?” I paused my attempts at phasing and looked back at her.

Prim’s brow furrowed and her lips pressed together. “Should I…?” She mused, seemingly conflicted. “No, no. No time to play science teacher. How about we just say you have access to... something bigger. Bigger than anything you know.” She lifted the gauntlet off the table and began to slide it on. “No more monologing until after I have what I need. Let’s get this over with, Gabrielle. Don’t worry, I’ll still call you that even with a bulge back between your legs. I may be determined, but I’m certainly not an asshole.”

“Wait,” I exclaimed, a bead of sweat sliding down my temple; “Just… wait. If you’re going to take away my entire essence over whatever this fucking plan is, at least tell me one thing.” She paused for a brief moment.

“Nah.” Her gloved hand shot to my exposed arm and grabbed ahold of it. A hideous, horrid scream erupted from my lips, a clammy sensation shooting through my nervous system.

Except…

I opened my eyes. The gauntlet was still there, but so were my powers. The gauntlet wasn’t draining any of my powers away. Prim stood above, snickering away.

“Just kidding. For now, anyways. Go on, spit it out.”

“I-I...” I stuttered and mumbled, unable to free myself from the wave of dread she’d brought on.

“No question? Alright.” She moved her other hand towards the gauntlet.

“Wait! Yes — yes, my question!” I shouted hysterically. “Mel! W-why did you choose her to be your scapegoat?”

Prim’s hands faltered, stopping as if someone has pressed ‘pause’ on her.

“My… ‘scapegoat’?” Prim repeated in a slow, spine-chilling manner. “A title of that sort would imply that the individual in question is innocent. Melora Alphonse is a murderer.”

“Mel? A murderer? No, she’s —” The gauntlet began to light up again, silencing my protest.

“You asked a question,” Prim quietly snarled. “That’s the answer. Deal with it. She ended up right where she belonged — Cape Pole. At least, for a far too short amount of time. Helpful as I am, I figured that I should help her repay her karmic debt. Now she should be all settled up.”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to make sense of her cryptic words. Something still didn’t make sense about her declaration. “How do you know there wasn’t some kind of misunderstanding?” A murmur of laughter brushed past my ear. Prim flicked her hair to the side, her free hand holding it taught; a jagged scar on the left side of her head ran from an inch or so past her hairline to just behind her ear before stopping. The exposed skin was light and rough; it was almost angry looking. Whatever had happened, it looked like it did some seriously nasty damage to her. 

As cliché as it sounded, her hair had done a wonderful job obscuring the scar from view. Once she released her hair back over it, the scar once again evaporated from sight.

“Let’s just say I have an inkling,” she replied flatly, turning to the machines surrounding us and flicking them on one at a time. “Anywho. Time’s a-wasting.”

“Wait,” I protested, trying to halt her as I once more tried phasing my arms and legs from their bonds with no success. “Just — wait. You’re trying to gain access to something, aren’t you?” The memory of that recurring dream darted through my mind. The blight in the sky. That lightning being… was Prim the cause of it? “It’s the Kinetic Realm, isn’t it?”

Prim stopped cold, keeping her gaze on the machine she’d just flicked on.

“Are you trying to unlock it? If not for speedster powers, then what? What could you possibly be looking for?”

Prim looked over to the reflective surface of one of the monitors. “Who,” she whispered in the smallest, most quiet voice I’d ever heard from her.

 Who? “This isn’t going to work, Prim,” I stated. “You don’t need to do this.”

“Now what makes you say that?” She quickly retreated back behind the table and out from my sight.

“Let’s just say I’ve… experienced my fair share of death.” My teeth clenched tightly, but I forced myself to continue. “I know what it’s like to lose someone you care about.”

“No you don’t, Gabrielle,” she stated. “Not like this.”

“Yes, I do! I —”  Her emotion-scarred face leaned over me again.

“No, you don’t,” she sternly corrected me. “I already know everything about how you feel, Gabrielle.” A mischievous smirk spread across her thin lips. “Reading the entire DSM-V and WPATH care standards your affliction will do that. To think, it was as easy as calling you ‘young lady’ or even just ‘pretty’ for you to trust me more than your own mother. My god, Gabrielle. You’re an open book. Literally.”

Blood began to boil deep, deep within me as her words cut against my skin. Had I really let her play me so much?

I scoffed quietly. “You don’t know me.”

“I don’t?” she cooed condescendingly; “Well, let’s throw a few darts and we’ll see how close to bullseye I get. You’re scared of confrontation you don’t have full control of, mostly because you’re a complete coward. This, in turn, causes you to run from any problems that you don’t immediately know how to solve. You lie, near constantly might I add, to ensure that you’re the only one with all the information. If I had to guess, that’s probably because the only person you trust is yourself. And look where that got you. Dead bodies all around. Strapped to my table.”

My fists clenched tightly, knuckles whitening as she continued.

“Hit a nerve? I assume so! Speaking of,” she continued, “don’t even get me started on those daddy issues. Wow, thanks for that solid assist back in the office, Gabrielle. ‘No, no, don’t tell my dad’,” she crowed, mocking my voice. “Just needed to pull his contact information from the school’s system and suddenly found my four-of-a-kind transformed into a royal flush. Good lord, you should carry a business card with your weaknesses listed in big, bold lettering on the back. It’d honestly be more subtle.”

Dad. She’d given him the envelope with my identity. She’d outed me to him. And I’d let her blame Ms. Catarelli, eagerly believing yet another of her lies. Energy began to surge forth from my chest into my muscles and veins.

“But honestly, I guess driving you into my hands was as easy as killing your little girlfriend. Oh well. Note for next time if I ever need to go toe-to-toe with another ginger speedster.”

Something unknowable, hidden within crevices in my psyche and buried so deeply that it was barely even perceived, snapped.

The energy I’d drawn upon for everything up until now was no longer in my chest. It was everywhere, flowing endlessly into my limbs and extremities.

Like a bolt of lightning, I leapt from the table, my form fuzzy and insubstantial — no longer bound by my restraints. 

“Their name,” I roared, fury focusing my attention like a laser on her, “is Kayden!”

I slammed my shoulder into Prim, crashing her against the far wall and into equipment gathered there. A concussive boom echoed throughout the room as she was wedged into the drywall. Kicking back before she had time to react, I sped towards the door and willed myself into a wraith-like state again. I easily passed through the door and caught myself on the other side in her office. I kept my pace, leaping once more through the final door of her torture chamber until I found myself back out in the hallway.

I needed to get the hell out of the school. The hallways were desolate save for a couple of other students milling about. I pulled my phone out and — of course, had no signal at all. I took off towards the nearest fire exit. I could be out of the building in a matter of seconds! Terror nipping at my heels, I rounded a corner and —

Blinding light.

I collided against another body, knocked roughly back against a locker before tumbling to the ground. I sprung to my hands and knees, screaming in fright.

Mr. Garrison, suddenly looking very similar to a porcupine with strange bone-like quills poking through the fabric of his sweater vest, stared at me with immense consternation in his expression.

“McArthur!” He growled, “I could have killed you if I’d been in my alter form one second earlier!”

“M-Mr. Garrison!” My voice raspy and panting, I called out to him. “We have to run!” I tried to interject, but he was having none of it as a joyous smile began to spread across his cheeks.

“Run?” He blinked. Faintly, I heard a door in the distance open, and the sound of clacking shoes striding towards us.

“Yes! She’s coming, she’s —” I tried to answer, but he was having none of it as a joyous smile began to spread across his cheeks.

 That’s right!” he exclaimed in a giddy voice. “You broke the rules! Red-handed and all!”

“Mr. Garrison, please!” I pleaded.

He gestured up at the robots hovering silently above us. “I’m so glad the AndrAI were here to see this. There’s no way your mother can spin this. I’ve finally got you!” Too caught up in the accomplishment of catching a student fleeing for their life, he failed to notice a horrifying sight taking shape right above his head. The AndrAI… they were all staring at me. Inching closer. Emitting a quiet, almost imperceptible chirp.

Whatever self preservation instincts he possessed seemed to finally kick in, interrupting his rant and prompting him to turn around and catch a glimpse of the growing assembly of robots overhead. 

“Well, that’s… odd. I’ve never seen them gather quite like that before.” 

Prim rounded the bend sharply, amethyst goggles still adorning her face above a deep, scowling frown beneath them.

Mr. Garrison stepped forward. “What in the —” Prim dusted leftover plaster off her coat and smiled. 

“Fire.” One of the AndrAI wiggled for a moment and sprouted an odd, pipe-like attachment from its underside. Before I could react, a flash erupted from the end of the pipe. Was it a gun? A black object fired from the drone and smacked against Mr. Garrison’s nose. Smoke erupted from where he stood, though he quickly fell from the cloud onto the ground, now back in his default form. 

Prim tilted her head to the side, giggling. “Do you see what you’ve made me do, Gabrielle? Now I have to throw away a perfectly good cover identity. I suppose I’ll just add ‘new home reality’ to the to-do list. Definitely worth it, though.”

I clambered back across the floor. New home reality? What the hell was she talking about? The black orb bounced off the lockers and wall before rolling towards my feet. I didn’t need to inspect it, I already know what it was.

Mr. Garrison lay unconscious on the floor, blood gushing from his nose. I locked eyes with Prim. “The — the AndrAI…”

“Exactly.” Prim glared down at me. The same extension popped out of the rest of the AndrAI, all aimed squarely on me. 

“B-but you’re not even transformed,” I whispered.

Prim let out a low chuckle. “Good catch, Gabrielle. Do you remember that incident with your friend, Samantha Sawyer? Alter forms don’t always have to look different, you know. Sometimes our insides match our outsides.” The drones began to inch closer and closer in my direction. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”

Seeming to already know what my answer was going to be, all of the AndrAI’s barrels erupted with light and launched clelium my way. Even with my perception sped up, they moved much faster than the dodgeballs I had evaded in gym class. Still not fast enough to touch me, though. I sprung to my feet and deftly navigated my way around the projectiles before twisting around the corner and coming face to face with another AndrAI. They were all over the hallway, each aimed at me like the others. Each of their muzzles fired at me in slow-motion as I danced between the clelium flying from all directions. 

I sped past the drones and fled towards the door, eager to make my escape. I couldn’t handle this on my own. I needed to run, to get away from her at all costs. 

The hallways blurred as I tore through them toward the nearest exit, jubilation erupting in my chest as it came into view. Except just as I made it to the door, a metallic gate slammed down to the ground. An ear-splitting crackle came from the wall-mounted speakers overhead, indicating they’d turned on.

“Gabrielle McArthur, please make your way to the nurse’s office,” came Prim’s mocking voice as I banged my fists against the gate. A long, sobbing scream passed over my lips as I fruitlessly tried to phase through the gate. It just wasn’t working; I couldn’t focus!

“Gabrielle?” Ms. Catarelli’s voice echoed down the hallway. “What in the hell are you doing? And why is that gate down?” I glanced behind me to find her striding towards me angrily, and though unseen for the moment,  loud and incessant chirping loud could be heard in the distance.

“Ms. Catarelli! Please, you’ve gotta teleport me outside!” I desperately screamed. “She’s coming!”

“Who’s coming? Nurse Prim?” she replied in confusion while glancing down towards the oncoming AndrAI. “The robots? Are they after you? Nurse Prim told me they muted their response to you.”

The intercom buzzed to life again, “Nora Catarelli, you may want to take a few steps away from Gabrielle, or rather, the splash zone.” Prim ominously added. Ms. Catarelli shot a puzzled look at the speakers before looking back at me.

“Prim!” I cried; “Prim is coming! She’s after me, she — she’s Hexecute!”

“What?!” Ms. Catarelli exclaimed.

The AndrAI turned a corner, finally coming back into sight. I needed Catarelli to transform and teleport me and fast. I raced up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Please! Just change!” My voice, now bordering on hysterical, bounced from cement wall to cement wall. Looking between myself and the incoming andrAI, she nodded. A flash of light, and a lithe, thinned down Catarelli stood before me.

“Hold on!” She grabbed me by the hand, a purple aura beginning to form around her when —

A cloud of smoke engulfed us both, her body smacking into mine roughly and dropping us both to the floor. Now back in her default form, Ms. Catarelli was sprawled out on the floor; a horrendous darkening red mark forming just below her clavicle.

AndrAI were on me before I could do anything else; pellets of clelium were flying rapid succession from their mounted weapons.

How much had she stolen? At least a metric fuck-ton to stock every drone with extra shots. Aided by my reflexes, I dodged out of the way of them and took off down a side hallway. Another group of drones flanked me at the other end, trapping me between the two groups as they began to close in relentlessly.

I desperately scanned the hall for any other option of escape. Short of bursting through the ceiling, however, the only options were the two classroom doorways on either side of the corridor, each with several shocked faces staring back at me. 

Of course! They couldn’t see the classrooms! I brushed past the students in the closest classroom, apparently a home-ec course, and slammed the door behind me. 

“Don’t worry! They can’t follow me here!” I shouted to the students now scrambling away from the door towards the back of the classroom. The separate groups of drones outside collided noiselessly and coalesced into one much larger, hungrier body of bots. “Okay, keep calm,” I urged, “Like I said, they can’t see me in here, meaning we should be safe.”

The intercom system buzzed to life again. “Did you think that old trick still worked, Gabrielle? No, apologies, but this won’t be quite so easy.”

The door outside rumbled and shook violently, recapturing our collective attention as AndrAI began to bash themselves against its metal exterior.

Several simultaneous flashes filled the classroom before fading to reveal at least half of the class standing tall, or in some cases, short, in their alter forms. 

The students looking back at the door weren’t scared, they were determined. They wanted to fight.

Never underestimate the eagerness of teenagers when given the opportunity to flip authority the bird.

“Let’s kick their tin can butts!” one of them called just as the door broke down. I dove to the floor, narrowly jumping from the path of a speeding clelium pellet. Tentacles, bestial claws, and laser vision wracked against the swarm of AndrAI flooding the room, the sound of metal crumpling to the floor flooded my ears as the other students fought back. Smoke began to fill up our side of the room before long, though thankfully this provided me some much-needed cover.

“McArthur,” The teacher  hissed at me from behind another table to my left. “They’re after you, right?”

“Y-yeah,” I confirmed. “She’s trying to steal my powers.”

He peeked over the edge of the table hiding us. The influx of AndrAI hadn’t ceased, but there weren’t that many students left standing. “Go out the back door behind my desk. I share a stock room with Mrs. Hazel. Just get to the doors; you’re a speedster, should be a piece of cake.”

My throat swelled slightly, another wave of emotion rocking me. “Thank you,” I choked.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he sighed. In one fluid motion, he launched himself over the table and burst into light. I took the opportunity to sprint past his desk and into the back closet behind. Stealing a glance over my shoulder, my eyes were met with some kind of humanoid dragonic figure slashing away at the AndrAI as they continued to filter into the room. Regret and guilt began to fester in my chest as I continued through the stockroom. Other kids and teachers were getting hurt because of Prim. Because I never saw her scheming for what it was. Because I never stopped her.

Bursting out the other side of the stockroom, I sped past an older woman who I assumed to be Mrs. Hazel huddled a few feet away in the corner with a cowering group of five or six students. She looked up at me in surprise as I zipped by. The door to the room was ajar and judging by the number of seats in the classroom, some kids were certainly missing. A nearby detonation rocked the classroom. Some of them must have evacuated the class either to fight or run. The chirps of the robots were still audible, but they seemed far enough away. I could still make a run for it.

The entrance of the classroom was behind me just as fast. “I’m sorry.” She tried to reach out towards me, but I was already long gone. Within minutes the school had erupted into a warzone; hazy smoke clouded the hallway and pieces of lockers and crumbled ceiling tiles were scattered on the floor next to unmoving or cowering students. I didn’t have time to check on them; the beeping was becoming more and more audible. Other students were still rushing from their classrooms, each over-eagerly charging into the fray, wielding their powers, or running away, knowing their lives depended on the speed of their escape.

Every window and exterior door I encountered was blocked by that same type of metal grate as the first door I’d tried to exit from. Some looked damaged and dented, but all still held strong. If I had to guess, these were part of some kind of security measure the school had in place, though whether it was security for us or the outside was irrelevant at this point; Prim was rapidly locking us into a prison of her design, one I desperately needed to escape as soon as possible.

I needed to think. The front doors were definitely locked. The back doors near Mrs. Catarelli’s office were locked; where else could I go? A cursory glance down the hall revealed that the windows, too, were blocked by that weird metal grating. If all of the doors and windows were locked, I’d need some privacy to focus my thoughts so I could phase through either one. There was a back door by the gym, but there were always AndrAI in the gym. Surely that was a non-starter, right?

My thoughts were interrupted as I was tackled off my feet and sent careening into the lockers with a loud thud. Their metal exterior bent inwards to accommodate my frame even after I bounced onto the floor in a groaning heap. A telltale click-clack of shoes landed on the tiled floor.

“Hello again, Gabrielle.” Prim dusted her jacket off; her gauntlet was once more humming noisily on her hand. “That was for earlier, by the way. Your zipping around the school is honestly starting to become quite annoying; what say we end this silly game of cat and mouse?”

I rolled over onto my back and fumbled for the metal surface of the lockers behind me. 

“You know there’s this —” I gasped, letting air into my screaming lungs. Fuck, she really got me. “There’s a whole thing about fighting? Be careful — they’ll totally call your parents. How’d you even find me?”

She pointed at her goggles. “Super-genius. Connected to school security cameras. You do the math. Actually, nevermind. More my specialty anyway.” My fingers only just grazed the indented metal of the locker before she ripped me from the ground and hoisted me into the air, gauntlet ready to strike. “Any last words?”

Wait. Behind her — was that...?

A rough cough escaped my lips. “Fore?”

Confusion flashed across her face just before both of us were consumed by the light and force of a stray fireball from down the hall, courtesy of one Fireball-Kid. Prim and I bounced against the lockers from the force of the explosion and clattered to the ground a few feet apart from each other.

I guess Ricochet was a good moniker.

We scrambled to our feet, though she promptly launched into a tirade of curses as she evaluated her steaming gauntlet.

“Fuck! That little brat fried some of the feedback circuits. Note to self; draw and quarter that little shit.” 

Energy swelled from within me, driving me to escape while I had a chance. Her attention swiftly returned to me in a wave of fury as electricity crackled along the surface of my skin. “Fuck it — sacrifice the rook for the king,” she growled. Moving quickly, she slapped her ungloved hand around my arm.

Nausea and vertigo assaulted my senses from every direction as yellow fractal lines burst to life beneath her skin and rushed up the length of her arm. I could feel something disturbingly weird, it was almost as if the energy in my chest was being probed and prodded by some unseen force snaking through my veins.

Screen door.

Falling.

An arrangement of lilies and orchids.

Chains.

Like a wisp of smoke inhaled, the images that flashed past my eyes were gone in an instant. 

Wha… what?

Grim laughter recaptured my attention; bolts of light were branching out into Prim’s torso and neck, climbing ever higher until yellow-orange streaks of lightning crackled over her irises, causing her to rupture into a fit of giggles as she looked herself over.

“This is what you feel like every day? No wonder you were so insistent on wearing your alter form all the time.”

I staggered back. “What the —”

“Hell.” Our words were spoken in the same instant, nearly identical in tone. “Go on, run away.” 

Not needing another reason, I turned tail and sped away from her. Fuck it! the gymnasium would have to do.

Hands swiftly grappled onto my midsection and tore me out of my stride. I tried to sustain my momentum by falling into a roll, but stabbing pain from the heel of a boot jabbing into my ribs knocked me off-kilter. The metal doors rumbled with incredible intensity as I slammed against them, my momentum absorbed on impact.

Prim stood tall, somehow still with me despite the hundred meters I’d just run in the span of a few seconds. Energy crackled over her body mirroring my own. “This is just delicious. Would you like to try running away again? My gauntlet may be fried for the moment, but it wouldn’t take me long to fix. Certainly a quick enough fix to avoid a few broken legs sending you into shock.”

“How are you — did you absorb Markus’ powers or something?” Terror flooded my every thought as what she’d done began to sink in.

“Oh, please.” She let out a theatrical sigh. “Markus’ essence is being saved for something special. Yours will be too, you know. But no! No monologuing. All I’ll say is I already told you how I’m doing this. Mimic, remember?”

Monologuing! That could buy me some time.

“Okay, so you absorbed Markus’ powers then. No need to hide it.” I pressed her coyly. The hodgepodge of thoughts and emotions cluttering my mind began to fade out one after the other as I focused with everything I had on pushing my ambient energy into any and every cell in my body.

Prim gave me a sideways look. “Come on. You know what a mimic is, Gabrielle. Bare skin contact with another alter, etcetera, etcetera.”

“Did they cover that in class? I must have missed it when I was — when I was feeling my boobs.”

“What?” Prim recoiled slightly at the mention of my apparent perversion.

I could feel myself beginning to vibrate all over. Come on, just a little bit more...

“Oh yeah. I kept just like — you know, groping them? Constantly. People kept telling me to stop, but I don’t know. Sometimes you just need to be a menace, y’know?”

Prim began to shake her head. “No, I —” Intangibility locked in not a moment too soon, spreading from my head down to my toes. Giving myself a small hop, I rolled through the metal door easily.

“Yoink!” I laughed. Just as suddenly, I was in the gymnasium proper with Prim glaring at me through the other side of the window. In a flash I locked the doors, preventing her from getting in. “Sorry, do you not know how to phase?”

“You little —” I didn’t wait for her to finish; I raced up to Mrs. Bittinboulder who stood watch over my classmates as they ran through some warm-up exercises.

“Bittinboulder!” I screamed, my voice beginning to turn hoarse. “Throw your shield up! Now!”

Mrs. Bittinboulder jumped in fright from my sudden appearance. “McArthur, don’t you know what time it is? Get your suit on already.” Everyone else stopped what they were doing and turned to look at us, including Cass, Angus and Kip’s crew. None of them looked particularly afraid; did they not know what was happening? I glanced up at the ceiling — no AndrAI. Where were they?

“You’ve gotta listen to me! Everyone, we need to get out of here! Hexecute is —”

The metal doors I’d just phased through collapsed inward in a violent storm of movement, each clattering and scraping along the cement ground. Prim’s figure began to emerge from the resulting cloud of dust, as well as several other figures identified only by an illuminated LED light shining through the debris cloud.

“Shield! Now!” I screamed. Mrs. Bittinboulder wasted no time; blue light illuminated in the air surrounding us before quickly forming into a dome that encompassed our class.

Drones swarmed into the large room, each taking position in a sort of blockade around Mrs. Bittinboulder’s shimmering blue shield. Prim wasn’t far behind, she entered the room showing none of the anger and ferocity that I’d witnessed from her earlier. Instead, her demeanor was calm, poised, and maliciously determined.

“Hello, students. Did someone call the nurse? I heard there’s a certain speedster who’s about to have a serious case of the ouchies.”

Mrs. Bittinboulder’s posture completely tensed up. “I fucking knew it!”

Cass sidled up to me and bent herself down to eye level. “Gabby, what’s going on?” she whispered.

“Prim is Hexecute,” I replied in a terse voice.

“Oh.” Cass nodded. “I guess I owe Mona ten dollars.” I relayed the situation about the school and Prim’s identity to her while Prim stalked her way up to the edge of the dome, eyes filled with the amusement of a hungry predator. 

“I figured you were giving me a few too many sideways glances, Shan,” she lilted through the bubble. “Though I rationalized that it could have also been a passing fancy you held for me. Things not going too well with the wife I hear, huh?”

“Shut your mouth, Eliza. I won’t let you get my kids. Just wait until Garrison finds out about this.”

Prim let out a heavy chortle; “Garrison? Last I saw he was out cold in the science wing with a river of red coming from his nose. No, this little party should be the last bastion of resistance remaining within the building in five… four… three… two…”

The sound of an air cannon could vaguely be heard through the opening Prim had created, followed by a shrill cry echoing off the empty hallway.

“One.” Prim crossed her arms. “Do you understand now, Shan? It’ll be better to give up now. All I want is the speedster. Give her to me and I won’t be forced to hurt anyone else.”

“Fat chance,” Mrs. Bittinboulder spat back. “What do you need her for, anyway?”

Prim shook her head and sighed. “Why does everyone expect me to just burst into a monologue when they ask about my master plan? Wouldn’t I only tell you once there wasn't the fraction of a chance you could do a thing to stop me?” 

Angus stepped forward. “Something about the kinetic realm… and your sister?” he replied with confusion muddling his tone. “You want to use it, no, search it for — is that possible?”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Prim shouted over him; “You? You’re first. Kay? I don’t need any more nosey nellies creeping around in my thoughts than necessary.” Angus quietly whimpered and retreated behind Cass and me.

Her eyes switched back to focusing on the shield; they roamed over the shield between us like a caged tiger eyeing the glass separating it from tourists at the zoo. “Okay, have it your way. If you won’t give me that speedster, I’ll grab the other one.”

With a snap of her fingers, two andrAI dropped from the air and made a dash towards the bleachers where, after a quick scuffle, they re-emerged with Markus held aloft in their grasp. 

Had he been hiding up there this entire time?

They raised him higher and higher into the air until he was nearly touching the rafters.

“Markus!” I screamed in horror. He struggled as much as a baseline person could; however, the drones continued to hold him tightly within their grasp. If he fell from that height…

Prim frowned. “I admit this is pretty blasé for my tastes, but you get the gist. Open the shield, or I’ll drop him, yadda, yadda, yadda.”

I shot Cass a worried look. “What do we do?”

“I might have an idea.” Cass observed the surrounding andrAI discreetly. “Just — cover me. This is going to look super conspicuous.” She edged closer to me, using my body as cover to obscure her hands while she began to chant beneath her breath.

“Let him go, Eliza!” Mrs. Bittinboulder growled. Stealing a glance at her, I could see beads of sweat starting to form along her brow. “You don’t have to do this. We could —”

“Yeah, I honestly don’t have time for negotiations,” Prim replied flatly. “Drop him.”

Markus’ screams filled the air as he fell back towards us, no longer in the drones’ grasp. Mrs. Bittinboulder swiped an arm upwards, a gesture the shield responded to by shooting a beam of energy towards Markus, enveloping him and slowing his descent about a dozen feet off the ground.

“Bingo,” Prim chirped. Mrs. Bittinboulder collapsed forward, falling into a heap as a ball of clelium bounced off the back of her head. Smoke filled the enclosure just as the solid structure of the dome erupted into a series of cracks and dissipated into thin air.

Prim resumed her march towards us — towards me, and laughed. “You know, Shan, you should work on keeping the integrity of your shield intact when manifesting extensions of it. Rookie mistake. Now, Gabrielle McArthur. Come on down!”

Keeping my eyes facing forward, I hissed at Cass. “Done yet?”

“One second — summoning a swarm is harder than it looks!” she retorted.

Murmured sobs and panicked breaths swept through the crowd as she closed in.

“Hard way again?” Prim clucked her tongue at me. “How irresponsible. Alright, if you insist —”

“What the fuck is goin’ on here?” Sammy’s commanding voice drowned out Prim’s. The door to the locker room slammed shut behind her, bringing a sort of calm to the tense air lingering around us. After taking a moment to observe the scene, the andrAI around us, Mrs. Bittinboulder sprawled out on the ground, and Prim wearing an extremely conspicuous gauntlet, a wide smile burst to life on her face. “Bad guy?”

“Yep,” I confirmed.

“About fuckin’ time,” she growled, ripping off her black wristband. A green flash of light illuminated the room. Before it could clear, Sammy had already closed the distance between herself and Prim, sinking her fist into Prim’s armored shoulder.

My heart lightened as Prim flew backward like paper caught in a breeze and smacked against the wall, causing it to crack and crumble while she fell to her knees. 

Sammy clenched her fist gleefully. “Wish I'da been able to do that kind of damage to those skinhead shitstains that kept givin’ me trouble back on tour last summer. Come on, get back up, Hexagon, or whatever the fuck you call yourself. Or are you gonna have the robots handle me?”

A faint red light briefly ran down Prim’s arms before fading from sight. “Haven’t been hit that hard since good ‘ol Collidus. Are you taking over his mantle? Have to say, for someone making fun of supernyms, that one’s a bit gauche. Guess someone needs to pick it up since he recently became a bit crispy.”

“Fuck, you’re annoying,” Sammy roared, her voice now splitting into two distinct tones as it had a few days prior. She took off towards Prim, rearing a fist into the air.

“All in the eye of the beholder, Samantha! Except this time —” Sammy’s fist landed squarely in Prim’s palm with an audible slam before halting its forward momentum. “I get to win. Oh, and Gabrielle?” She cast me a leering glare. “I have all of my drones trained on you, so don’t think of moving a muscle. I just need to finish dealing with a rabid dog.” Prim dug her boot into Sammy’s chest, propelling her back a few dozen feet. “I get it, you're concerned about having an outie again, but please just think of the collateral damage.”

Wait, now she was as strong as Sammy? What kind of monster were we dealing with? Prim had somehow systematically dismantled every roadblock between her and me, and a sinking feeling history was about to repeat itself was rearing its head in my guts.

“Almost done, Cass?” I snapped, my panic beginning to build higher and higher.

“Just about,” she whispered. Something about her voice was off, but I couldn’t place it. I turned to look back at her, but she stopped me. “Don’t! If the andrAI shoot I’m gonna get hit, too.”

“It’d be easier to stay still if I knew what you were doing,” I hissed. 

“Just — be patient!” she retorted.

Prim and Sammy were still going toe to toe for the moment; neither particularly appeared to have the upper hand as they exchanged blows.

“So, Samantha, this is the power of Ruin, huh? That cute little bracer on your arm?” she taunted, narrowly dodging another body blow from Sammy. “That’s that thing the Yellow Beacons are always whispering about in frightened tones, right? I could’ve sworn it only bonded to men, though.”

“Shut up!” Sammy bellowed, charging towards Prim with intense green-glowing eyes. Prim stepped out of the way of Sammy, allowing her to plow right through the bleachers, prompting the whole structure to collapse inward.

“Oh, touch on something private, did I?” Prim mocked, holding a hand to her chest. “Don’t worry Samantha, I’m bound by HIPPA regulations to not discuss your karyotype results in public.” Prim gestured towards the crumbled pile of wood causing several andrAI to fire clelium at it. They pelted into the wood with reckless abandon until the tell-tale plume of smoke rose from the splintered wood.

Prim nodded. “Much better. Now, as I was saying —” The wood burst into the air in our direction as Sammy bolted towards Prim, catching the latter by surprise.

Sammy dug her knee into Prim’s chest, flinging her across the gym. “Cigarettes, asshole!” Sammy’s bracer had climbed to her shoulder, now resembling a bronze pauldron and gauntlet combo.

“Switch target to Sawyer! Now!” Prim barked up to the floating robots from her position on the ground. The andrAI immediately shifted position towards Sammy and began to fire clelium pellets in her direction. Her gauntlet-encased arm expanded, pieces of metal suddenly jutting out of it to serve as a makeshift shield. Clelium pellets bounced off its exterior without any apparent effect to her powers. 

Kip, Vince, and Buckley, deciding this was their prime chance to exit stage left, sprinted from the gymnasium with Markus in tow. I moved to holler after the trio, but was interrupted by sudden gusts of wind erupting from behind me. My ears were filled with the sound of dozens and dozens of little wings swarming into the air.

As I turned around, I came face to face with Cass, hands raised to the sky, laughing in a sense that could only be described as maniacal while imps erupted from a black void on the ground.

“Cass, you’re a genius!” I laughed alongside her.

“Tear into them! Metal to bits and screws to scrap! Free treats for the one with the highest score!” she sang, urging the imps into a frenzy. They tore into the andrAI with reckless abandon like they had had the trainyard.

“Oh no, no, no; fool me once, Miss Carmen,” Prim called out to us. No sooner had she pressed a button on her gauntlet then an electric-blue arc of lightning burst from each andrAI, striking any attacking imp and many still on their way. Every imp that was stricken by the defense mechanism exploded into a cloud of screams and white smoke, similarly to our own when hit by clelium.

Cass staggered forward, tears flowing from her eyes. “No! My friends! You killed them!” She swung her attention towards Prim and let a horrifying, bestial scream fill the air. Her wings flared up, no doubt ready to launch her at Prim. 

Before she could, however, a blur of green enveloped Prim and slammed her against the still-standing bleachers.

Sammy hammered away at Prim with blow after blow; despite it all, however, Prim still found the strength to kick Sammy off of her and back onto the ground. Cass’s wings twitched and fluttered shut. Spinning on a dime, she reached out for my arm.

“C’mon!” she insisted. Instead of waiting for an answer, she took hold of me with her clawed hand and pulled me close. “Sammy isn’t going to last long. Not with Hexecute and the andrAI aimed at her. Where’s the closest outside door?”

“There,” I pointed to the door just right of the still-struggling Sammy and Prim.

“Great,” she groaned. “Hold tight!” Her wings outstretched again, Cass lept from the ground and barrelled towards the door. “Head down!” she roared. In a blink, we flew past the two combatants and into the metal door. Cass’s wings tucked themselves close to her back as she rammed into the door, blowing it off its hinges and into the adjacent wall with a thundering crash. Her wings extended again and redirected us down the hallway.

“Cass, I could have run,” I tried to argue, but she was having none of it.

“Gabrielle, you’re not the only one that doesn’t want to lose her powers! You said metal grates were covering the doors and windows, didn’t you tell me you could phase through stuff?”

“Well, yeah, but I can only do it when I’m calm.”

“Sammy is keeping Hexecute busy for the moment, think that’ll help you focus?”

A gut-wrenching yell erupted from down the gymnasium, followed by a very loud poof just as Cass and I landed at one of the school’s back doors.

“I’m sure that was Sammy knocking her out,” Cass nervously tittered.

“McArthur!” Prim’s voice roared down the hallway, indicating that Prim had, in fact, not been knocked out. A streak of yellow-orange light raced out of the demon-sized hole Cass had made like a bat out of hell and beelined straight towards us. Prim had both hands outstretched, clelium clutched in each palm. 

“No! You aren’t getting away, you little shi—”

She was almost upon us when a burst of energy sprang to life around her right knee, a visual I had become quite intimate with. Her sprint faltered and she crashed to the ground, knocking both of the clelium spheres from her grasp. She continued sliding across the floor in our direction before slamming against one of the lockers. 

She was glitching. Just like me.

Cass dropped me to my feet and turned towards the metal grate blocking the door. “Watch her!” she screamed.

High-pitched beeping could be heard from the gym just over additional screams from the other students. Prim slammed a hand down, using it as leverage to prop herself up. “So t-this is what your glitches feel like. Good to kn-know.”

Flames burst from Cass’s mouth as she projected her flame breath onto the metal covering the door. The surface of it began to glow a faint red for the first few seconds before growing increasingly brighter and lighter in color. Though the metal was now blisteringly hot, it still stubbornly held its shape.

Prim let out a groan as she used one of the locker handles to pull herself to her feet. She smirked at us. “Looks like I copied your glitch. Something to test before I drain you, I suspect.”

It wasn’t working! She was going to get us, get me, and take everything away! I couldn’t phase, I couldn’t fight, I was useless!

A ferocious growl pierced the air, the flame materializing just inches from Cass’ fangs morphed into a jet of solid light, easily bursting through the metal grate as well as the door to the outside. Prim was now back on her feet and glowing; her skin now faintly blue for a brief moment before fading, same as it had with the red earlier.

“Close the secondary fence on gate G!” she screamed. Cass wasted no time; in one swift movement, she scooped me off my feet and threw me through the opening she’d made.

“Run!” was all she could say before another barrier, solid metal this time, crunched down into the concrete. 

 

My head turned on a swivel; the screams and hostility and beeping no longer assaulted my ears. The only sounds I was left with was the gentle passage of nearby traffic, the overcast sky, and a genial breeze blowing across my sweat-moistened skin. Scrambling to my feet, I sprinted a few hundred yards away from the school to the white cement of the sidewalk.

The shielding on the windows all over the building had been lowered, giving it a decidedly more reflective appearance then was usual. But besides that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Not from out here; not when you were just a bystander. Maybe that was the point. Even if all hell was breaking loose in the school, it was contained within its walls; unseen and unheard.

 If you were a baseline person, you lived in a world where you seldom had to worry about alters, barring controlled circumstances. That was the world they’d crafted for themselves. And now, even though my friends might be dying inside, the people out here were waiting in line for coffee or playing on their cell phones.

Wait, my cell phone!  I whipped it out of my pocket; I needed to call — no one. There was nobody I could call. Mel, Kayden, Verdant and Starburst… Prim had taken them all out. My phone dropped to the sidewalk as I grappled with the fact that I was alone. 

My ears picked up a small, nearly imperceptible knocking in the distance. The front entrance?

In an instant I was staring up at the front entrance of the building from the pull around, hoping to get a better view. A large gate had likewise been dropped here, too; one that looked decidedly more conspicuous. What stood out were two cars parked out in the turnaround. Their supposed occupants were up at the door, knocking on it ineffectually.

A teenager and an older adult; a parent? I wasn’t sure. Whoever they were, they were in more danger than they could fathom.

“Hey!” I cried. “Run! Get away from the doors!” They turned to look at me with naive and misunderstanding expressions. “Run!” I screamed again, pleading that they would understand. But before they could respond, the gate jolted and rose back off the ground. Barely a moment of silence passed before the doors flew open to reveal glinting metal in the obscured daylight.

Another swarm.

They wasted no time in choosing their target; they fired in my direction with reckless abandon. Clelium pelted the cars behind where I stood, breaking their windshields and windows and creating surface indents in their metal exteriors. One last glance over my shoulder revealed the two figures lying motionless on the ground beneath an outpouring of more and more andrAI as they swarmed into the air surrounding the school. Each one ominously held its position around the school as I ran further and further. My legs zig-zagged me between buildings and through alleyways until the school was decidedly in the rearview. In the cold light of day, my thoughts turned towards the people I’d left behind in the hands of that mad-woman.

But I couldn’t go back. Doing so would risk giving up everything I had. And… I wasn’t strong enough for that. This was a job for the licensed capes. The heroes. The people stronger than me.

People like Kayden.