“Don’t talk to me about that,” hisses Eight. “I never meant for anyone to get hurt.”
“Brainwashed?” I exclaim. “Did you say we’re brainwashed?”
“It’s okay,” Five says, placating us. “The Beloved Leader is forgiving. He’ll welcome you. There’s still time to join the winning team.”
The winning team? I can’t believe what I’m hearing. My stomach turns over; I feel like I’m about to throw up. It can’t be true— “You’re working with them?”
“I’m sorry I lied to you about that, but it was necessary. I’d been on this planet for six months when they found me,” says Five, sounding wistful. “My Cêpan was already dead of some vile human disease—that part was true, it just didn’t happen when I said. The Mogadorians took me in. They helped me. Once you read the Good Book, you’ll understand that we shouldn’t be fighting them. This whole planet—the whole universe can be ours.”
“They did something to you, Five,” I say, almost whispering, feeling both sad for Five and horrified by him. “It’s okay. We can help you.”
“Just let Nine go,” adds Eight. “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 gnarled tree. I try to use my telekinesis to stop Nine’s flight, but it happens too quickly and Five is too powerful. Nine smacks spine first against the trunk with enough force to shake the uppermost branches. He cries out, his body contorted, and I can tell that he’s broken some ribs, maybe even his back.
“Do you have any idea how dull it was pretending to be weak?” Five asks, his rubbery arm slithering back to his body, appearing normal again. “You were trained by pitiful Cêpans, if you were lucky. Mucking about with your Chests and your Legacies, always in the dark. I was trained by the most powerful fighting force in the universe and you’re threatening to hurt me?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” replies Eight.
Eight shape shifts into his ten-armed lion form, towering over Five. But before Eight can go on the attack, Five blows into his flute. The mutant gator, which had been waiting patiently, suddenly leaps into the air and slams into Eight. It’s all thrashing wings and snapping jaws, Eight’s clawed hands slashing in response, the two mammoth beasts crashing into the mud and rolling over each other. With a mildly entertained look on his face, Five turns to watch Eight scrapping with his pet monster.
“Don’t hurt each other,” Five calls to them. “We can all still be friends.”
I’m not sure if Five is joking or if he’s really that insane. The important part is that he’s distracted. Nine moans from the base of the tree. He’s trying to push himself upright, but his legs don’t seem to be working. Meanwhile, Six still isn’t moving. I’m not sure which one needs my care more urgently. Six is closer to me, so I scramble over and fall to my knees next to her, pressing my hands to her injured skull.
Suddenly, I’m lifted off the ground. My feet dangle in the air. It’s Five. He’s holding me up using his telekinesis.
“Stop!” I yell at him. “Just let me heal her!”
Five shakes his head, disappointed. “I don’t want her healed. She’s like Nine—she’ll never understand. Don’t fight me, Marina.”
A branch strikes Five in the back of his head. He loses his concentration and I drop back to the ground. Five whips around just in time to see Nine tearing loose another branch with his telekinesis.
“Cute,” Five says, easily deflecting Nine’s next volley.
“Come on,” growls Nine, who has managed to struggle into a sitting position against the tree. “I don’t need my legs to kick your fat ass.”
“Talking shit until the very end,” sighs Five. “You know what’s happening in Chicago right now? Your fancy suite is getting raided by Mogadorians. I want you to die knowing your bullshit palace is burning to the ground, Nine.”
“You told them about Chicago?” I shout. My shock is real, but when Five glances back at me, I see an opportunity. He likes the sound of his own voice—well, I can use that to distract him. Nine is in no condition to fight. I need to buy him some time. “How could you do that? What about Ella and the others?”
“Ella will be fine,” Five says. “The Beloved Leader wants her alive.”
“He wants her alive? For what? I thought he wanted us all dead.”
Five merely smiles. He turns back to Nine.
“What’s he want with her, Five?!” I scream, feeling a fresh rush of panic. He ignores me and stalks towards Nine. I hope Nine can withstand him long enough for me to heal Six. I scramble back over to her and hold her head in my lap. Her skull is cracked, her nose and jaw broken. I try to concentrate and channel the icy energy of my Legacy.
I’m distracted by a feral shriek. Over in the mud, Eight has managed to pin down the monster. Two of its heads are already hanging limp. The middle head is still working, though, and it snaps violently at Eight. He manages to catch the jaws with six of his paws and wrenches its jaws open until they snap apart. The beast’s head is practically torn in half; its monstrous wings thrash once more and then it finally goes completely still and slowly begins to disintegrate.
Five has turned to watch. “Well done!” he yells to Eight. “But believe me, there’s more where that came from.”
Eight is left kneeling in the mud. He’s back to his normal shape, unable to hold on to the avatar form for any longer. I can tell he’s wounded, bloody teeth marks up and down his chest and arms and even on the palms of his hands. He pushed himself hard to defeat that beast, but he still shakily picks himself back up.
Five looms over Nine, his steel skin glinting in the fading sunlight. Nine sneers up at him defiantly. “You going to hit an unarmed man, you traitorous shit?”
Before Five can reply, Nine reaches out with his telekinesis. His pipe-staff, which he must have dropped when Five first grabbed him, lifts out of the muck and comes zipping towards him.
Five snatches the staff out of the air. I make a mental note that he catches the staff with his right hand, which means the stones he’s using to power his Legacy must be clutched in his left.
Five raises the staff and brings it down across his metallic knee, snapping it in half like a piece of kindling. “Yeah. I am.”
Before Five can move, Eight teleports between them. He’s hunched over, breathing heavily, and bleeding from multiple wounds. Even so, he stands his ground. “Stop this madness, Five.”
I’m trying to keep an eye on the scene playing out next to the tree while also concentrating on Six. I can feel her skull starting to mend, the swelling on her face decreasing. I hope that I’m working fast enough. We need her badly.
“Come on, Six . . . ,” I whisper. “Wake up.”
Five has hesitated with Eight in front of him, some of the anger directed at Nine going out of him. “Get out of the way, Eight. My offer to you still stands, but only if you let me finish this loudmouth moron off.”
“Let him take a shot, dude!” Nine shouts from the ground.
“Shut up,” Eight snaps over his shoulder. He holds his hands up to Five. “You’re not thinking straight, Five. They’ve done something to you. In your heart, you know this isn’t right.”
Five scoffs. “You want to talk about right? What’s right about sending a bunch of children to a strange planet so they can fight a war they don’t even understand? What’s right about giving those children numbers instead of names? It’s sick.”
“So is invading another planet,” counters Eight. “Wiping out an entire people.”
“No! You understand so little,” Five replies, laughing. “The Great Expansion had to happen.”
“Genocide had to happen? That’s insane.”
Six stirs in my lap. She’s not awake yet, but it seems like the healing has worked. I set her down gently and stand up, creeping closer to the others. Five doesn’t notice me; he’s ranting now, sounding almost frantic.
“You fight because your Cêpans told you that’s what your Elders want! Have you ever questioned why? Or who your Elders really are? No, of course not! You just take orders from dead old men and never even question them! And I’m insane?”
“Yeah,” growls Nine. “Are you even listening to yourself, bro?”
“You’re confused. You’ve been their prisoner for years without even realizing it. Just calm down and we can discuss this,” says Eight. “We shouldn’t be fighting.”
But Five isn’t listening to Eight anymore. I thought he might have a chance of getting through to Five, but that last comment by Nine was enough to set him off again. Five drops his shoulder and attempts to barrel right through Eight.
I grab Five’s left hand with my telekinesis, focusing on prying open his fingers so he’ll drop those balls. He jerks away from Eight, surprised, struggling against me.
“His left hand!” I yell. “Help me get it open!”
I can tell by the looks on their faces that Eight and Nine have gotten the idea. Five screams in pain and frustration. I almost feel bad for a moment; we’re just ganging up on him again. This must be what he’s felt like since he joined us—an outsider. He’s lost and confused and angry. But we can worry about mending fences and fixing his screwed-up worldview later. Right now, he needs to be stopped.
“Please don’t fight us,” I cry. “You’re just making it worse.”
Five screams again as his knuckles crack loudly. The small bones in his hand are probably shattered from our combined telekinetic assault. The two balls he was holding drop to the ground and roll beneath the roots of the tree. Five clutches his hand and drops down to his knees. He’s looking at me, like he knows I was the first one to attack his hand and it makes this defeat all the more bitter.
“It’s going to be all right,” I tell him, but my words sound hollow. I’m trying to talk him down but, when I look at him, I get the same feeling of revulsion that I do with the Mogs. He was going to kill Nine—one of his own people, one of us. How can we bring him back from that?
Eight steps forward and puts a hand on Five’s shoulder. It seems like the fight has gone out of him.
Five sobs, shaking his head. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this . . . ,” he says, quietly.
“Crying like a girl,” Nine says.
Immediately, Five’s expression darkens. Before we can stop him, he shoves Eight away from him. Eight stumbles, falls, and Five takes flight.
“Don’t!” I scream, but Five is already shooting towards Nine. The wrist-mounted blade he grabbed from his Chest extends with a harsh screech of metal; it’s a foot long and needle shaped, deadly and precise.
Nine tries to roll aside, but he’s badly hurt and can’t move. The grass around Nine is flattened to the ground and I realize that Five is holding him in place with telekinesis.