The words hang in the air like a challenge, like a gauntlet thrown down at Patriot's feet. For a moment, no one moves, no one breathes. It's like the whole world has frozen, suspended in this one crystalline instant of defiance.

Then Mr. Weston steps forward, his usually mild face set in lines of grim determination. "I'm Jordan Westwood," he says, his voice ringing out clear and strong.

And just like that, the spell is broken. Suddenly there are voices shouting from all sides, a cacophony of "I'm Jordan Westwood!" and "Me too!" and "We're all Jordan Westwood!" rising up like a wave, crashing over the stunned silence.

Even some of the security guards are getting in on it, stepping away from their posts to form a human barricade between Patriot's goon squad and the sea of students. I spot Officer Nguyen among them, her jaw set and her eyes flashing as she stares down Egalitarian. What a turnaround story, I guess? I'm looking for Officer Ridley, just to see if he's… redeemable, but I don't see him anywhere.

It's like something out of a movie, everyone ready to face death rather than betray one of their own. For a second, despite everything, I feel a flicker of hope, a surge of fierce, defiant pride. These are my people. This is my school. And we're not going down without a fight.

Then some smartass in the back yells "I'm Spartacus!" and the whole thing threatens to dissolve into chaos.

Patriot's face twists into a sneer, his eyes cold and hard as he surveys the crowd. "That's great," he says, his voice dripping with condescension. "Nice Spartacus act. We'll deal with you kids later. For now…"

He raises his hand, and Egalitarian steps forward, her expression eerily blank. I feel Jordan stiffen beside me, their hand tightening around mine as they suck in a sharp breath.

"Jordan," I whisper, my heart hammering in my throat. "What is she…"

But before they can answer, Egalitarian's expression darkens, and the world tilts sickeningly on its axis.

It's like the ground has dropped out from under me, like gravity has suddenly lost all meaning. The room spins and lurches, a dizzying kaleidoscope of colors and shapes that makes my stomach heave and my head pound. I can hear screaming, distant and muffled like it's coming from underwater, can feel bodies jostling and bumping against me as people stumble and fall.

But somehow, miraculously, I'm still standing. Still upright and steady, even as the world churns and tilts around me. Beside me, Jordan is swaying slightly but otherwise unaffected, their eyes wide and shocked as they stare at Egalitarian. The sensation only lasted for a split second, before everything rights itself again.

It takes me a second to realize what's happening, to put the pieces together through the haze of vertigo and nausea. Trying to perform deductive reasoning under pressure is hard, but it's part of my training. Jordan and I are upright, along with Egalitarian and Patriot, while everyone else - from the students to the teachers to the security guards, even the cops that Patriot brought with him - is floorbound or wallbound.

Which means…

My eyes meet Jordan's, and I see the same realization dawning there, the same sickening mix of dread and understanding. Egalitarian's power must… only affect people without them. And Jordan and I both have powers. There's no other reason I could think of as to why I'm standing - I'm not involved, not as a civilian.

I feel a sudden, desperate urge to run, to grab Jordan's hand and bolt for the nearest exit, powers be damned. But I know it's useless. I'm sure the police have the gym surrounded, and even if we could fight our way through the crowds of heaving, retching students, where would we go? They'd hunt us down like dogs, drag us off to some black site prison or government lab, never to be seen again.

No, we have to see this through. We have to stand and fight, even if it means exposing ourselves, even if it means risking everything we've worked for.

I lock eyes with Patriot, my jaw clenched so hard I can feel my teeth grinding together. "What do you want?" I ask, my voice tight and strained. "Why are you doing this?"

He smiles, a cold, cruel twist of the lips that makes my skin crawl. "I'm not sure why you're standing, but I already explained it to you, Samantha. You and everyone else," he says, and the sound of my name on his tongue is like a slap in the face. "Jordan Westwood is under arrest for cybercrimes, domestic terrorism, unlicensed use of superpowers, petty theft… the rap sheet is quite long."

He glances around, sweeping his gaze out while the crowd crawls over each other, some people curled up into balls, some people laid out on the floor, trying not to vomit.

My mind is racing, trying to find some angle, some way to stall or negotiate or buy us some time. But every path I see leads to a dead end, every option a trap waiting to be sprung.

So I do the only thing I can think of. The only thing that makes sense to me.

I step forward, putting myself between Jordan and Patriot, my hands balled into fists at my sides.

"You want them?" I say, my voice shaking only slightly. "You'll have to go through me."

I don't know what I expect. For him to laugh, maybe. To brush me aside like a fly, a minor annoyance barely worth his notice.

But instead, his smile only widens, his eyes glinting with a savage, predatory light.

"Aiding and abetting a fugitive from the law?" He asks, clearly relishing the opportunity. "Sure, kid. It's your funeral."

Then in a flash, he's on me, his fist slamming into my jaw with enough force to make my skull rattle. I reel back, my vision swimming as I taste blood on my tongue, but he doesn't give me a chance to recover.

Training kicks in, instinctively moving me out of range of his fist, but my senses are scrambled from unexpected head strike, and I'm too slow. His knee drives into my stomach, doubling me over as all the air whooshes out of my lungs. I gasp and choke, trying to suck in a breath, but he's relentless, raining down blows like a hailstorm.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He dances around me, keeping distance, forcing me to exert myself to close the gap. He's done this before, he knows the steps. I try to predict his next move, my brain churning through possibilities even as my body moves on autopilot, blocking and dodging and striking out whenever I see an opening.

But he's too fast, too strong, too skilled. He's a machine, a fighting machine honed by years of training and experience. And I'm just a kid, a scrawny little girl playing dress-up in a suit that doesn't fit.

I know immediately that I'm outmatched. Through ringing ears I hear Jordan shouting my name, hear the shouts and screams of the crowd as they surge and heave against the force of Egalitarian's powers. But it all seems distant, muffled, like it's happening in another world, another life.

All that matters is the fight, the brutal, bone-crunching reality of fists and feet and the taste of copper on my tongue.

Patriot's fighting stance is perfect, his guard up, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet. He moves like a dancer, smooth and graceful and lightning-fast, every motion calculated for maximum impact.

He's a boxer, I realize dimly, or at least he's been trained like one. I can see it in the way he holds his hands, the way he shifts his weight, the sharp, staccato rhythm of his punches.

I try to remember my aikido training, try to use his own momentum against him, to redirect his force and send him sprawling. But it's like trying to catch a cannonball with a butterfly net. He's too strong, too heavy, too grounded in his own power.

A right hook snaps my head back, stars exploding behind my eyes. An uppercut lifts me off my feet, sends me crashing to the floor in a tangled heap. I taste blood, feel it trickling down my chin as I struggle to push myself up on shaking arms.

But he's already there, his boot slamming into my ribs with a sickening crack. I scream, the sound tearing itself from my throat as pain lances through my chest, hot and bright and all-consuming.

Familiar burning begins, low in gut, and I know bone is mending, feel it knitting back together even as Patriot grabs me by the collar and hauls me up to slam me back into a wall. My head bounces off hard plaster, and for a second everything fuzzes to grey, sensation fading to distant hum. Without even thinking about it my hands latch onto the arm holding me, and I grow teeth from my palms to bite and grip. I'm trying to stay incognito, but my body won't let me. I hope he just assumes something else happened.

Patriot snarls and smashes his forehead into my face. My nose crunches and blood gushes hot, cascading over my lips and down my chin. The jolt of pain brings everything back into blinding focus.

My eyes water, a film of tears and blood blurring my vision as I struggle weakly against the wall. Over his shoulder, I catch a glimpse of Jordan, their face a mask of anguish and rage as they twist and lunge and duck to evade Egalitarian's grasping hands.

The vertigo aura still ripples in the air around them, totally invisible, only able to be detected by the distortion in the air a centimeter off Egalitarian's skin. Students and faculty alike retch and stumble, their balance shot, their senses scrambled.

But Jordan dances through the chaos like it's nothing, their body ducking in and out of reach, avoiding clumsy officers who have no doubt been given training on how to work with Egalitarian's powers. I'm sorry for everyone else, especially the people on the floor who might get a little friction burn, but…

A burst of pride flares in my chest, bright and fierce despite the pain. Jordan's always been quick, always been clever, but this… this is something else. They're magnificent, a blur of motion and purpose, their power thrumming through them like a live wire. The room is sliced, diced, and chopped in a million ways - an expansion here, a contraction there.

I put my fists up. I can't Bloodhound out - not only do I not have the strength left to push any teeth free after his first blitz, but right now it's a fight between a super"hero" and a 15 year old girl. Even if he turns me into paste, I'm not giving him any PR advantage.

We dance - he skips, I stumble - around each other. Jab, jab, duck, weave, jab. There's a singular moment where my fist makes contact with his face, and the tiniest sliver of a tooth rips his cheek open. It feels totally unceremonious. Absolutely inane. His vascular system is huge, veins swollen and throbbing like nothing I've ever seen before. I have only a moment to think about it before his hand wraps around my face like a vicegrip, but I drink in the satisfaction - that I could hit him once.

Between phased, shuddery breaths, I hear Jordan shout my name, hear the desperate edge in their voice. They're trying to reach me, trying to break through the police cordon to come to my aid.

But they can't. They can't let themselves get bogged down, can't risk getting caught in Patriot's clutches. They have to keep moving, keep fighting, keep the rest of these fascists off balance and out of the game.

They're trusting me to handle Patriot. To buy them time, to keep him occupied while they work their magic.

And I'm failing. I'm failing them, failing my school, failing myself. I trained for a year for this, but all that training is nothing more than a spit in this man's eye, this overwhelming brutality and ferocity.

Patriot must see the despair in my eyes, must smell the stink of fear and self-loathing rolling off me in waves. His lips curl in a sneer, his fingers tightening around my throat as he leans in close.

"Is that all you've got, little girl?" he hisses, his breath hot and sour against my cheek. "There are ways to deal with little hero brats like you. Stop breathing."

He slams me by the throat into the wall hard enough that I feel dust coming down on my head, and the breath pauses, like a physical thing being swallowed, a huge block choking me out. Like he's solidified all the air in my lungs and turned it into ice cubes. I hack up blood and phlegm and a tooth that's come loose, cap included, spraying them onto Patriot's wrist. I can barely even think, much less consider his statement.

He lets me go, and I start sliding down the wall, only for his palm to land in my ribcage again, a dizzying palm-strike that drives even more mess out from between my lips, spurting forth like vomit. Well, there's probably some vomit there, too. I feel bile and acid, burning somewhere inside of me, but that might also be my regeneration, working overdrive to keep me alive in the face of a perfect brick wall smashing me into dust.

It hurts. I can't exhale, or inhale. My stomach is hot.

"Are you ready to get taken in? This can all end now if you just give up," he says, puffing his chest out like Superman, two bloody hands on his hip, one bloodier than the other. "It's your choice. Live in juvenile hall, or die like an animal."

I'm crying in earnest now, great shuddering sobs that wrack my battered body. I'm silently praying that he'll stop goading me and just take me away - the goading is fucking worse. It's hell. It's hell. I already know I've lost.

I look away, unable to meet his eyes, unable to face the disgust and contempt I know I'll see there. This snarling monkey wearing human skin. There is nothing inside of me but meat for him to digest.

I am an animal to him - I'm cattle, no, worse than cattle. A chihuahua, small enough to be a nuisance but not dangerous enough to be worth anything but a curbstomp. And maybe… maybe I do want it to end. Maybe some small, secret part of me just wants to give up, to let go, to sink into the warm, welcoming darkness and never come back.

It would be easy. It would be such a relief, to just… stop. To stop fighting, stop struggling, stop caring so damn much all the time. To let someone else take the reins, make the hard choices, deal with the consequences.

I'm so tired. I'm so tired of being strong, of being brave, of being the one who always has to keep it together, even when I'm falling apart, inside and outside. I'm tired of pretending I know what I'm doing.

I'm just a kid. I'm just a stupid, scared little girl who got in way over her head and dragged everyone else down with her. None of this would be happening if not for me.

Despite myself, my head shakes automatically. He reaches out and grabs me by the throat.