I pull Crystal into the vent with us, and she almost instantly moves to give Nia a hug. I can’t help but snicker when Nia awkwardly takes Crystal’s hand and goes for a handshake, shutting down the whole hug idea. Mercury punches my shoulder, being the good friend he is and keeping me on track and focused. “Crystal, I don’t know how much Nia’s explained to you, so I’m going to rapid fire through everything. Ok?” She gives a small nod, and Nia and Mercury both look expectantly at me. It’s only 6 eyes, 4 blue and 2 red, yet for whatever reason I’m way more nervous than I am even in front of a whole class.
“Okay…” I take a deep breath, and look back at my friends. I’m not letting the Principal change them into his slaves. “So long story short the Principal is definitely evil. The whole school is based around combat, and subservience to authority, and honestly that’s a dark red flag to my mind. Plus, once we turn 18 we’re injected with the final shots because our bodies stop developing but those final shots also have Vein mixed into them that activate once the Principal’s Emblem comes in contact with it, instantly killing the person. So, we’re breaking out of the school now before it’s too late. How are we doing that? I’m glad I asked.”
“We need to kidnap Jasmine, because otherwise they could follow us really quickly. Plus, without her, word travels slower and people can’t coordinate as well. In addition, I don’t really like the concept of a person being used as in essence a fancy elevator or car.”
“So kidnap is subjective.” Nia butts into my monolog, crossing her arms with a smirk on that stupidly pretty face. I’m slightly annoyed that I’m distracted by the fact she’s pretty right now, because I’ve got way bigger things to worry about. “In essence we’re rescuing her.”
“And ourselves. If we can save Jasmine all we have to do is get to the mark she has on the school and we’ll be able to get away from this place without a problem. The mark of hers is outside though, so we need to escape the school. Before we meet her we should grab our books over our Emblems so that the school doesn’t get to come up with counteractions for each of us, using the vents as our main way to move around the school. Hopefully we won’t need to fight anybody, because that’ll cause a ruckus. I’ll go down into the Emblem study room and use my Emblem to send the books up to you guys. So, it’s Emblem study, to the principal’s office, to outside. Simple.”
There’s obviously problems with the plan. However, I think we’ll be able to manage. We’re all fairly capable people, at least I’d like to think we are. Mercury and Nia couldn’t come up with any better ideas at least, and Crystal’s thinking right now. We’re on a time crunch anyways, so I don’t know that we could do much outside of this. “Why didn’t you guys just grab your books during the free block in Emblem study?” Crystal asks us innocently, bringing up a fantastic idea that totally slipped my mind.
“It would have aroused way too much suspicion if the teachers made note of Mercury, me, and TJ taking our books with us right before the second day of finals. It would basically be announcing to the principal we’re planning something.” Nia remarks casually, as though I had also accounted for that. For the record, I had not. That doesn’t stop me from nodding my head as though I was already privy to this information.
“So yeah. That’s the dealio. Crystal, you in-e-o?” She looks at me with hesitation clear on her face. It’s the disappointed look from Mercury and Nia smacking her forehead that inform me I should not have used the terms ‘dealio’ and ‘in-e-o’ in this situation.
“...From what I’ve been told, I pretty much have to. Not that that’s a super big deal, it sounds scary, but…Fun? So, if I get this chance to try and run with you guys, or I’m stuck here forever working for the principal…I mean. I guess I’m in-e-o?” She responds with a smile starting to tug on the corner of her lips. I grin broadly at that response, Mercury’s eyebrows rise to the sky, and Nia snorts.
“Excellent!” I whisper happily, before I start to crawl through the vents. “Then let’s get this party started.”
“You didn’t think about how to open a vent quietly, did you?” Nia remarks, as the two of us are squeezed shoulder to shoulder and pushing against the cold walls of the vent. We’re above the entrance to the study room, and I can see the three guards that Nia mentioned earlier. 2 of them are by the entrance, 1 is in the center of the room almost directly below the grated vent cover we’re peering through.
“Yes, I did, actually.” I whisper back at the girl, sticking my tongue out at her and being very mature overall. I press both my hands on the cover and push down while putting my mark on it. It falls down and sails through the air, vaulting straight towards the guard’s head. It will probably make a huge commotion if I let the events unfold as they are now. Lucky me, I have some forethought. I use my mark and the cover suspends itself in the air. Now the hard part comes into play.
How am I going to fall about 70 feet without making a noise? The answer is, unsurprisingly, my Emblem. I put a mark on the ceiling, and hop down through the hole in the vent now. I suspend myself by attracting myself to the mark, and whisper towards the others still in the vent. “If I’m caught, just book it for the exit. Don’t even worry about Jasmine.” After I get a thumbs up in confirmation from the group, I start weakening my attraction to my mark on the ceiling. I fall slowly to the ground. I pass by the suspended vent cover, and then get close enough to touch the guard. I can vaguely smell his musty breath, and the green glow just above the binoculars above his eyes let me know he’s got night vision goggles. Good to know.
Finally, I come into contact with the floor, my hands first to cushion my shoes as they touch the cold stone floor.
I stay crouched over like a gremlin, slowly stalking through the desks and chairs, getting to the edge of the classroom where me and Mercury sit. I reach into my desk and pull out my book. It still feels heavy in my hands, but now it’s more familiar. I don’t have the time to stare at it for a crazy amount of time, so I send it up to the ceiling, to my mark, and hope Mercury will snag it once it gets up there. His book is next, and it’s cover is such a light blue it may as well be floating. I send in up towards the vent.
Abruptly one of the guards turns to look around the room. I instantly duck behind the desk and stop the book from moving. If the floating book doesn’t give away that somebody’s in the room, my pounding heart sure will. I glance through the legs of the desk and chair. Oh come on…We’re screwed. His eyes are trained on the book that’s suspended in midair. He puts a hand to his goggles and adjusts something or other.
“What are you doing?” The second guard by the door asks him. The first guard by the door who’s watching the book leans back slightly.
“I think I see some weird reflection in the air over there, what do you think?” Great. Just great. Now there are two of them looking for it.
“Oh, yeah. That’s just some feedback from the goggles. Sometimes they get a little finicky trying to make out things that aren’t there. It’s probably just a glare, if it’s still there in an hour we can check it out.” Oh my god.
“Yeah, you’re right.” He turns back around, and my eyes refuse to come even close to shutting. I can’t believe my luck, they didn’t investigate the book. I keep sending it up to Mercury, and stalk through the desks and chairs to get to the other two books. This time, I’m a little slower than before. I don’t know why he turned around, but I definitely don’t want to give him any further reason to.
I get to Nia’s desk, and send the book whose cover is an obnoxious orange up to the ceiling, followed quickly by Crystal’s muted gray book. The big finale is for me to get back up there. I watch the guards and wait. They aren’t going to mistake a person for a glare, so I sit still and wait patiently. They’re bound to turn around again soon, and after they do that’s my moment to strike.
I count in my head, waiting for them to turn around. I’m going into the hundreds when I finally see the guards by the door turn around and look at the rest of the room. “Guess you were right, the glare is gone now.”
“I told you Mike, the goggles are a little finicky. Nobody would even dare to try and infiltrate this place anyways. It’s the safest place on earth.” Yeah, the second guard might be right. It’s also among the hardest to leave. They both turn back around, and up I go. I cause a small breeze, going a touch faster than I should’ve in all honesty. However I make it to the vent without problem, and stealthy crawl inside while summoning the vent cover back to us. I close the vent, turn around, and give a relieved grin to the others.
“Good work TJ. Nia tried to book it when my book was midair.” Mercury rats out on Nia immediately, and here’s the thing. That’s probably a smart call, and definitely not a bad idea. I actively encouraged it earlier. Regardless, I can’t let such a prime opportunity to tease Nia get away from me so easily.
“Tsk tsk Nia. Have some more faith in me. I’m competent enough to beat you in a fight after all.” I whisper at the girl with a small smirk that quickly dissolves into a terrified grimace. Why do her eyes do that thing where when she’s angry they’re no longer simply red, they’re absolutely on fire?
“It was the one time TJ. Now come on, let’s rescue Jasmine.” She hisses back at me, before she begins crawling towards the Principal’s study. I wonder how long it’ll take before she realizes or admits she doesn’t know which vents to take.
“I thought we were kidnapping her?” Crystal chimes in quietly, following after Nia and leaving me and Mercury to exchange a small look.
“We’re…Forcefully saving her?” I manage to say with a small laugh coming out of me before I follow after Crystal and Nia.
7 minutes was the answer to how long it would take Nia to admit she didn’t know what was happening. It was tough to rearrange the order in the vent, but we managed to do it without making much noise, and I guided us to the principal’s office. This was where things were really going to get scary. Absolutely terrifying, actually. If the Principal catches us now, there’s not a creature in existence that would be able to find our body’s. Metaphorically speaking, if he catches us, all the king's horses and all the king's men…Wouldn’t be able to put TJ together again.
But what are the odds he sleeps in his office? We know he didn’t yesterday when me and Nia snuck in there. There’s no way he’d think somebody would try to break into his office two days in a row! Who could be stupid enough to even try doing that? Certainly not I.
If I were Pinocchio, hypothetically speaking of course, my nose would be a mile long at the moment just for thinking that. I’m nervous, I feel like I’m going to barf at any moment and I’m being several times more careful to move slower, to make less noise than when I was in the Emblem study room. Which is saying something, because we aren’t even at the vent cover yet.
None of us are even thinking about whispering a joke to each other. Ok, my nose would've grown again, theoretically, if I were Pinocchio. So I thought about saying a few things but I absolutely am not going to tell any jokes right now.
A few more moments of silence, and we come across the cover to the entrance of his room. His office. I reach out a hand to the grated cover, and notice my fingers shaking. Jeez, what kind of loser am I? I’ve already made up my mind to do this, so the consequences don’t matter anymore. It’s the suspense that’s killing me. Nothing to do but get it done.
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I reach forward and grab the vent cover, placing my mark in it just as I did the last one. The cover shakes slightly, before hovering in the air. It detaches itself from the floor of the vent, suspending itself in front of my hand, and I quietly move it away, placing it down in the vent.
The principal’s office is dark, pitch black. Nobody’s eyes, even with our enhanced vision, can see into it. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but if I had to guess it’s an Emblem. His? I can’t say for sure. I look back in the vent, specifically at Crystal. Invisibility is quite the useful ability for this exact situation. She nods, and scoots past me to get to the entrance. Disappearing from my view, and then hopefully heading down into the office. If we hear any trouble, I’m supposed to dive in, Nia right behind me, and Mercury’s the trump card if all of a sudden a full battle breaks out. If things go according to plan though, I’m the only one who follows Crystal. I mark Jasmine to get her back up to the vent, we leave, and everything goes according to plan.
Things rarely go according to plan, and I was no real exception. I heard a crash from below, and my heart actually calmed down. Not because I wasn’t nervous, but because I knew that things weren’t going well. There wasn’t any suspense anymore, I was purely in the now. I hopped down into the office to join Crystal.
As soon as I jumped down I see the problem. Entering the office space granted me the same sights as yesterday. Walls covered with papers, several large monitors, a desk in the center of the room, surrounded by three chairs. Except two of them were occupied this time. Jasmine is in one. She’s slumped over, and her brown hair falls in messy strands in front of her face. Her skin is as pale as the moon, and I think I can see saliva falling from one corner of her mouth. She’s not asleep, but she’s certainly not conscious.
He’s in the other chair. Confident, collected. His legs crossed, wearing formal clothes dark enough to match his personality. A pointed chin, high cheekbones, lips that are thin but red enough to be covered in blood. The eyes bore into my soul. I feel like I made a mistake the second I entered. Slight amusement decorated his face, and tugs his mouth into a wolffish smile. Crystal can’t be seen, I don’t know if he knows she’s in here. “Jay. Why am I not surprised to find you here?”
I hate his voice. It feels condescending and manipulative, insincere. There’s nothing I enjoy about him, at all. “Dad. I’m almost 18 now. I think it’s time for me to leave the nest. Thank you for taking care of me for a while.” I respond flatly to him, giving a small bow while keeping my face apathetic. “I hope you’ll let other people leave if they want.”
“Please, Jay.” He rises to his feet, and crosses his arms behind his back ominously. “Why would I let other people leave? I’m not even letting you leave.” Oh boy. Those are not quite the words I wanted to hear above all else. Plan B would simply be to wake Jasmine up. What was the crash I heard earlier? Screw it.
“What was the crash I heard earlier?” I ask him, taking a step back as he gets a little bit too close for comfort. That seems to amuse him, which concerns me in turn.
“Jay. Please, it was nothing you need to concern yourself with. It was just a dispute me and Jasmine had. She got awfully tired, and went to sleep. Why don’t you go to bed as well Jay? It’s getting late.” Red flag, crimson flag. Even that color isn’t enough to capture how much of a bad feeling that statement gave me. My back hits a wall, and I realize I’ve backed up as far as I could while maintaining distance between the two of us.
“I’m not tired, at all, actually. Thanks though.” Crystal! Now’s the time to do something!
“Is that so? I think you are.” He stands directly in front of me, his eyes glaring down at me, the flecks of red in them igniting in malicious glee. He reaches a hand over towards me, and I look over towards Jasmine, who’s…Gone. Crystal got Jasmine. “Tired enough, perhaps to never want to wake up again.”
“Pops!” I grab his wrist in an instant, using my Emblem. It doesn’t matter, as soon as I touch him I get really tired. Crazy tired. “You’re…” Damn, I can barely think straight. Like…I am genuinely exhausted.
“Jay.” My face explodes in pain, and I feel myself traveling crazy quickly through the air. Then, I stop moving abruptly slamming into a wall and feel my organs shift about inside my body in a rather unpleasant manner. “I warned you. Do not antagonize me, and address me with respect.” I can think straight right now, pain wakes people up I guess. Lucky me? I spit out some blood and get back to my feet shakily, seeing double and with a huge headache. My cheek feels crazy fat, and I’m still pretty tired.
“You said Nia…Was your favorite daughter, right?” I murmur, hoping she can hear me and heard the crash earlier and cares enough to try and help me out. “Because, you’re a bad parent if you have favorites.”
“I never said any such thing, though you Jay…You may very well be my least-” I stop paying attention to his words, I’ve gotten too tired to stay on my feet, and I fall to the ground. I’m looking up at the ceiling, where I see Nia. Is she a devil in my eyes? Not really, not anymore. Heck, Lucifer was an angel at one point wasn’t he? Then Nia can be called an angel right now, as she falls from the ceiling with a fist on fire, flaming eyes and raven black hair that flutters about slowly. I didn’t get to do anything against the principal. What kind of a wimp am I? Well, at least we got Jasmine. I can vaguely make out the sounds of a crash, and I can hear something or other being screamed at us as we start to move.
“TJ! TJ!” Nia screams my name in an ocean of blurry scenery and weird noises. I think I hear a gunshot or two.
“Mmm…Sleep.” I’m too tired to care about anything else except my exhaustion, and I fall asleep in her arms.
“OF ALL THE TIMES, NOW!?” Nia screeches from behind me, holding TJ while Crystal holds Jasmine. Being quiet? Yeah, we gave up on that front once we heard the Principal talking to TJ. Gotta give credit to Nia, she dive bombed him in exactly the right moment, and I superfroze the door behind us so we’d have a little time without being attacked by him. We got out of the vent and instantly ran into a few military members who stood guard at night, who opened fire without a single question. Luckily they used normal guns, so I could react quickly enough to get a wall of ice between us. Now we’re in an all out dash to get out of this place.
“Look, if we get out of the building it’s easy from there! Wake Jasmine up Crystal!” I call out, poking my head around a corner and regretting that choice instantly as I see a bullet whiz towards us. “I guess we’re taking the long way!” I add on, taking a different turn as we dash through the halls.
“What do you think I’m trying to do over here? Sing her a lullaby? She’s not waking up!” Crystal exclaims in a slightly panicked voice, just as an alarm goes off. Great. Oh, an announcement is coming on too? Wonderful.
“There are some members of the U-17 class trying to commit treason. Kill them on sight. Nia Cadmium,” She gets a pale face and looks nervously at me. “Mercury Theta,” Well that’s not surprising. “And Jay Jones. Thank you, and have a good day.” The announcement turns off but the alarm blares in our heads. A low pitch horn that gains volume and intensity until it loops around once again. At least they didn’t call out Crystal’s name.
“Fuck.” I whisper to myself, as we continue booking it through the halls. I’m the only one who can do any sort of fighting, the others have their arms full.
We dash through the halls as fast as we can, not paying any attention to the world around us until the world around us tries to kill us. Guards will try to cut us off at the entrances to halls, and announcements of our current locations are communicated by the intercom. It comes down to me. I’ll freeze the guards when I see them, not giving them a chance to shoot at us, I’ll shatter their guns, and create walls of ice if all else fails. Everything is do or die, and dying is not an option. We’re like mice in a maze, running around desperately and hoping to end up at an exit.
“Not so fast.” Why is he here? There’s no way he’s about to do what I think he’s going to do. My lungs are dead, my legs feel like they’re on fire, and my arms are made of lead. I’m starting to get a headache from overusing my Emblem.
“Nia…Trade.” I hold out my arms, and she tosses TJ towards me as though she was waiting for this. She turns around, and we’re faced with Thomas. His pale face and the dark bags under his eyes don’t even intimidate me, they’re just annoying. He’s such a…“Bitch.”
“You guys are traitors huh? I had a feeling. Since India. Oh well, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that now I get an opportunity handed to me on a silver platter to beat you all within an inch of your life. Hell, I may just decide to kill you.” He snickers and punches his palm, his brown irises dark enough to pass as black. I look down at TJ who’s passed out in my arms. He looks peaceful enough to be dead, and I have to take his pulse to calm myself down once that thought shows up in my brain.
“You? You’re going to beat me?” Nia’s voice wavers, not with fear but almost with sadistic excitement at the prospect of getting to fight Thomas. She clenches her fists, and a plume of flame bursts into being, surrounding her body. It wraps around her fists, and has a crimson red sheen to them that I’ve never seen from Nia before. “I don’t have the time or the crayons to explain what’s happening to you. So move, or your face becomes real acquainted with the ground.”
Thomas’s face is the only thing that seems red enough to match Nia’s flames, and he chokes on his words trying to come up with a comeback. What an idiot. All he can manage to say is, “Well…Fuck you!” Before he charges at Nia. The alarms are still blaring around us, and I have the constant fear that a group of guards with Vein equipment are going to jump us. Yeah they’re not a big threat individually, but Vein equipment is quicker than we are. Generally, we just have got to get out of this place as quickly as possible.
Nia is of the same mentality. Compared to the brash and wild lunge of Thomas as his fist flies towards her, Nia remains composed. She smoothly steps away from Thomas, and while he’s off balance from his attack earlier she sends a kick that collides with his chin and sends him several feet off the ground accompanied with a crack.
He falls quickly, crazy fast, and it’s Nia who seems to have taken more damage. Her ruby eyes widen in shock and pain as she falls to the ground, holding her foot with a pale face that doesn’t match her skin tone. Thomas’s Emblem. It’s density. How dense does he have to make himself for Nia’s foot to shatter just from hitting his chin?!
“That hurt…” Thomas mutters, sitting up while holding his jaw tenderly. “Like hell.” He adds on, managing to get back to his feet. Nia’s a terrible match up for Thomas when Emblems are involved. She’s purely physical, and hitting him must be like slamming your head against a brick wall.
“Nia. Trade. Again.” I call out, tossing TJ to her and stepping in front of her. We don’t have time for a war of attrition between these two. I don’t care how dense something is, I have a trick. One from my past life. “Thomas. Did you ever pay attention in science classes?” He opened his mouth to answer my question, but it was rhetorical. “Don’t answer that. I know you didn’t.” That gets under his skin, which is everything I need and more. TJ joked with me once that Thomas is just like his Emblem - dense.
“Guess I can kill you first, Theta.” He spits out in a cold tone, before charging at me like he did Nia. What is he? A bull? The slightest provocation and he goes crazy.
My Emblem doesn’t freeze things, not technically. My grandfather, the man who had my Emblem before me, realized this and kept it a secret. It’s in my book, so only I know this. There are four states of matter, supposedly. I don’t know what the future holds. Each state is basically dictated by how quickly the atoms that make up said matter are moving, and how far apart they are. A gas has atoms really far apart moving really quickly, a liquid has atoms pretty close together moving kinda fast, and a solid has atoms close together moving pretty slow. My Emblem actually slows down the atoms surrounding my hands. The effect is the same in essence, where anything I touch freezes. However, somebody like Thomas who makes his body incredibly dense even before I have to do anything to him…
His fist seems to be moving in slow motion even though I haven’t touched him, and it’s really easy to dodge him. Maybe that’s his intention, so that somebody tries really hard to counter attack and hurts themselves. Doesn’t matter to me. I duck under the punch, and place my palm on Thomas’s chest, I breathe in, and activate my Emblem with all my focus on freezing Thomas.
I watch frost spread from my hand around Thomas’s clothes, and his body becomes rigid and blue under my hand. When I exhale, it sends a plume of white condensation fluttering into the air. I take my hand back and admire my handiwork for a moment. The blaring alarm seems distant and quiet as I note the unearthly sheen that surrounds Thomas’s body now, causing him to seem almost made out of glass. Thomas is completely rigid, he may be brain dead. I have to admit, I’m pretty…“Powerful.” It doesn’t hurt that he made himself even more dense for me.
“Damn Mercury.” Nia remarks quietly, getting back to her feet cautiously to check if she can run with the still healing foot on top of holding TJ. “Good work. But I would’ve won too.” She always has to make that one sassy remark, but in this moment it’s a little relieving to hear a joke from anybody.
“For sure, but we didn’t really have the time. We still don’t, actually, so come on!” We keep dashing through the halls, my headache getting worse from overuse of my power. We don’t have a choice though, it’s do or die. And we aren’t going to die.