Psalm knew she couldn’t continue her current course of action much longer. One stray blast and she could seriously injure Mindset.

“Let her go, Set! Let her go or so help me I’ll blow you out of the sky.”

Set called her bluff. “You’ll kill us both then, you little tramp.”

Mindset blasted Psalm’s skull with a mental shout. “Hit him again. Make him drop me.”

Psalm’s gaze turned to Mindset. Are you sure?

Mindset nodded.

Psalm didn’t wait for her friend to change her mind. She unleashed a blast of energy directly in to Set’s back.

Set roared out in pain at the impact as he flipped end over end in the air. Mindset struggled against his grip.

Psalm’s eyes went wide as she saw Mindset tumble from Set’s grip and careen towards the ground.

“Catch me already!”

Psalm pushed herself with all her strength as she flew downwards with her magical energy. Her temples ached at the stress of the energies she channeled as she poured on more speed.

Mindset closed her eyes. “Oh dear God…”

Psalm swooped down and under Mindset. She cupped the scrawnier girl gracefully in her arms. “Hey. You okay?”

Mindset nodded. She was hyper-ventilating, but she gave Psalm a smile.

Psalm’s eyes traveled upwards to where they left Set spinning through the air. Only a thin jet trail remained to mark his presence.

“He’s gone. Bastard.”

“He’ll be back.” Mindset caught her breath and finished verbally. “I’m not sure whose side he’ll be on, but he’ll be back.”

They said nothing else on the slow trip back to the academy.

*****

He could hear Blake, Feud, and Sagai make their way through the jungle several yards behind him, but Bagheera kept a steady lead over the others. The sky was falling to dusk above the trees that Bagheera made his way through them. As he leaped from tree to tree, branch to branch, with his regular cat-like grace, he opened up all his enhanced senses. He could smell the decay beneath the undergrowth. He could taste the moisture in the air. He could hear the flutter of insect wings in the foliage of the trees.

And he could hear the sound of bodies hurtling in their direction. Multiple bodies. Definitely human, but they moved with a speed and grace that belied normal human activity.

Which could only mean Eshu is already hard at work.

Bagheera stopped and perched on a tree branch, listening. They were coming straight towards the others. He knew Sagai and Feud knew these jungles as well if not better than he, but he also knew they may not be on their highest alert. They would walk in to a trap, and only he could stop it.

I don’t have much choice then do I?

Bagheera dove from his perch and charged towards the ongoing footage. A couple years back, in an attempt to acclimate him to the day to day life at Eastman Academy, Wave made Bagheera spend a week watching popular American cinema. An entire day was spent watching a series of dinosaur movies. The middle film, The Lost World, featured a scene where a pack of velociraptors cut through tall grass to tear apart multiple victims. His enemies moved in exactly the same fashion. He watched as the grass shifted and all the lines of attack moved directly towards him.

They won’t find a helpless victim with me. “Come on, all of you! I’ll cut you to pieces!”

Bagheera dove forward just as the attackers broke through the tall grass. He stopped himself just short of striking the first of them.

They were children. African boys, all of them no more than twelve. Their teeth flashed white as they struck like ravenous beasts. Several carried three-pronged, claw-like blades in their hands, while others carried knives and clubs. He counted at least a dozen of the boys.

They swiped at him with their blades. They cut in to his back, stomach, and legs. The blades tore bloody gashes across the skin. Still Bagheera could not bring himself to fight back, though he could feel the rage building.

A blast of energy whisked past Bagheera and struck one of the boys in his chest. The child flew back in to the tall grass. Sagai came in to view, followed only a few steps behind by Blake and Feud.

Feud made no effort to restrain herself against the boys. She morphed all of her forelimbs in to blades and struck out at a trio of the boys. She sliced one in half across the torso, turned and embedded a pair of her blades in to another child’s chest. Bagheera cursed ever coming back to Africa as she eviscerated a third.

He dropped to his knees in the midst of the carnage. He had done terrible things in his past, things he wanted nothing more than to forget. But even he could not watch the whole sale slaughter of children.

He felt the rage build as Feud cut down another child. His vision went red. His blood boiled beneath his skin. Everything disappeared in to the fury.

Bagheera dove towards Feud, his claws unsheathed.

A short burst from an MP5 sent him careening sideways. A foot dropped on his throat. Bagheera gasped for air as he looked up in to the face of Seth Blake.

“Calm down, Bagheera! Calm down!”

The red seemed to fade. Bagheera realized again where he was. He looked around the clearing. In addition to the three Feud cut down earlier, four more young bodies lay silently in their midst. He saw no sign of survivors. Some of the little monsters had escaped.

“What did you do?” Bagheera said.

“Calm down, man!” Blake tightened the pressure on Bagheera’s neck. Blake looked over at Sagai. “I told you we should have told him.”

“Told me what!” Bagheera yelled.

Blake sighed. “Those things are called Little Weapons. We’re not sure where or when Project Eshu first came across the dozens of children they used in the experiment, but they’ve been cloning bio-weapons ever since. They are bred to feel no pain or remorse. Their small size makes them as effective as saboteurs and spies as they are warriors. Dictators and madmen all over the continent have been buying the little monsters by the droves.”

“You knew about this already. All of you?”

Blake looked to Sagai. Sagai nodded.

“We thought it best not to tell you,” Blake said. “That your exposure to the Eastman Academy may have made you more susceptible to the psychological factor of the Little Weapons. Obviously, we were right.”

Bagheera shoved Blake’s boot aside and climbed to his feet. “Or maybe it would make me ready to fight. I don’t like being played, Seth. Is there anything else I need to know?”

“Yeah,” Feud said. “You come at me again and you won’t live to see the damn project.”

“Stop it. I’ve heard enough from both of you.” Sagai pointed his spear at Bagheera and Feud in turn to emphasize his point. “We are in this together. Yes, we should have been honest about everything from the start of this, but fighting among ourselves only helps those Eshu bastards. Agreed?”

Feud nodded her affirmative.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Bagheera said. “We’ve got about another eight miles to travel. Let’s get moving and find the Eshu base. The sooner I’m away from you lot, the sooner I can put all this shit behind me.”

Bagheera took away to scan his surroundings and determine which way was north.

Blake shook his head. “Tomorrow, Bagheera. Some of us are still only human. We’ll rest here for tonight, and tomorrow we will make Eshu pay for what they’ve done.”

*****

Athena hurled up through the air as the explosion ripped apart her office. She could feel the strain of the explosive force against her hastily constructed force shield. But the shield held even as she stabilized herself in the fire bursting from the side of the Academy. She raced back down to the school to check on the students.

The automatic sprinkler system flooded the grounds of the school outside, while inside a wall of foam poured out over hidden ducts at the base of the room. But the fire was too large and it continued to burn around her as Athena landed. She focused her will and started to form fields over patches of flame. It took a lot of concentration to form fields tight enough to block even the air. Athena knew she couldn’t keep this up before the heat overwhelmed her own shield.

Another explosion rocked what remained of her office. Another pillar of smoke rose from the far end of the academy’s roof.

It’s a trap. Someone set up the school to be destroyed. Someone betrayed us. She refused to stop to ponder her realization. She knew she didn’t have time.

She flew down the hall and in to the rest of the school. Alarms sounded everywhere, but she knew she couldn’t assume everyone’s safety. She used a solid-energy battering ram to explode open each door she passed. She yelled in to each room, but received no response.

“Athena, help!” The voice rose from two rooms down. She rushed down the hall and threw the door open with a push of energy. She found Cyberpath and Cheetangus on the other side of the door. With them was Marie, an eight year girl covered in orange fur.

Athena immediately threw up another shield of force around them just as another explosion rocked the school beneath them. She threw herself and her passengers upwards, out and above the school. She whisked them up and over to the rear grounds, where she dropped them gently. Over two dozen students already were forming in to grade-based divisions under Flint’s command.

Athena swooped down in front of her rock-covered former love. “How many still unaccounted for?”

“I haven’t been able to get an exact count, but at least six. Wave is still inside, fighting the fires as best he can. Solid is looking for any missing students, and I have Air Raid up and looking for any sign of what started the explosions.”

“It was a trap by the damned Order of Nephthys. Whatever their game is they’ve just way upped the stakes.” Athena floated back in to the air. “Keep the kids calm and ready for transportation. Don’t take them to the buses or the jump-jet. I don’t trust either. Whoever did this for the Order is one of us. We have a traitor in our midst.”

Athena didn’t wait to see Flint’s response. She flew off towards the school, ready to do whatever she could to save the academy.

*****

He knew they were here. They didn’t know he knew, though, and that was his only advantage. Damn fools should know that any shift in the air flow of my own home would be known to me. Now I will make them pay. He stood in the foyer, just before the door to the main chamber of his lair and waited for the right moment to strike.

On the other side of the door, the little girl turned to Blaine Dresden. “He knows we’re here.”

The doors to the room flew open, and Rubicon blasted the chamber with a high-pressure blast of air. The degen and metas in the room fell to the floor. Rubicon strode in to the room and threw his cloak behind him.

“You dare to enter my home! You dare to attack me!”

“Paralyzer, now!”

Rubicon moved as soon as he heard Dresden’s words but it was already too late. The blast of energy pulsed out and struck his arm. Instantly, it went numb. Rubicon turned, threw up his hand, and unleashed a blast of ball lightning from his hand.

The blast struck Paralyzer, a fur-covered degen with elongated arms and no clear facial features. He flew back and hit the wall before slumping to the floor. Dresden turned just in time to throw up a shield of compressed air before a streak of brown and black struck at him.

The degen deflected off of his shield. He could now see the speedster’s purple, hairless body as it fell to the floor. A fox-headed woman sent a laser-focused blast towards him, but Rubicon pushed himself up and over before she could even fire.

There’s too many of them. Even I can’t survive in these conditions. Rubicon raised his hand towards the ceiling and summoned the lightning down. The blast tore through the building and exposed the open air above the secluded building.

Rubicon flew up and in to the hole in the roof, but stopped short before exiting in to the open air. A massive dinosaur, a tyrannosaurus, looked down the opening at him. Rubicon fell back towards the ground, his planned escape thwarted.

He turned back to his attackers just in time to see a flying degen with rows of spikes coating his head and shoulders barrel towards him. The degen blasted through the shield and Rubicon plummeted to the floor below. Dresden walked forward and raised a pistol to Rubicon’s forehead.

“Your purpose is long past,” Dresden said. “Goodbye, Rubicon.”