"Are you all ready?" Jessie shouted.

The girl stood tall and commanding despite her average height, her striking cheek bone accentuated by her brown hair now ended at neck length, pulled behind her ears and held in place with a bobby pin.

Across the field, the six students that made up her training class nodded from the other side of an imaginary line drawn in the grass.

From the shady spot she had chosen at the edge of the field, Christy stood, watching.

She had been drawn to the training ground by curiosity to watch her own daughter in action. That and the inescapable motherly instinct to keep her daughter away from harm.

Jessie did not see her need to worry and had said same. Christy's daughter; Beulah, was more of a 'centre back player' so there would be little chance of physical contact especially with the nature of her abilities. As an additional attempt to ease her fears, Jessie had promised to go easy on the youngest team member.

"Remember, this training exercise is to see how you six work as a team. Is that understood?"

"Yes Chief!" they responded in unison.

Chief.

It had been two years since Jessie took up the mantle, becoming the youngest to join the cabal of Chiefs around the same time they received another new member; Arewa's ex-boyfriend and Chief Bernard's former right hand: Michael. But while Michael's transition to chiefhood had been swift and smooth—and why not? He had a ruthlessly effective streak a mile long and a calm, thinking head to boot—, the chiefs were yet to fully accept Jessie as one of their own.

The chief Margaret had been especially disappointed to hear that it was not Shiva who was taking Edidem's throne. Michael himself had not hidden his dislike for the young chief, and though Jessie had no idea why, Christy knew he could hardly be blamed.

He knew. Knew that Jessie had taken the love of his life from him once. That was enough.

Out in the field, Jessie pulled her daggers free and twirled them.

"You know the rules. Victory by knockout or by forfeit," she said. "Ready, set..."

And then she was gone. One second there she was in plain sight, the next she had vanished.

Christy could still sense her and she knew that was not due to Jessie's laxity. She wanted Christy to know where she was to reassure her, even as she made a beeline for the wildcard: Matthew.

Christy's attention was drawn to the earth shaker; Etieno. She could sense her bewilderment just like all the other kids', but with hers came curiosity. Of course having gone out into the field with Jessie once, the girl knew that Jessie didn't have the gift of disappearing. As curiosity gave way to clarity, Christy continued to focus on her as she eliminated the impossible leaving her with the truth: Jessie had pulled an illusion on them.

Coming to the conclusion Christy had sensed, Etieno's mind—which should have been out of Christy's reach if not that Jessie had also been kind enough to at some point in time give her access to their foremost thoughts—kicked into overdrive. She knew she could not depend on her eyes, which meant she had to find another way. She hurriedly kicked off her shoes and planted her feet on the soft earth. Then she felt it. The rapid thud! thud! thud! of speedy footsteps. But it wasn't headed for her. No. It was headed for...

"Matthew! On your left!"

The boy was barely vanished from sight when Jessie materialized where he had been, swinging voraciously. He appeared beside the second boy Chris, rattled by the close call but otherwise unharmed.

Before Jessie could recover, Etieno stomped her bare foot on the ground. Instantly, the earth around Jessie's feet rose up and swallowed her up to her knees.

Jessie's surprise was clear as day as she struggled against her restraints.

"Chris, now!" Matthew screamed.

The fair-skinned boy didn't need to be told twice. He brought his hands together and channeled a powerful gust of wind straight at Jessie. And then it went straight through her. Then Jessie vanished.

"What the f—" Etieno began. But the air was forced out of her lungs as a merciless fist connected with her stomach, bringing her to her knees.

She only saw Jessie for a split second before she was out of sight again.

"How the hell is she doing that? How is she disappearing?" Matthew asked.

"She's not," Etieno croaked, "It's an illusion."

"Smart. You figured it out."  The voice came first before Jessie reappeared, this time seated nonchalantly on the grass metres away from them. "What are you going to do with that knowledge?"

"I've got this!" It was the third girl on the team that spoke.

Lots of moxie in her, Christy noted. Not enough forethought however.

She ran forward and stretched out her hand and the grasses at Jessie's feet began to grow longer and longer, and then, bending to her will, they began to wrap around Jessie's body, slowly snaking up to her neck.

"Deborah, wait!" Etieno warned.

"I said I've got this!" Deborah snapped.

"Have you really?"

Deborah froze on the spot. And for two good reasons.

One, the voice was Jessie's; calm and unperturbed as could be, and it was coming from right behind her. Two, there was a dagger now pressed point-first against her side.

"Oh no," she muttered.

"'Oh no' is accurate," Jessie affirmed complacently.

She reversed her grip on the blade and went for the side of the petrified girl's head with the hilt but before she could land the blow a pillar of earth shot up between them, cutting off her strike and throwing her off balance.

Deborah jumped away to safety and when she looked back at the 'Jessie' she had tied up, she found herself looking at a bush.

"How do we know what's real anymore? How do we beat her?"

"You could start by listening to me!" Etieno scolded.

Christy continued to watch inquisitively. The girl certainly had leadership qualities, if she could get past the short temper. Maybe she would schedule meditation sessions with her.

"That's in the past, Etieno. She's gone again." Matthew put a firm hand on her shoulder.

"I think I can track her footsteps, but just to be sure I'll need Chris to check for air displacement to confirm," she whispered.

Chris nodded in agreement.

To Matthew, Etieno said, "Play keep away until you have a clear shot." Then to the others she said, "Follow my lead. If you see an actual opening, do not hesitate."

They scattered around the field, Matthew porting to the lowest branch of a nearby tree. Then they waited.

Etieno crouched and touched the earth while Chris stood perfectly still.

Then Etieno felt footsteps. Rapid footsteps.

"Your three o'clock?" Chris asked.

"I sense her too. Now!"

She curled her fist and once again Jessie's legs were trapped in earth.

With a quick stirring motion with his right hand, Chris manifested a whirlwind at her feet, breaking away the rock prison and lifting her off the ground.

"I've got her!" Chris announced triumphantly.

True to his words, Jessie returned into view a moment later right where he had sensed her. In the middle of his miniature cyclone.

Then without warning the cyclone slowed down to a gentle wind and Jessie was returned safely to the ground.

"Chris, what are you doing?" Matthew yelled.

The other boy turned to Matthew and with a wave of his hand swatted him away with a blast of wind.

"She's controlling him!" Etieno said.

She raised the earth up around Chris and trapped him up to his neck.

"Anthony, now!"

It was then Christy took note of the disappearance of the third boy. Jessie seemed to be realizing the same thing just then as she hesitated to look around.

He appeared soon enough, shooting up from the earth right in front of Jessie, looking translucent and immaterial. He was clearly using his powers of intangibility.

Judging by the speed with which he erupted from the earth, Christy suspected he had been intangible for the most part while under but tethered himself to the earth directly beneath his feet which Etieno had navigated into place. A tricky move that certainly earned Christy's approval.

His palm connected with Jessie's chin and he pushed her backwards.

She fell and rolled over, ending right back on her feet. Anthony turned ghostly again as she struck out at him and her blade met with air. From behind him, Etieno whipped up a batch of cookie sized rocks and sent them flying at Jessie.

The action was fast-paced and unexpected. Jessie didn't have time to evade before the rocks flew through Anthony. Taking over half a dozen to the torso, she went down. Hard.

She had been taken by surprise. There was no doubt about it. She could barely hide the fact that she was hurt. However she didn't stay down long.

"Impressive," she commented when she was back on her feet, bent over with her hands on her knees and her flustered face to the ground. "Time for me to level up then."

She stood up straight and smiled a terrifying smile.

Christy recognized the smile. It was a gesture she had copied from the scariest person Christy had ever met: Shiva.

While the smile was nowhere near as haunting as the real thing, it was enough to bring back flashes of memories. Memories of a girl selfless enough to take charge of her own demons and use them to protect the ones she dared to love. For that she had lost everything and had turned away from those she had sworn to protect.

How could she not? Every one of them had failed her.

None of them had fully recovered from the departure of Shiva, least of all Jessie. No matter how much she tried to distract herself with her chiefly duties, it was obvious.

Christy pulled herself from her train of thought to watch as multiple clouds of dust exploded into existence around Jessie. When the dust cleared, on one side of the field stood Deborah, Matthew, Etieno, Anthony, Chris and her daughter. On the other side stood half a dozen 'Jessie's.

Whatever happened to going easy?

The unease that spread among the kids at the sight of twelve clones of Jessie was clear as day, especially since one had been more than a handful so far. But of all of them, one of the kids remained eerily calm as her eyes roamed among the clones as if she was searching for something...or someone. Her fingers continued to twitch sporadically as she searched.

This was her own daughter who had until then hung back as Christy had asked her to, although thinking about it now, Christy wasn't sure her position had anything to do with her warning.

Suddenly the clones started to run, each of them armed, each of them dangerous.

"Etieno? What's our play?" Matthew asked.

Christy could feel the waves of panic cascading over him.

"I...I don't know. I can hold her—er...them—off with an earth wall but that doesn't bring us any closer to winning."

"How about you free me while you're at it?" Chris yelled from his rock prison.

Etieno waved her have a the column of earth sunk back down.

"We should do what we did before. Find the real one and take her out," he said.

"I tried that. I'm sensing all their footsteps. It's like they're all—"

"FOUND HER!"

Christy's eyes widened in shock then comprehension as her daughter lifted both arms in a whiplash motion, her palms facing the earth, eyes shut tight. In a swift motion, her palm snapped up at the wrist, her fingers bent as if holding on to something.

In that instant, one of the twelve 'Jessie's froze in place, held there against her will.

"What the..." Etieno gasped.

Christy watched in unfading awe as her daughter brought her hands together and Jessie's arms stuck to her sides and her legs joined together.

"You got her!" Matthew muttered half in disbelief. "Now let her have it."

She made a squeezing motion and Jessie dropped to her knees, her teeth clenched in pain. All eleven clones vanished instantly.

There was a foreboding silence as everyone waited for her to end Jessie.

Instead, she loosened her grip, still ensuring her hold was firm.

"I cannot do it."

In that moment, Christy could not help smiling in admiration at her own daughter's performance. When the others had rushed into the offensive, she had been studying the opponent and she had checked her in one move. Still it was her hesitation that Christy was most proud of. The fact that she didn't have the nerve to end it.

She needed to be able to protect herself, that Christy acknowledged, but she didn't want her losing herself in the process.

Her encounter with Shiva; where Edidem had manipulated the girl into attempting the unthinkable—killing Shiva—, had left Christy deeply worried. Now she realized her worry was unnecessary.

"You should be proud," someone said from behind her, "your girl is incredible."

Christy sighed. "I know, Jessie." She turned and, just as she expected, there was the brown-haired girl leaning against a tree looking perfectly ordinary; if you could ignore the startling fact that her eyes were pure white. "But a mother does worry."

The absence of Jessie's pupils was a sight Christy was now accustomed to as it happened whenever Jessie extended beyond the base limits of her powers. This particular upgrade had been achieved during her death match with her older sister, Shiva, when for the first time, she had abandoned all restraints in a moment of unbound rage.

When she had gone all thoughts and zero feelings.

"It is to be expected, I suppose," Jessie admitted, a casual shrug following her statement.

"I wonder though—" A smile played on Christy's lips as she spoke. "—how the children would feel if they were to realize you were never on the training ground to begin with. And they'd been throwing themselves at empty air all morning."

"Ah...but who's to say I wasn't?" Jessie replied ominously.

Back on the field, the kids had come to the understanding that Beulah didn't have the nerves to go through with it.

Someone else was going to have to finish it.

"I've got this!" Chris announced.

He brought his hands together as if closed around an invisible ball. Soon enough, as if the space between his hands had become a vacuum, wind began rushing in, forming a ball of compressed air.

"He's not doing what I think he's doing," Etieno said, eyes wide in horror.

"Oh he's doing it." Matthew grinned.

"What? What is he doing?" Deborah asked. She had to shout over the howling winds.

The air ball in Chris's hands had grown roughly to the size of an orange and his control was clearly slipping. Etieno was the first among them to notice.

"Chris, don't be stupid. You cannot control it!" she yelled.

"What do you mean? He's doing great!" Matthew said.

As if to prove that Matthew was right, Chris then took off running, the ball of air, now the size of a grapefruit, held at his side.

"He's not gonna make it," Anthony observed.

"Sure he is," Matthew said, still grinning.

"Forget that. When that thing leaves his hands, how will he maintain the shape of it?" Etieno asked.

"What?" was all Matthew could say before it was too late.

Chris jumped and with all his might chucked it at the kneeling form of Jessie.

"GAHHH!" he screamed.

"Ah look at that." Etieno sighed, almost sadly.

Even before the projectile hit it's intended target, it started to lose consistency, deforming into an amorphous shape and expelling a large amount of wind as the pressure lessened.

"Ah d—" Chris began.

BOOM!

The wind ball hit the ground between Jessie's knees and exploded. Most of the effects occurred in Jessie's direction but enough wind was thrown back in their direction to knock Chris, Matthew and Beulah down. The rest managed to stay on their feet, shielding their eyes from the flying debris.

It took a minute for the wind to die down and another minute for the dust to settle and much longer for the teenagers to recover.

"Well that could have gone better," Chris yelled, because his ears were now ringing. He maintained the supine position he had landed in.

"You think?" came Etieno's voice, thickly coated with sarcasm.

"Did it work?" It was Christy's daughter who spoke.

They all looked ahead and there Jessie's clone was on the ground, lying in a fetal position, completely motionless.

"Is she...?" Deborah asked.

"I didn't... Did I?" Chris said.

They proceeded cautiously towards the body but Beulah stayed back. Thanks to Jessie's link, Christy saw that she could sense that something was off. She couldn't put her finger on it.

That is it!

The thought wasn't Christy's.

"Wait! That's not real!"

If she had spent the two seconds she used to warn the others, maybe she could have sensed that they were not Jessie's next targets. She was.

Jessie appeared behind her, close enough to be breathing down her neck.

"United you stand. Scattered..."

She turned to meet a dagger pointed at her.

"...you fall."

The chief pulled back and in that split second before the blade made a return journey, Christy saw and sensed her daughter go rigid with fear.

And then the breakfast bell went.

For a second no one moved. Not Jessie. Not Christy's daughter. Not the other teens. Surprisingly, not even Christy herself.

Then as if snapping out of a daze, Jessie withdrew the blade and tucked it away.

"I guess training's over."

Christy let out a breath and felt her shoulders slack.

"Hit the showers before you go down for breakfast. No one wants your stink on their food," Jessie's illusion said.

The real Jessie got up from her spot on the grass and stretched. "I guess I'll take it from here."

She marched up to the illusion.

It was something Christy had seen before but she still shook her head in utmost marvel as Jessie merged fluidly with the illusion from behind and continued to speak from where it had stopped like nothing had happened.

Christy could not help feeling proud in that moment. Jessie had truly come a long way since that night on that rooftop.

Still, in many ways, it felt like Jessie had been running in a circle ever since that night. Never getting better. Never moving on.

"I will give you a detailed rundown of the result of this test at a later time. But here's the summary: Etieno, you're smart and you have a keen eye, but you need to learn to keep a level head in stressful situations." The earth mover nodded curtly and smiled, her hand halfway up to her head for a salute before she stopped herself. "Deborah, you are powerful and strong willed, but there are times to exercise caution and to listen." She too nodded but less enthusiastically. "Matthew, good team player. Just know when to act. Chris, you were reckless and unthinking." The light-skinned boy's head sank low and remained there. "This counts as a failure because of the stunt you pulled...but you get points for creativity." His head shot up and he beamed despite himself. "Aniefiok, you did well. Good team player. Beulah...that was impressive. Your mother is right to be proud." Her smile was the widest and it widened even more as she looked in Christy's direction.

Christy favoured her with a grin and a nod.

"That will be all for now. But first, any questions?" Jessie asked.

When no one spoke up she turned to go.

"You're dismi—"

"Were you going to stab her?" It was Deborah who spoke.

"I'm sorry?" Jessie returned her attention to them.

"If the bell hadn't gone...would you have stabbed Beulah?" Deborah asked again.

The question was pretty valid. As much as Christy agreed that it was necessary to put them in slightly dangerous situations—or at least make them believe they were in such situations—, Jessie was toeing the line.

It was not the fact that her methods were growing crueler by the day that bothered Christy—not to say it didn't—, it was the fact that her methods were starting to resemble Shiva's. That was not good.

Jessie shut her eyes and exhaled. She walked up to the girl.

"Deborah, Deborah," she said, suddenly taking on the tone of a mother deciding how best to handle a situation, "Deborah."

The girl averted her face to the ground when Jessie got in front of her but Jessie promptly lifted her head back up.

She took the girl's hand by the wrist.

"Pay attention. Do not be afraid."

But at that statement, Christy felt the girl's heart pound even faster in her chest. Rather ironic.

That was all the warning Jessie gave before, in two motions, with swiftness akin to the recoil of a gun, she pulled her dagger free and slashed across the girl's wrist.

The girl shrieked. A sharp piercing sound that breached Christy's ears and assailed her heart.

The expulsion of blood was instant and alarming. A thick fountain of red spewing forth in volumes.

The look on the girl's face was a crude mix of horror and pain as she grabbed at the hand in an attempt to stop the bleeding and pull it free of Jessie's grip. Both pointless.

Christy's eyes widened. The other teenagers around Deborah has the same expression on the poor girl's face mirrored across theirs.

All the while, Jessie's grip on the girl's hand remained firm, her expression unflinching.

"Deborah," she called. When the girl didn't respond, she called again, more urgently this time, "Deborah!"

The girl looked up at Jessie, doubly perturbed by the young chief's passiveness.

"Calm down."

"Calm down? I have to... I have to..."

"Look again. You're fine."

"What do you mean 'I'm—"

The rest of the sentence hitched in her throat unspoken as she looked down at her hand and saw nothing out of the ordinary save for the slight discoloration caused by the pressure she'd applied to her wrist cutting off blood supply. It had all been an illusion.

Not that Christy hadn't known. It sickened her either way.

She had come out to watch the training, worried that her own daughter's soul had been stained because of her almost death match with Shiva two years ago and seeking confirmation that it wasn't. She had been wrong to worry; but only on account of the person she was worried about. It was Jessie's soul that had taken a blotting.

"You have your answer," Jessie said. "I am here to prepare you for the dangers of the world I cannot always protect you from, but I am joy so heartless as to put you directly in the reality of those dangers myself."

"But...I felt it! You...you cut me!"

"I am sorry for the discomfort, Deborah but no I did not. I came out here without weapons in fact."

To prove her point, Jessie opened her hands and as she said they were devoid of weapons. So was her belt.

That was when something went wrong.

Christy noticed that something was off when Jessie kept staring at her hands despite the fact that there was nothing there. Then her hands began to shake.

Trying to decipher what was going on, Christy caught on to her sudden emotional distress; guilt, pain, anguish, bombarding her hard and fast.

She didn't get to even attempt to interfere before Jessie's eyes rolled up in her head and the young chief collapsed.