Chapter Two

The guardians were up to something.

I knew it the moment I stepped into the canteen in the morning. The guardians were talking amongst themselves, voices low, only to shut up the moment I appeared. It continued through classes, guardians eyeing me suspiciously, like I'd taken the last apple at the fruit bar last night.

Unfortunately for them, whispering didn't work around me. One of my defects was hypersensitive hearing. I wasn't entirely sure where it came from, or how it was even a defect, but when it was revealed to my guardians, they'd simply sighed heavily like someone had given them bad news.

"... making a move for Atlantis, so be on guard. Do not leave him alone. He's good at sneaking around and blending with the shadows. I'd say he was infected, but we already tested him twice in the past week." One of the guardian's was saying when I'd entered the arena later that day. And I knew they were talking about me because I'd been tested twice for the shadow illness. It was a mental illness that manifested physical symptoms. To put it bluntly, it was depression in its rawest angriest form and though it was rare nowadays, they still tested for it just to be sure. They tested us for everything.

But they especially ran tests on defected things, to make sure we weren't nearing a breakdown.

"Shut up," Micah snapped at the guardian who had approached him, "He can hear us." Nothing more was said and I cursed that Micah actually knew about my defect. I said nothing, didn't even look in his direction as I lined up against the wall with the rest of the soldiers in training, who were all around my age.

They were up to something. Moving to Atlantis? What was moving to Atlantis?

I'd never been to Atlantis. I knew nothing about it, aside from the basics we'd learned in our studies. I didn't even know how to get there without teleporting, considering I couldn't. Besides, that was where, if gossip held true, my genetic carriers were located. Were they going in to capture them? The idea seemed preposterous. My genetic carriers were powerful creatures. And while all the artificials had been warned to avoid their genetic carriers, ours in particular were supposed to be incredibly dangerous and murderous. I wasn't sure if that held true, but I wasn't really eager to find out either.

No, it couldn't be related to them anyway. Why would that have anything to do with me if I was supposed to avoid them? The only thing we shared was genetics and that wasn't enough for me to go hunting them down or anything. Genetics really meant nothing to me at this point. I was created in a test tube for the sole purpose of destroying the Mother's enemies.

So what about Atlantis? What about me?

"Stand to attention, brats!" Micah's bark jarred me from my thoughts and I cursed under my breath, narrowing my eyes as Micah marched in front of us while we all straightened to face him like a row of ants. He paused to look at me and I glared back at him. He curled his lip and turned to face me fully.

"We'll be playing Target today," he announced, earning some laughter and smug grins from the other soldiers, making me grind my teeth together, "All of you line up on the opposite end of the arena, save for Seven. And, of course, Bait." I said nothing as the other soldiers jogged to the opposite end of the arena and Micha approached me smugly, his arms tucked behind his back, eyes narrowed down at me.

"Let's see you keep that look of confidence today," he mused, then walked toward the center of the arena. I cocked my head, cracking my neck a couple times to loosen up and prepare for the ass beating of a lifetime.

I approached the opposite end of the arena from everyone else, watching one of the doors open as a soldier came out with Bait.

Bait was a lot like me, and it was honestly kind of fucking terrifying to see where I would've ended up if I had been completely botched. At least there was something to me that would be able to fight.

Bait was useless. During his creation, the sequence fucked up and a lot of him hadn't developed properly. He was missing a couple fingers on his left hand, his left leg was bent oddly and couldn't be rebroken and fixed. It was just the way the bone grew and nothing could change it. He had a lisp because his fangs were too big for his mouth. He was skinny, probably because they didn't feed him well, so he was really nothing more than skin and bones under an oversized t-shirt and joggers that barely stayed on his narrow waist. His eyes were mismatched brown and blue, his hair black as night and fell in greasy strands around a face he kept directed at the ground at all times.

I wanted to hate Bait, honestly. Everyone else did. He was useless and pathetic and completely and utterly defective. Because of his leg, he walked with a limp. Something was wrong with those mismatched eyes, so he actually had poor eyesight and couldn't see that well. He was exactly as his name stated; bait. They used him to practice with new soldiers, or in twisted games Micha liked to make up when he couldn't get enough souls to put himself to sleep at night.

Problem was, I couldn't hate Bait. I was definitely freaked out whenever I saw him, because he reminded me of myself. But it was hard to hate someone who hadn't done anything to deserve it, to deserve poor treatment, save for a wrong sequence. No one knew what genetics were used to create him.

Just that the Mother had been absolutely disgusted with his results and nearly killed him herself if Micah hadn't asked to use him as a training dummy... under the name Bait.

"Alright, you know how this works," Micah announced as Bait was dragged in and dropped beside me, "Pin them in five and you'll have the rest of the day off, plus an extra canteen meal!" The soldiers shouted excitedly. I grimaced, then glanced at Bait, who managed to get himself standing, despite his leg. He glanced at me, inclining his head slightly in greeting before looking away. I eyed him.

"You gonna actually try this time or make me do all the work?" I asked. He cocked his head, like he was honestly considering it, those mismatched eyes sliding from me to the ground.

"Good luck," was all he answered with. I sighed in frustration, clenching my fists and getting them ready.

"Begin!" Micah shouted, stepping back to avoid getting trampled by overeager soldiers that went sprinting across the arena at me. I dodged the first one, spun around, kicked him in the ass and watched him go facedown in the dirt by Bait, who had just lowered himself to the ground to stare at the guy with a bored expression. I swung back around to face the next guy, grabbing him after a headbutt.

I flipped him over me and plowed him right into the ground, only for some guy to come out of nowhere and sucker punch me in the nose. Blood gushed down my face from my nostrils, but I ignored it as I grabbed the guy and smashed our heads together. He roared in pain, reaching for me again at the same time another guy behind me did. I ducked and let them collide so I could roll out from between them to face another one ready to launch a punch at me.

I dodged, then spun around him and got onto his back, repeatedly punching him in the head until he hit the ground. I jumped off and backflipped away, stumbling at the same time another guy came at me, slamming me into the ground with a well placed blast of magic.

I cursed, rolling through the dirt, then scrambling to my feet. Breathing hard, I glanced over at Micah to see if he'd call cheat on the magic use, but he simply smirked at me.

"What is the best way to handle someone who excels at hand-to-hand?" He called out to the soldiers.

"Magic!" came several responses. I ground my teeth together as one soldier conjured a ball of flames, throwing it at me. I ducked and rolled through the dirt, jumping up again just as a blast of air slammed into me and threw me against the far wall.

Pain exploded through my whole body and I groaned, struggling to push myself up onto my hands and knees. I could make out someone coming toward me, ready to kick my ass, and I blinked hard, ignoring the pain in my limbs to reach out and grab them by the ankle. There was a sharp yelp as the guy hit the ground and I rolled on top of him, grabbing his head and cracking it against the ground. He squirmed desperately, struggling to get me off, but I was on a roll with that cranium of his. I bounced that motherfucker like a basketball.

"Get him off! He's killing him!" Red temporarily replaced my vision as I bared my fangs and slammed the guy's head into the ground again. The shouts around me became more like murmurs and I focused on smashing the guy's head open on the arena ground until all I could see was red. Panting hard, I jerked my head up in time for someone to fucking bulldoze me, throwing me against the far wall. I bounced off, recovered, and swung my foot up into their face, watching blood spray from their nose as they fell backwards onto the ground.

"He killed him!" One of the soldiers shouted hesitantly. Micah came up behind the guy, whacked him hard in the back of the head, then grabbed him by the uniform to haul him forward at me.

"Then fucking do something about it, soldier! Don't bitch to me!" He barked. The soldier was hesitant now, but it didn't matter, because no one else was at this point. Several other soldiers came at me and I managed to duck and dodge my way into the fray, taking them on with hand-to-hand no problem. My body was roaring with pain as I cut a path through them. It felt like I'd been dumped into a garbage disposal, but I couldn't stop the roar of adrenaline rushing through me.

It always got like this.

Because honestly fuck these guys.

Family, they called themselves. That's how we were supposed to refer to one another, brothers and sisters. That's what we were. We weren't soldiers fighting for the Mother's war. We were her precious sons and daughters, whether we fucking liked it or not.

And I did fucking did not.

Family wasn't what the Mother said it was. It wasn't about sacrificing ourselves for the rest of the family. A family didn't ask for that shit. A family... went to the beach together. A family sat and talked about possibilities, about dragons and sharks and fish and water tricks.

Thirteen was my family.

The rest of these assholes were nothing to me. The Mother was nothing to me.

"Enough," Micah shouted at last as I skidded to a halt, breathing hard as the last soldier hit the ground bleeding, "This is pathetic! You call yourselves soldiers? Garbage! Pathetic garbage is what you lot are! Look at you, sniveling and whining in the dirt when a mere defective mongrel can throw you on your ass! Use your damn brains!" I knew what was coming next. I always knew what was coming next, because it was the same damn trick every time, the one that always led to me on my ass in the dirt, then tossed in my room for the rest of the day.

Micah spun around to attack Bait, who simply stood there and looked at him calmly, fully prepared to be attacked, but not ready to fight back. Of course, my stupid ass couldn't stay still and let it happen, so I found myself sprinting in front of Micah's attack. It sent me ass over heels slamming into Bait, who gave way like a sheet of paper, both of us tumbling back into the far wall.

I groaned in agony as Bait propped himself up above me, looking down at me with disinterested mismatched eyes, fangs poking out from his upper lip.

"You're an idiot," he deadpanned. I glared at him.

"Fuck off," I growled, not that I got a chance to continue that tirade because Micah marched over, snatched me up by the back of my uniform like I was a wet kitten, then threw me clear across the arena into another wall where my body felt like it was shattering to pieces. I hit the ground breathlessly, my lungs clawing for oxygen. I choked and gasped for air as my body rushed to deal the amage and I laid there, letting it do its work while still gasping for breath.

"Never attack hand-to-hand fighters close up, you ignorant worms," Micah snarled, grabbing a soldier up from the ground and throwing him through the dirt at another soldier, who scrambled to get out of the way, "Always use magic! Always attack from a distance! Especially when their magic is weak and useless!" I ground my teeth together, pushing myself up onto my elbow as I lay on my stomach.

Yup, that hurt a bit worse than kissing the wall there.

I looked across the arena at Bait, who just laid there on the ground in defeat, looking across the arena at me with a look that said why fucking bother. I swallowed thickly at that as Micah stormed over and grabbed me up to my feet, hauling me toward the other soldiers, who all backed up a considerable distance. He shoved me and stepped back, folding his arms over his chest.

"Again!" He shouted. I took a deep breath and prepared myself, defending myself against every attack I could, but in the end, I ended up twisted around on my back in the dirt, gasping for breath as blood dribbled between my lips into the dirt. Pain coursed through every inch of me as I struggled to get to my feet, my vision flickering from red with anger back to this normal exhaustion.

Eventually, Micah was fed the fuck up. He always got fed up around this time when he realized I didn't stand a chance against the magic and just ended up getting blasted around the room like a fucking pingpong ball. He stomped over, grabbing me up by the back of my neck, hauling me to my feet and marching me out of the arena, right past the locker rooms, and toward my bedroom. Micah threw me in my room where I collided with a cracked wall and hit the floor. I groaned, rolling over onto my back, which was a huge mistake because Micah literally stomped on my chest, making me choke in agony.

"I am not dealing with your weak pathetic ass today," Micah snarled, "So why don't you take a fucking break since you are otherwise useless." I seethed, but couldn't say anything as I struggled to inhale. Micah lifted his boot and stalked over to the door, throwing it open and marching out. I heard the lock fall shut behind him, a rumbling in my throat.

I rolled over onto my side, breathing heavily. Trying to bust out of here was useless, and I'd learned that years ago, so instead of trying to attack the door, I dragged my ass over to my bed and managed to get somewhat comfortable on the flat mattress. I sucked in deep, shuddering breaths as my body took its sweet fuckig time healing.

Yup, just another average day in paradise, I thought bitterly.

Hence why the wall in my room was cracked, from the amount of times Micah had thrown me around like a rag doll. I cursed in pain, rolling onto my side and glaring across the room at the mirror that glared back with a pretty picture of my face all bloodied and bruised. Bronze skin was darkened to black and blue, blonde hair dyed red with blood, left eye swollen shut. I looked like a trash heap laying on the bed.

I pushed myself up, hair falling over my shoulder as I managed to get to my feet. I slowly and painfully peeled off my clothing to change into a new pair of clothes before I crawled back into bed with another moan of pain.

Moving to Atlantis...

That was still bugging the shit out of me. What were they moving to Atlantis?

What did I know about Atlantis? Aside from the fact that my genetic carriers were located there. It was a collection of islands, surrounded by miles and miles of ocean. It was tropical in climate, so probably humid and sticky and hot. I remembered something about them being big on environmental protection. They had the lowest crime rate of any realm for the past five years.

We had a compound there, I remembered after a minute.

So wait, there was a compound there like this one. On Atlantis... Moving to Atlantis...

Do not leave him alone.

He's good at sneaking... he blends in the shadows.

I felt like an ice cube was sliding down my back as I sat up slowly, as everything seemed to sort of piece itself together in my head.

They knew, I realized with a chill. They knew I was sneaking out to see Thirteen.

Moving to Atlantis.

Holy fuck.

They were taking Thirteen to Atlantis.