I stepped back, horrified, as Jade threw Lauren's body into one of our RV's with inhuman strength. The other Glitches screamed, running in all directions, completely and utterly confused. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, Justin's eyes glazed over too. 

"No!" I screamed, ducking as my brother hurled Aural icicles at me and Kelly. I felt a chill run down my spine as two of the icicles pierced the tree behind me, making it instantly explode in a flash of blue. 

"What's happening?" Kelly asked. 

How to summarize this...

"We're being attacked by evil aliens who've dedicated their lives to wiping out the human race!" I yelled over the sound of the flying icicles that surged through the air. 

"What!?" Kelly raised an eyebrow. 

"No time to explain!" I put up a quick Aural shield around us, deflecting five deadly-looking Aural ninja stars just in time. 

"You have magical lightning powers!" Kelly gasped. 

"Again, no time to explain!" I gritted my teeth, running up to Amanda, who was busy shooting powerful Aural blasts at Jade. However, she nimbly dodged them all. 

"We have to get behind the trees! It's our best chance of not getting hit!" Amanda asserted. Nodding, I grabbed Kelly's hand and followed her into a small patch of greenery. From there, I had a full view of the entire scene, and was mortified by the sheer number of Glitches who had fallen. Some were barely breathing. Most weren't breathing at all. 

How could she do something this horrific? 

"I've done worse." 

I whipped around at the sound of a very familiar taunting, singsong voice and was shocked at what I saw. It was Queen Saralee's voice. Coming out of my brother. Although this was the worst possible time for humor...it was actually pretty funny. 

"What are you doing here?" Amanda hissed. 

"I saw so much footage of this Program, perhaps humanity's greatest creation," Justin laughed. "I was fascinated by it. I just had to see it in person!" 

"Then why didn't you just come?" I rolled my eyes. 

"You mean bring my real body?" Justin sighed. "My real body is on a very tight schedule! Speeches, Council meetings, executive dinners, my niece's birthday parties, you name it! When I leave the planet, I always do it through a Code. It's better that way." 

"So you would just use a random person's body without even asking?" 

"Well, yeah. After all, the weak are born to be tools of the strong." 

"You're messed up." 

"I know." 

"Die, you murderous psycho!" I threw a bolt of Aura at Justin as hard as I could, but he quickly sidestepped it. 

"Better not attack me!" Justin laughed. "You'll just be wounding your brother, remember this is his body! Another advantage of traveling through a Code: no one can hurt you!" 

"You're infuriating," I spat. 

"I get that a lot," Justin shrugged innocently. "I need to go, the show's only just begun!" He flashed that freakishly insane grin you see in every horror movie before joyfully skipping away. 

"We need to protect the Glitches," I said, raising shields around me and preparing to venture back into the open. 

"No!" Amanda yelled, grabbing my arm. "You're far more important." 

"What's going on?" Kelly screamed, wrapping her arms around me and pressing her tear-stained face into the fabric of my shirt. 

"It's going to be okay, Kelly, everything's going to be okay. I promise," I whispered. "Now I need you to be brave and stay here for me, okay?" 

"Okay," she sniffled, sitting down with her back against a tree and her knees curled up to her chest. 

"I have to do this," I muttered to myself, strengthening my shields and walking out into the action, ignoring Amanda's protests. I may have been born an Iceheart, but the Glitches were my people now. It was my duty to defend them with everything I had. 

Gunshots resounded from the midst of the trees, and I watched as Ashley Solace fired round after round at Jade, unsuccessfully trying to get a clear shot. 

I shook my head, recalling something Amanda had once said to me. 

Trying to kill a Lessaenite with human weapons is like trying to kill a human with pebbles and twigs. 

Suddenly, Jade turned around, releasing a single icicle with a flick of her wrist. It hit home, with accuracy only an Iceheart or a Code could possess. I watched, speechless, as Ashley slumped against a tree. 

"You think you can win, you sorry excuses for intelligent life forms!?" Jade cackled. "Never! You are hanging on by the tiniest fiber of a thread, if you can even call this hanging on at all!" 

"Who are you calling a sorry excuse for an intelligent life form? Just having IQ's in the three hundreds doesn't make you an intelligent life form! You have to have love, empathy, and caring. You have stand together out of respect for each other, not out of fear of your ruler. You mock us, because you don't understand our greatness!" 

"You defend humanity so easily," Jade laughed. "You're forgetting you're a Lessaenite." 

"It's not what you're born to be that matters," I said. "It's what you become." 

"This is exactly what I was afraid of," Jade sighed. 

"You better be afraid!" I screamed, flinging a powerful Aural blast at Jade. She barely dodged it, groaning softly as she clutched her right elbow, which had been burnt. 

"Did that hurt?" I grinned triumphantly. "You're going to feel much worse!" 

"Actually, it didn't hurt at all," Jade shrugged. "It just hurt Jade's body. Don't get all confident, you're nowhere near ready to truly battle me in my real body. You only managed to do that because of the limitations of Code technology. Speaking of that, I'm tired of this Code." 

Jade raised an Aural icicle above her chest, and before I could stop her, she killed herself. Or rather, Saralee killed her. My eyes darted to the trees to see Justin about to do the same. 

Running over as fast as I possibly could, I grabbed the icicle out of his hands and pinned his arms behind his back. 

He slipped out of my grip with ease and pushed me up against a tree, forming a new icicle in his hand. 

"Well, hello, Viviana," he crooned in Saralee's voice, keeping me pressed to the tree with his knee. "I thought you'd be smart and stay away, but you weren't." 

He raised the icicle, holding it close to the point like a pencil, and imbued it with Aura before pressing it's flat end against my cheek. My entire face exploded with agony and I instinctively jerked away, fighting against the Aural restraints that kept me in place. As Justin rolled the icicle across my skin, I  gritted my teeth, trying my best to suppress the shriek. Finally, I couldn't control myself anymore, and I opened my mouth wide, letting out the most high-pitched, agonized sound I had ever produced in my life. 

"Shame on you, Vivi," Justin shook his head. "It takes way longer to make Tara scream like that. Way longer, and a lot more." 

"Stop!" I sobbed, squirming and kicking to no avail, as the fire moved down my body. The way Justin moved the icicle, slowly, carefully, and methodically, disgusted me. 

He did it like he was painting, like he was an artist. 

Justin lifted the icicle for a second, giving me immeasurable relief. 

"Torture is an art. You need skill, and practice. Lots, and lots of practice," he grinned crazily. 

"You're sick, you know that?" I turned away in disgust. 

"I do know that," Justin nodded. "I'm sick, evil, psychotic, messed up, and what are the other things people call me...let's see...ah! Sadistic, demonic, infernal, rotten." 

I stared at him in disbelief. However, Saralee seemed perfectly serious.

"You really are a psycho," I shook my head as I finally, blissfully began to lose consciousness from the pain.