The colour and joy that had been in the hall just moments ago - was it minutes? Hours? I couldn't be sure - had gone. The music had stopped. The dancing had stopped. There was near silence.

"Rainbow!" I heard someone shout. It was Sam. The crowd jostled about as he tried to run forward, but just as he broke free of the throng I saw Motus raise a hand. Sam was lifted into the air a few feet off the ground, before she dropped him - hard. He lay groaning, and a few people moved towards him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Khepri's voice boomed, echoing in the great vastness of the hall. "We do not wish to harm any of you, as long as you do not wish to harm us. I'm sure your two lovely professors here" He put an arm out towards Motus and Moñento "have told you exactly who I am - so I'll skip the introductions shall I?"

There was a light murmer around the hall. I was feeling weak, not wanting to lift my head to try and find my friends. I didn't want them to see me this way.

Unfortunately Khepri didn't care.

"You will recognise here Miss Rainbow Arcus - one of your own, and one who has already chosen her path." He walked towards me, grabbing my hair and pulling my head up to look directly at the sea of terrified faces. "I gave her a choice, as I will give all of you - join us and live in my new world, or stay here and rot in your old one. Unfortunately Miss Arcus remains blind to the opportunity that awaits her and all of you in the new dawn." Suddenly Khepri's followers all sang at once.

"Hail Khepri! Hail the new dawn!" A smirk danced across his face.

"Lothar!" Shouted a voice from across the hall. The smirk vanished. Professor Fulmen was standing at the doors to the hall. His frail frame didn't fit the booming voice that had just come out of it. Khepri let go of me instantly and started to strut lazily towards the headmaster, swaggering down the stairs of the platform we were all stood on.

"My my little Zeus! How you've grown!"

"What is the meaning of this Adam. When I banished you from this School I meant it when I said you should neve come back." His voice was level but menacing. Khepri kept the arrogance in his stride.

"Ah you know me, always been one to break rules. And manners, Professor, we should always use the names people prefer - neither Adam, nor Lothar Wycaster are names with which I associate myself."

"You're Lothar Wycaster?" came a voice from the crowd. A voice I recognised as Holly's. Holly had been interested in Lothar's story too, as soon as I told her about it.

"And who do I have the pleasure of speaking to?" grinned Khepri, turning to the crowd. There was a moment of silence, before Holly stepped forward.

"Holly Browning." I could tell she was trying to look supreme - the way she often did when Joe was around - but I could see a little bit of fear in her face too.

"Browning...Browning...not a name I know I'm afraid, and I know a lot of the old families."

"My Father was human - I'm the first known mutant of my name."

I expected an explosion - Khepri hated humans that much was clear, and so he was sure to hate Holly for her parentage. Instead, his face remained the same.

"Interesting. And you are a first year here Miss Browning?"

"Adam I forbid you to speak to my studen..." Fulmen had started, but his words seemed to catch in his throat. It was clear from Motus' out stretched hand and cruel snarl that she had done something. Fulmen put a hand to his throat, but his face remained as calm as it could. Cries of outrage came from a circle on the outside of the throng I hadn't noticed - all of the teachers, rounded up like cattle. Motus was guarding them, along with one of the other strangers I'd noticed in the hall before. How has they all got in here without raising suspicion? Motus had clearly pulled a hood over Fulmen's eyes. And now she was taking the words from his mouth.

"Traitor!"

"Outrageous!"

"Regina stop!"

I saw Professor Di Caval try to kick Motus with his front legs, but before he could strike the other stranger spat towards him, a liquid that caused Di Caval to cry out in pain, and nearly take out half of the faculty. An acid generator. He shouted something in Italian, a word I'd never heard but could guess didn't mean something nice.

"I think that's enough! All of you!" Khepri's voice was like magic, it made anyone pay attention instantly. I wondered if that was another affinity he had stolen, just like he stole my Fathers. I burned inside.

"You too Regina." Motus released the headmaster begrudingly.

"Now now, let's not all get so over-excited. As I have said - we don't want to harm any of you. You must realise this - as your dear Professor Moñento discovered under our care. She is one of us now, and no harm has come to her for it."

I looked at Moñento properly for the first time. She looked as perfect as ever, but I thought I could see something else in her eyes. She glanced over at me for half a secon every now and then - like a twitch. If only she would look straight at me.

"As I have said - you all have a choice." Khepri continued. The Hall was so silent, he barely had to raise his voice. But he did anyway. "Come with us, and live as Mutants - no more, hiding from your powers or hiding them from others. You don't need to be controlled, we don't need to be controlled, we were all born with a gift - so isn't it our right to use it? Join our fight for freedom from human rules and sanctions. You all may think you're free to be yourselves here - but why are you here at all? To keep you seperate from the humans. This isn't a place of freedom - this is a cage."

"Adam you've gone too far." Fulmen spoke levelly, but his eyes betrayed him.

"These kids need to know - old man. They need to know why they're really here."

"They're here for education, for training, for protection."

"Protection?! Is that really what you're telling them, wow Zeusy you really have gone a little cuckoo with your old age haven't you." Khepri laughed. I saw the circle of teachers, teeming with angry faces.

"You're older than me Adam, and still clinging onto dreams of a war long dead. I was there last time too, just a boy no older than these students you see around you. I would do anything to stop them facing the horrors I saw." As Khepri laughed again, I noticed a little streak of dark spilling into the grey of the headmasters hair.

"That's not the war I cling to old man. I cling to the war that's been waiting to be fought, ever since the word 'mutant' was born. As soon as we were named, we were cast into our two armies. And now it's time to rally the troops!" His charisma was astounding, but he blinded even himself. He hadn't watched Fulmen's hair grow dark, his wrinkles fade, and his back straighten as the energy crackled from his fingertips.

"No!" Cried Motus, but it was too late. Fulmen clapped his hands together and wrenched them apart, revealing a blue ball crackling with electricity. As Khepri turned around he hurled it head on.

"NOW!" Came a voice from behind me - Professor Holiday jumped out from behind one of the statues and stuck something in the back of whichever Avian was on my right. He collapsed screeching, and as I looked to my left I realised that must have been Hawk, because Eagle was now in fact an eagle, and has raised his claws sharp towards Professor Holiday's face. There was a screech, and Eagle was taken down by something fast that flew straight into him. Another bird, with bright yellow eyes. Professor Avis. I felt someone take my hand and looked straight into the eyes of Professor Moñento.

"Run." she said. But her eyes said more. I didn't need telling twice.

The rest of the students were already running too, up the stairs and out of the main doors. I glanced over my shoulder to see Professor Di Caval pinning down the acid generator with his hooves, the rest of the teachers - including Moñento - were aiding the students escape or helping protect Holiday and Avis. Dr Owens had trapped a now transformed Hawk and Eagle in a small tornado, their wings unable to fly them away from the current. I saw Professor Aller grab an injured Professor Holiday, and teleport her away.

Khepri lay unconscious, red lines in the shape of lightening bolts tattooed his face, and I guessed the rest of his body too. Motus stood between him and Fulmen, whose hair was greying once again. Her arms were raised, and her face wasn't snarling anymore. She was wide eyed, almost pleading.

"Regina, please."

"He only wants the best for us all Alfred, don't stand in his way and we could all be living in a better world, you know you want what's best for the school for the students."

"And that is not him Regina. He is a mad man, plagued by ill treatment and torture which he only wants to inflict in others. This man is not to be bargained with, I tried that once. He must be destroyed."

"I won't let you!" She screamed. But then I noticed Khepri's left arm was twitching. The scars on his face were fading. His eyes snapped open.

"Watch out!" I screamed, and ran towards them, and then everything seemed to go into slow motion.

Fulmen produced another electric ball, but Khepri was already standing up. I watched him run two steps forward and catch Motus who was fleeing to the left, just as the ball of electricity reached critical size. Khepri pulled Motus infront of him and she screamed as Fulmen sent the lightning towards them. It exploded in a fury of light and noise, crackles drowning out the scream.

And after it faded, Khepri stood grinning. Motus lay dead, her body burnt and tattooed with lightning marks. Her eyes were open - but they were colder and greyer than ever. Nothing lay beneath them.

Fulmen collapsed, and Moñento rushed over to him.

"Sana! So eager to abandon your commander?"

"You were never my commander." Her voice was dark and cold, her eyes even more so. "You killed my husband - I could never forgive you for that."

Khepri shrugged. "Then you have chosen the side of the weak - where you clearly belong."

The room was silent again after the explosion, and most of the students hadn't managed to leave, but stood frozen on the side. Khepri looked at them all. Eagle and Hawk and the acid generator had escaped their captors too, and joined Khepri.

"You see what you stand up against if you fight us? You rally behind a weak old man who cannot protect you. You are not safe here. You are safe with us. Join me - if you are not content to stand behind a weakling."

There was a gasp as someone stood forward. It was Theo Baldwin.

"I wish to join you." He said, his chin high. "You're right, Fulmen is a weak old man with old values. There's nothing I can learn here I can't learn ten times better on a battlefield." I saw Cassie step forward too - but she simply tried to grab Theo back. He pushed her off. "Stay here if you want to rot Cass - I want to fight." Cassie looked wounded, I'd never seen her look so vulnerable, so defeated. Even the great Cassandra Logan could be silenced. Khepri laughed.

"Welcome then - to NMRG, to the New Dawn."

"Four men and a boy?" Snarled Professor Di Caval. "You can't lead a revolution with four men and a boy, you are insanse."

"There are more of us than any of you realise - our numbers grow stronger each day. Underneath the city we sleep and we wait for the sunrise - for the new dawn. Hundreds, pony."

Di Caval looked like he was about to kick Khepri's face in, but something stopped him. It was clear that he was untouchable. Khepri looked at the rest of the students, but there was no movement.

"Look around you. Who can protect you? You're a bunch of children. But we can teach you to protect yourselves." A few more people stepped forward. The teachers said nothing. I could see Fulmen staring blankly down. He looked as drained as I felt. Khepri seemed to have that effect on people.

"There's a new world waiting out there, and if you want a piece of it, now is the time to leave all those who don't care for you behind."

"Holly no!" I heard a shout. It was Amber - Holly had stepped forward. Amber grabbed her shoulder but she pushed her away violently. "No Amber. I want to fight for something real for a change. There's nothing left for me here." She looked at Joe. I willed him to grab her back, kiss her, tell her she couldn't leave because he loved her. But he stood frozen, as Holly walked to join Khepri. Amber was crying, the tears streaming down her pretty pink face.

"Those of you electing to remain here - we will not harm you, as promised. But the war is coming, your gallant headmaster knows it as well as I do, and once it begins, not one of you will stand in our way. Well, not for long anyway." He smirked, then Khepri, Eagle, Hawk, the acid generator and all the new recruits winked out of existence in a glow of light.

There was a collective gasp from the hall, then suddenly noise broke out from everywhere, as if Khepri had taken the silence with him. I remained still, trying to take in all that had just happened. Amber was breaking down with Kat curled around her, Joe was stood completely still too, but he didn't look at me. He stared transfixed at the spot where Holly had stood just seconds ago. Moñento had handed Fulmen over to Eldrin and Avis, while Di Caval tried to get everyones attention. I watched as Moñento walked over to Motus' body. She knelt down and closed her eyes. I watched tears falling from her own. A hand touched my shoulder.

"Rainbow?"

It was Sam. I collapsed into his arms. There was nothing left in me.

Khepri had killed my parents, taken over my mind, and stolen one of my best friends.

The spark inside me wasn't a spark anymore. It had ignited, and now I felt the blaze.

He would be back. And so would I.

***

RAINBOW AND THE ACADEMY WILL RETURN IN THE SECOND MUTANT ACADEMY NOVEL: BLAZE