He heard, then felt the sonic bullet hit him on the thigh and the next second-woah-he was flying. Alright, it wasn't the kind of flying he knew was simply impossible-he was, after all, flying backwards, straight into the window through which he had made Sarah escape. The ache of his thigh made his senses blurry and he couldn't even feel the pain of his back. It was if there had been some invisible bullet(well, there had been, to be exact) that had flown straight into his flesh, dug deep to touch his bone, then touch and make the assemblage of his leg bones irregular or something-as if his entire leg was collapsing. Maybe he screamed, maybe he cried, maybe he simply yelped, but the sure thing was, his hands grasped his thigh, but the tissues there simply wouldn't tell his brain that all was fine.
In an instant, he felt someone's else's fingers touch his shoulders and felt a sense of panic that Mark was now going to throttle and kill him as the last straw, if the sonic gun hadn't worked for the Prodigy. However, it was only Lyra and she hollered to him on something, but his ears couldn't catch up all the details.
Among all that pandemonium, he still managed to look up at the face of his harmer and found Mark Higgins looking down the hall, then himself and Lyra, on the floor, in a rage of panic. There wasn't a face of victory nor satisfaction, but remorse-maybe from attempting to kill a person who the generals themselves would have very much liked to kill by their own hands.
The pain beat inside him like a second heart, the next second, and Mars couldn't concentrate on his bloody enemy's face. "Your thigh bone broke, Al," He now, at least, could make out what Lyra was saying. And then, all of a sudden, some details of the livingroom bounced back into focus, while the others didn't. And Higgins' face was among those that got clearer, somehow.
The boy was biting his lip, hands empty-Alex found the sonic gun abandoned on the floor. The boy's eyes were darting once more down the hall when he managed to speak with a voice he thought his throat wasn't capable of having-it was all shaky and rough from the impact of the gunshot.
"Go. Get your soldiers, call Fawkes and Hale, then haul me away. As long as you don't take her-" He jutted his chin at Lyra Cannes. "-I'm fine to go. Doesn't matter, anyway-I'm completely useless bullshit now," He sighed and tried to push Lyra's hands away but found himself unable to push the other boy's eyes on him away.
"What?" He said, tired-tired of having to keep living life, having to have responsibilities, having to keep answering questions or solve them...
He found Higgins looking at him with more ferocity and decided to try to ignore Lyra's shocked face for now and turned to him, annoyed. Come on, why couldn't they all leave him in peace?
Mark Higgins let out a lengthy sigh through his nose and mouth at the same time before spilling the beans.
"You ain't, Alex Mars. You ain't completely useless bullshit," And you know what? The eyes of the original Mark during the first weeks of training were back.

"-Not that you're useful for the Military. You just simply ain't bullshit, I'm telling you," Then the guy squeezed his eyes shut, maybe realizing that the tiles beneath his feet were too hard to break through and dig his head into the hole like a frightened ostrich. And waiting for something.
Then,
"I'm fucking sorry for that, Alex Mars," He pointed a finger at the mess on the floor which name it had dubbed itself was 'completely useless bullshit Alex Mars'. "I didn't mean it. I know this sounds like one of those so common, lame excuses. But it's true, and no one on earth can do something to an already spitted-out word as you know. I kind of felt sorry for you after you left. Though you had allowed, I decided not to take your place as Sergeant, but all the generals finally chose me in the end. But it still felt wrong. As if I was in the wrong classroom or life or something..."It now all became a fast stream-no, a huge, quick waterfall-of hurried words, some mixing up, some just surprisingly fast while clear. "When are you gonna conclude?" It was 'completely useless bullshit Alex Mars' who cut in and Mark Higgins, who was in the middle of explaining something about how the generals had some conference and presented why Prodigies were villains in front of everyone, halted, and looked up, completely with deer-in-the-headlights eyes.
"Huh?"
"Finally, you've slowed down. Just give me a summary-I kind of need some aid here. if you don't want me to be 'completely useless bullshit Alex Mars', you must let me get some medical help or something, at least," He groaned on purpose, trying to downplay a sudden wave of relief and happiness that the army private Mark Higgins he had known all along was back.
Mark didn't even try to hide it and his face broke into this huge grin that must have made Fawkes' heart stop beating once he saw the situation-his sergeant grinning so wide at the entire Military's most ferocious and infamous enemy, the bullshit Prod Alex Mars.
"I never realized why they hated your kind so much, Alex, but just tried to keep up with their trend-hate you guys. But then, just now, I realized that hating your kind kinda made me the one aiding the Military in doing whatever it wanted. I'm stupid and slow, so I don't get all that's going on in my damned brain, but I know one thing for sure-I just don't wanna stick with the Military from now on," As the grand finale, the boy grimaced. "I'm confused, you see," he added. "Everything I know has just been turned onto a whole new, different side. Bullshit."
After his swearing ended a bit, they all just stood/sat/kneeled in silence that was somehow comfy and roomy.
Finally, Alex Mars spoke up.
"I'm in huge pain. Both mental and physical," He muttered, for he was in real agony, though quite pleased and proud at how things were turning out between him and Mark. Lyra instantly got up on her feet and pulled him onto his feet(alright, only one foot, to be exact) also and made him hobble across the livingroom.
"So what are you going to do?" He finally faced Mark on his true height, a few centimeters taller than the other.
"I'm not sure-"
"There's no such 'not sure's today, Mark Higgins. You follow me and her, or, go find your brainwashed army privates and tattletale your meeting with us," Well, he tried to sound hard and unimpressed once more, and how much he tried! But 'trying' doesn't simply mean 'succeeding' and obviously, from the reaction of Mark, he had definitely failed.
"The prior one, for now," Higgins answered.
So the three all walked/hobbled to the front door to the Tesla, with Mark Higgins, who had been an army sergeant with a dozen of army privates beneath his rank just as he had entered the house, now a man of free will and liberty after a single talk that involved the shooting of his sonic gun with a Prodigy he had had on his mind for months until that day.

They were opening the door of the car when Lyra hopped up as if electrified. "Jesus on a cloud, where is Sarah?" "I sent her out of the house before the army privates could see her," Mars had meant it in order to comfort her, but then, realized that it had actually made her panic even more. "They could have gotten her by now, Al!" She hissed.
Alex ignored the curious glance that Mark Higgins threw at him and opened the Tesla and got in the driver's seat. "Get in. We'll find her. There's little reason Sarah would be lost, for even if Mark's privates found her, they would report to him and let him do whatever he wants. Am I correct, Mark?" "Well, there's a possibility they would report directly to gener-I mean, Fawkes or Hale," "Then immediately contact them to forget your previous orders and-" Mark nudged the door and leaned on the frame of the car, confused like hell. "What are you... wait. Do you have some plan in mind?" Though his ears didn't tell him that a turned on CCTV camera was staring at them, Alex Mars knew they had to be cautious as much as possible.
"Get. In. The. Car. I'll tell you," His words finally shut his companions up and they both trotted onto the individual sides of the car and got in.
"Good. Now, listen," He turned himself around in his seat and just as in those military battle movies, the other two leaned toward him as if ready to discuss on army strategies.
And they were going to do just that.

"Mark, you're gonna pretend with as much power as possible to act like you just met an old, junior-high super-enemy, which is me. If your damned soldiers manage to say that they have recognized my features or heard you call me as the Alex Mars, just threaten them with a gun that you'd kill'em if they tattletale to any of those freakin' bitches dubbed generals. Just act normal and calm in front of those bitches. Meanwhile, me and Lyra are going to find the Martyr, whom I bet you haven't even heard a teeny weeny bit of info on. If we succeed in doing that, we're going to gather some supplies up and wait, then fake the Military into believing that they won," "Shit, shit, shit, woah, woah, woah. Why should we do that?" Mark hollered. "Huh?" "I mean, the last part, Mars," "We're going to wait for the moment when they are at their weakest, Mark. I think that you learned those kinds of tactics before, didn't you?" With those words, Higgins looked away frowning. "We didn't," he muttered. "That only proves that this country's Military is complete shit and a pile of ass. Well, that's the end of the plan. Any questions?" Mars rapped the words out so quickly that the other two recovered a second later.
"No,"
"Well, somehow, I do, Alex," It was Cannes who said that and Alex Mars noted that she had called him 'Alex' instead of by his usual nickname and immortally knew that something was on her mind.
"Spill your beans," He said, but Lyra nudged Mark Higgins with her eyeballs for 2 seconds to the extent that only Mark himself wouldn't notice.
So she wanted him to only hear. Well, that's fine for me, Mars thought before getting out of the car.
"Where the heck are you going?" Higgins yelped, suddenly terrified at the idea that the two prodigies who had managed to get him onto their team were now abandoning him. He hasn't improved much-still has a lack of trust and intellectual, Mars was thinking as his mouth replied back as normal as possible. "Just let your butt idle there just for a few minutes-me and Lyra will be back soon. We'll be near the car. Do NOT get anywhere with the Tesla, Mark," His mouth added, just in case Mark Higgins got some ideas and drove away on his own.
He found Lyra already out and waiting for him at the tail of the Tesla and quickly estimated if Mark would be able to hear. Though one of the windows-the driver's seat one-was broken and sound would be easy to pass through it into the interior, Mark wouldn't hear their talk only if they talked low.
Lyra seemed to have come to the same conclusion at the same time, for her eyes twitched to the back window to stare at the back of the head of Mark, which showed her some black, gelled hair.
"What's it?" Mars asked first, a low mutter.
Lyra paused and passed her hesitation by just giving the black hair one last, and dark, look.
"You trust him, Al?" She finally said, barely over a whisper, maybe because she knew he would hear her, nonetheless.
"We have to trust and see, Lyra. I saw plenty of hesitation and regret in his eyes," He answered right away.
"Brutus killed his own step-uncle. The Baek-Jae kingdom was betrayed by its decades-old ally, the Shin-la kingdom in the old Korean peninsula. And I'm not telling you this for nothing. I'm worried for you, Alex. He shot you in the leg, and though you're somehow persevering its impact, he still did it. I just don't want to lose another person so near to me, you know,"
She had been brave-brave to spit out her entire sentence, instead of breaking somewhere in the middle. She now had closed her eyes and was taking some laborious breathes as if she only had a few breathes left in her life, and it kind of hurt Mars' heart to see it. He didn't know the reason, but it simply did, and even he himself could do nothing about that fact.
"I would never let myself be killed in that way. Never, ever. But look, Lyra. Having Mark as an ally can be useful to us. We can end the Revolution less bloodily, Lyra. Trust me. And I am a Prodigy. Just like how the sonic gun didn't kill me, I'll survive. Don't worry. Anyway. Let's just start the plan and find Sarah. You should never lose her," he desperately replied and sighed mentally in relief as she opened her eyes and glistening eyes. "That's the spirit. Let's go," he said before adding, "Trust Al Mars." That somehow made her pull her lips up a few millimeters and they both walked/dragged themselves back to the car's front.
Higgins watched them with alert and curious eyes as Mars collapsed onto the seat.
"If you're gonna take me, seems as if the plan needs to be started as soon as possible. She needs her sister. And you need a fine leg," He commented as Mars brought the Tesla to life. "Her name's Lyra. Don't plan to utilize nor slip her name during your acting performance inside the Military, Mark. Trust me," Now, he drove them smoothly down the road, with each running second and running gas, getting further from his home. Though he felt some sudden wave of nostalgia, greater than that was the relief at how well the Martyr was caring for his parents.
The interior of the car lapsed into a strange sort of silence as it sped down the road, all 6 eyeballs inside looking for any signs of the army privates that Mark-the-previous-sergeant had sent out to search the town.
"Um, I'm kind of worried-of acting," Mark murmured as they kept speeding along the sidewalk.
"It's a very obvious phenomenon and a no-brainer. But when it's simply too difficult to even hold inside your brain, just think that you're a Prodigy. That you have to survive the Military, undetected of your true identity. Then acting would be so easy," Mars replied. "What abilities would I have if I really was a Prod?" Mark didn't catch on with the situation and simply continued to throw some questions without answers. "Telekinesis," Lyra opened her mouth for the first time in order to reply to Mark and the other boys all turned to stare at her, agape, for a second, before turning back to their own businesses.
"By the way, that doesn't exist, Lyra. But why-?" "Oh, Mark ain't a real Prodigy. Thus, he can be anything he wants, huh?" She refuted as if she had prepared for a steamy debate, and the other boys couldn't refute her even this time.
So they were still shooting down the deserted roads until they saw a lone soldier patrolling a dirty street of low, old houses with a gun strapped tightly into his hand and head turning here and there, anxious. Luckily, the guy seemed to be a new recruit or something, instead of the other colleagues Alex Mars had trained with, so Mars didn't have any reason to start hyperventilating and feel a pang of fury.
"Get off, Mark," He said in a tone that made the otherwise offensive words seem kind and pleasing. He halted the car behind a concrete building, only a block away from the army private, trying to make the tires create as little sound as possible.
"And I will," Higgins too-obviously gulped before stiffening his shoulders into a Military posture.
"You are a Prodigy. Act like one, at least," Alex Mars added.
"You have telekinesis. Act as if you can do anything to anything-or, anyone," Lyra Cannes reminded.
After a solid minute of nodding, Higgins opened the door and exited, to act like a Prod with telekinesis for the first time in his life.