Recoil

Amy dashed through the corridors and weaved through students to catch up with Cassie. She caught a glimpse of her walking up to the female dorm entrance through a window and powered down the stairs. Two more turns and a door later, she was bursting into the female dorm.

Two students were now getting off the lift so Amy chose to take the stairs once again and speedily walked down the corridor to their room. Amy opened the door to find Cassie packing up all her things into two backpacks with loads of buttons on the straps. One had a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it while another had the Roman Colosseum.

"Why are you in such a rush? We've got the whole day to pack." mumbled Cassie. As saddening as getting expelled was, Cassie didn't care much as she knew in a few days the government would come along and shut down the school anyway.

Amy stopped Cassie from packing by grabbing her shoulders and spinning her so that they were face to face.

"Don't worry about packing. I spoke to Cynthinia as she's agreed to look into the authenticity of the statements and we aren't expelled until some evidence says otherwise!" exclaimed Amy.

"So ... does that mean ... 'The Crusaders' are finally going to be punished?!" said Cassie going white from shock. The colour quickly returned to her face she hugged Amy tightly and the two of they giddily celebrated the turn of events.

The next few days were quite busy for Cassie and Amy. After more and more evidence against 'The Crusaders' came to light it was announced that there would be a court case to decide the sentencing of those involved in the crimes against Cassie. First was 'The Crusaders' members who each received 40 years prison sentence for repeat assault with malicious intent while those who lied about their statements were not charged after it was found they were threatened by 'The Crusaders' who then gained an extra 5 years. Cassie and Amy kept their places at school.

With two days of free ability use remaining all students were allowed to return home or stay at the school to make the most of their abilities. Amy and Cassie were sat on top of the female dorm in Cassie's tent looking over the forest and fields.

"Hey, I wanted to apologise." said Cassie out of nowhere. Amy looked at her with a confused expression.

"What for?" she replied. Amy put an arm around Cassie and pulled her close to give her some reassurance.

"I'm sorry to saying you don't belong here without an ability. You have just as much right to be here as me. Too bad we won't have them long enough to find out what your ability is."

"Yeah, but for now I don't think that's worth thinking about. We've had fun while it lasted. But..."

"But what?" Cassie sat and turned to face Amy who brought her knees up and slouched over.

"Doctor Howard. You said that he wanted to steal Cynthinia's child and sell it. But when is he? He'll have to do it soon because the government can easily track his energy and find him unless he wears one of the bracelets. And with it on he's no match for Cynthinia."

"I think you're thinking about that too much." said Luke as he climbed up onto the roof. He walked up to them and sat close by. He was now wearing some neural inhibitors to stop his brain work working too hard so it could recover better. It was like some hearing aids but made his hearing worse if anything.

"How have you been feeling lately?" asked Cassie.

"Eh. My memory hasn't been the greatest and my eyesight has he been deteriorating." said Luke.

"Deteriorating? But you're ... OH!" Amy burst out laughing at her inability to understand the joke at first and the other two joined her.

Meanwhile, Cynthinia and William were sitting in a small playroom behind Cynthinia's office with their tiny little baby aged just 10 months. It's hair was a bright blonde and it's eyes were fiery red. To most it seemed the child didn't share any resemblance with it's father other than it's ability. Discovered at an alarmingly young age, the child was able to slightly manipulate fire AND water as well as emit steam from it's skin every now and then when it sneezed. The child was called Maddison but most people shortened it to Maddi when trying to pry it's attention off an orange or apple that caught it's eye.

"So what are you're thoughts then?" asked William sitting on the floor playing a toy piano with Maddison.

"Well, if what Cassie said was true then Maddison is at risk. We can't keep them here and protect them without our abilities. Our best chance is moving them to the realm of the gods and raising them there." proposed Cynthinia.

"You know why we can't-"

"YES, depriving them of a normal childhood is bad for growth but letting them get taking and sold to who knows who is the last thing you need for a normal childhood. At least raising them in the realm of the gods would mean she's in the right environment for her heritage."

"Look, we decided not to refer to them by any specific gender because YOU thought it wasn't right to call them by a gender they hadn't chosen to identify as. That's a big decision. So it's at least fair that I should get a higher priority on what we do to keep them safe. And I say we just move to another country under the radar and hope they don't track us until we're able to protect her without abilities."

Cynthinia went to speak but a high pitch beeping cut her off. It seemed to be coming from the door so Cynthinia went to check. She put her ear closer to the door and froze.

"GET DOWN!!" she yelled as she dove onto Maddison and William. The door was then blasted off it's hinges and shrapnel shot out like missiles at them. Doctor Howard stepped into the room holding a large futuristic-looking rifle. It was long with many discs around the barrel that spun freely.

"Well, I guess that mole DID get the information we needed." said Doctor Howard and he pulled the trigger on the gun. The disks spun up to an immeasurable speed and out of the barrel came a projectile of red light that looked like a stretched out raindrop. The projectile hit the wall and blasted a large hole in it.

"Hand over the child!" shouted Doctor Howard.