A Bitter Thought

'It's my birthday,' Null thought. A strange thought. He wasn't sure why he was so certain today was his birthday, as they didn't have access to calendars or anything similar to tell the date. He wasn't even sure how old he was now, because this was the first time this had happened. Judging by his height, he had to be at least sixteen. It was a bitter thought, not knowing how many years the Advanced had taken from them. 'I suppose a cake would be expecting too much.' That didn't matter, though. Fate studied his door, looking for weaknesses.

Apollo would give them all the greatest gift they could ask for.

It was night, and the facility had shut off the lights inside their rooms, casting them all into the dark. They had all used their telekinesis to jiggle open the locks in their doors. Before that was the tricky part of disabling the alarm before it activated. Once they had done that, they all snuck into Apollo's room to hear his plan. The plan that sounded too good to be true.

"Surprisingly, the day is when the security is the lowest," Apollo was explaining. "From the scouting I managed to do, there's at least quadruple the guards during the night as there is during the day. I'm certain that this is because we're under constant supervision for most of the day. So, what I'm thinking is we take advantage of this during their next," his face adopted an expression of pure disgust, "*experiment*."

"Even with our psychic powers, we can't break through the doors. They made them for that exact reason," Hera chimed. "How do we get through the doors?"

"That's where Ares comes in. His Prodigy ability should allow him to open the door by worming around in its circuits." Apollo turned to Ares. "Think you can do it?"

"I have no doubt in my mind that those doors are several times harder to unlock than the ones to our cells, but I'm sure that I can figure it out."

"Good. Hades and Hercules should be more than capable of taking out the guards, and Null can scout ahead to warn us of anything dangerous."

"And what will you be doing?" asked Hades.

Apollo smiled. "Me? I'm the distraction."

In another blank white room, devoid of any decoration and a mile long, the five teenagers stood at attention. A scientist walked in, pointed at Hercules, then at the large metal block on the floor. "Lift this," he said, "and throw it as far as you can." Hercules complied, chunking it three-quarters down the room. The scientist nodded, writing something on his notepad. "Interesting. Your telekinesis's prowess has gone up again. It seems that your powers grow as you do, meaning it should peak at your prime, around twenty-five years of age. A shame that we'll have to wait another eleven years for one of you to reach that age, but we have all the time in the world. Now," the scientist pulled a remote out of his lab coat and pressed a button on it. With a *vrrrrrrm*, the floor at the halfway mark of the room slid into the sides, and a platform came up.

On this platform were seven Fildenen, clothed in rags and chained to the platform by their ankles. The scientist looked at them with visible contempt and disgust, before turning to Hercules. "Kill them. As many at once as you can." Hercules nodded and started walking forward, but was stopped by a harsh "NO." She looked at the scientist, who pointed at a line on the floor. "Do it from here." She walked over to the line, looking dead ahead at the Fildenen. "Now, Proceed. And if you don't kill them all at the same time, none of you get dinn—" The scientist was thrown against the wall, an audible *crack* resounding as his neck and several other bones were broken. His lifeless body slumped to the ground, neck lolling and limbs protruding at angles normally impossible.

The group waited for the alarm to sound. It didn't. "Looks like you did good on the cameras, Tom," Apollo said in a low voice. "Let's go. They'll come to check on them soon. We need to be out of here by then." They left the room, Tom disabling any cameras they passed along the way. When they were at an intersection of hallways, Apollo said "Alright, we part ways here. I'll try to buy you five minutes. After that, I'm taking off. If I don't make it, go on without me."

The group nodded. Hera gave Apollo a tight hug, and then they all broke out into a run, going their respective ways. Behind them, they heard a loud, drawn-out yell from Apollo, intended to attract attention. Null kept running, the other members right behind him.

Apollo rushed into the cafeteria, several guards hot on his heels. When he made it in, he jumped on a table and started using his telekinesis to fling cups, plates, and silverware at them. It didn't do much, everything bouncing off their armor. Of course, their laser guns did the same against his telekinesis barrier. His Prodigy ability allowed him to strengthen any barriers he made, allowing them to take much stronger hits. He could even filter things like radiation and toxic gases out of the air, making him a walking fortress. Using this advantage, he grabbed a steak knife from the table and ran at a guard, stabbing him through his chin before pulling the knife out and stabbing another in the eye. He dropped the knife and picked up the laser rifle the last guard dropped and aimed it at yet another guard, only for it to explode when he pulled the trigger. The explosion shattered his barrier, blowing a finger off and charring his hands. He winced, then hurriedly threw his barrier up as the other guards continued to shoot at him. 'Explosions go through, got it.' The Advanced probably put some kind of fingerprint recognition software into the guns. He picked up the dropped steak knife and ran at the survivors.