Her eyes opened immediately. “Brian?”

“Someone’s coming.”

Sera listened to the footsteps for a moment, and then set about waking the others. Brian heard the footsteps pause, unintelligible words just outside, and then the door slid open. A dozen of Zator’s soldiers entered the chamber; ten paused just inside while two others continued forward. One stationed himself at the door itself, aiming his laser at Brian. The other moved to the edge of the cell arch to a keypad. The musical sequence that would open the cell was not one Brian recognized, but he realized that the codes would have certainly changed at least once in the last year. A double beep indicated the cell door was unlocked. The pair of guards entered the cell and leveled their lasers at the group.

“On your feet,” the first demanded in a heavily accented voice.

Brian contemplated trying to escape, but the idea was quickly tossed aside. With that many guns waiting, it would be safer to do as told.

“All of you.”

He turned to his companions in surprise. There was a slight hesitation before they rose. Brian began to head over to help Howie get Kevin to his feet, but one soldier stepped closer to him.

“Out of the cell.”

“Why do you want all of us?” Brian asked.

“No questions,” the soldier snapped. “Out.”

With a glance at the others, Brian stepped outside the cell and felt a small flicker of freedom upon leaving. But the feeling was short-lived when two more soldiers seized him by the arms and began leading him to the corridor. He put every effort into resisting, pressing his feet into the ground, struggling against the hard grip on his arms. But they only held tighter and nearly forced him to his knees.

“You will live longer if you don’t struggle.”

Brian froze as the memory came forward of Kael saying something similar to his friends. He’d been so cold, heartless. He was jerked back to the present as he was forced into the corridor. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the others being led out of the cell.

“Where are you taking them?” he demanded.

“The Emperor has decreed that they will watch the fight.”

Brian’s eyes widened. Make them watch? What if he lost the fight? Mentally, he shook himself. No, he couldn’t think like that. He had to win the battle. If he were killed, the others would die too. He couldn’t let that happen. Brian would show all of them that Kael was truly dead, and he would only serve Good. Yet, as he was led away, an uncomfortable feeling wedged itself in his chest and wouldn’t leave. And it had nothing to do with his injuries.

The soldiers escorted him into a lift. “Fourth level,” came the command.

Fourth level… Brian struggled to remember what was held on the fourth level of this ship; he couldn’t. Reluctantly, he waited until the lift stopped and he could see what the immediate future held for him. The lift door hissed open, and Brian gasped at the sight that greeted him. It was the training room he’d used a year ago. Without a word, he was shoved inside. He couldn’t get his feet under him in time and fell. As soon as he picked himself up, an object was thrust into his hand.

“My amulet?”

Zator’s voice filled the room. “I would not allow Kael to be defenseless as he fights his final battle.”

Brian rolled his eyes as he slipped the amulet around his neck. “It won’t be my final battle and I’m not Kael. Who am I supposed to be fighting anyway?”

A door on the other side slid open and his opponent stepped through. Brian’s eyes widened.

“Nick?” He looked around. “What makes you think I’m going to fight Nick?” he demanded.

“Your so-called loyalty to those Human friends of yours,” Zator’s voice replied. “You want to keep them alive? You’ll fight.”

Without another word, the lighting changed to battle-ready. Brian groaned and looked over at his friend. Nick activated his amulet and drew a sword immediately. Brian rolled his eyes and changed to Top Speed. Nick sneered and scoffed at him, then lunged. With no time to think, Brian leaped up and over Nick. As he started to twist in mid-air, a sharp pain lanced through his left leg. He hit the floor, but his feet gave way and he went down. Looking at his leg, he gasped upon seeing a long, thankfully shallow, gash from his knee around to mid-calf. He whipped his gaze to Nick, standing there with sword in hand and an unbelievably amused smirk on his face.

Nick lunged again. Brian dodged to the side, but he wasn’t as fast as he could have been with his amulet because of the injury. He formed an energy ball that wasn’t very strong—he didn’t want to hurt Nick—and threw it at his friend. It missed. The combatants went at each other, engaging in a fight that never should have been. Although Brian didn't want to hurt Nick, the other man was attacking with a viciousness that was alarming. His eyes... they were empty, hollow. Nick seemed to be a shell, a robot without a soul. One that was determined to win the battle at any cost.

Brian felt a sharp coldness on his right cheek and blinked in surprise. A quick touch... his hand came away with red. He'd been cut! Nick had moved so fast that he'd never seen the blade. The Nick he knew would never- But that was it. This man, this... shell... wasn't Nick. What had Zator done? He dodged a series of throwing stars, barely able to miss the deadly projectiles. He knew that he could only keep up defenses for so long. Already his movement was impaired by the earlier leg injury. He tried to call to Nick, to his true self, and encourage him to fight against whatever had been done. But his words fell on deaf ears. Nick's blank expression sent a chill through him, and he knew he had to act. He couldn't let his best friend kill him, mind control or not. If the real Nick was in there, he would never be able to live with the horror and guilt. There was only one thing to do.

Brian geared up to full power and created a series of brilliant power balls. One after another, he flung them at Nick. Although the Ninja evaded the first four, the fifth and sixth hit dead-on. He was slammed up against the wall; and although Brian knew that it must have conjured an immense amount of pain, Nick never cried out. Whatever Zator had done, the control was complete. Grimly, Brian continued. Stunning his opponent with more blasts, he moved closer as the other man struggled to keep on his feet. When Brian got within reaching distance, he changed tactics and slammed a punch to Nick's jaw, finally rendering him unconscious. He knelt quickly and checked vitals. Nick was deeply unconscious, but stable.

A door hissed open from somewhere behind Brian. He froze, waiting. He heard laughter, cold and cruel, amused at what had been done.

"Well done, Kael. I didn't think you'd have it in you."

"What did you do to him?" Brian demanded, not moving from his friend's side.

Zator chuckled, sending a twinge of nauseated disgust into Brian's stomach. "I knew none of you would willingly fight your friends. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. Face me, Kael."

Brian swallowed. There was that tone. That "you'll regret it if you don't do what I say" tone of voice. One of the many reasons why he'd been so easily bent to Zator's will.

As he stood, Brian asked, "Do you plan on keeping your end of the deal?"

“What deal?"

Brian bristled. He'd known all along that this was how it would be. "If I won, you'd set all of us free and let us take the amulets." He turned to face the evil emperor. "I won the battle, even though I didn't want to fight. Let us all go, free Nick from whatever spell you've got him under, and give us the amulets!"

"Very well. Take the amulets and leave." He grinned. "Although I doubt you will get very far before you die."

Brian stepped back. "What?"

Zator moved closer. "None of this would have happened if it hadn't been for you, Kael. You've caused us all unnecessary trouble; me, these Human friends of yours, your wife and child!"

"You leave them out of this!" Brian demanded.

"If you had made different choices, all of these people could have had a better life. You have caused us all much grief." He leaped closer. Brian tried to dodge, but even with his powers Zator was too fast for him. The emperor grabbed his arm, whipped him around and bent down to his ear. "Now, you are going to pay for all the grief you’ve caused."

Before Brian could react, he felt something press into his back, right where his heart was. He felt a sharp, quick pain and realized too late that something was being injected into his body. His head began to swim. He felt his body hit the floor; whether he had been thrown or if he simply fell, he wasn't sure. It was getting hard to breathe.

~~

Zator watched the young man sink to the floor. "I see you're feeling the effects of the elixir already. Well, I can promise you that it will only get worse. Pain like you cannot imagine... disorientation, confusion... and lastly, death. You're lucky, not many ever receive my most favored poison."

Gasping for breath, the human looked up at him. Zator chuckled, seeing him pale. Kael tried to swallow, winced and looked away. The chuckle turned to a laugh. "I doubt your human companions will have much sympathy over your death." Kael looked up at him again. "I was told that the man that calls himself your cousin rejected you, said you were dead."

Blue eyes widened. "No," he rasped. "It's not true."

Zator just laughed and turned to leave. "Ask him yourself."

~~

Brian clenched his jaw as a wave of pain hit him. He felt a touch on his shoulder, firm but not intending to cause pain. He tried to focus, succeeding after a couple of tries. Green eyes, full of concern...

"K-Kevin?" he stuttered.

"Brian, try to focus, we want to try and get out of here-"

"Is… is it true?"

"Is what true?" came the confused question.

"Am I... dead to you? Changed? You hated me-"

Kevin shut his eyes, his words from a year before haunting his memory. "No, Bri, I could never hate you. We didn't understand about Kael… I wish I could take back what I said."

Brian closed his eyes and leaned into him, glad of the protection Kevin offered, even if it wouldn't last long.

"Look, we've got to move here. This might be our only chance," AJ said. "We need to find the antidote, not to mention a way out of here."

Zanell knelt beside them. "Do you know what you were injected with?"

"He... he said it was... favored poison."

Serafina gasped. Zanell looked wide-eyed at her sister.

AJ gripped Serafina's arm. "What? What is it?"

She turned to him and the others. "That is an extremely fast-moving poison. He only has a few minutes left. Father told me once where the antidote was: in his personal quarters."

"What about the amulets?" Howie asked.

Serafina stood. "I don't doubt the amulets will be there as well. So someone will have to come with me, because once I get the amulets, I'll need some kind of disguise."

"Then Howie's the logical choice for that," AJ said.

"Go," Kevin said roughly. "Zanell, see if you can wake Nick. AJ, you stand by... if he's still in that same state, you might have to fight him."

The oldest turned back to his cousin, trying not to dwell on the ashen face and beads of sweat that were forming on Brian's face. The pain was becoming quite evident; he would have given anything to take it away.

"Don't leave me alone,” came the desperate, raspy request.

"Hang in there, cuz," Kevin whispered. "I won't leave you. I promise."

Zanell knelt by Nick, examining him quickly. She leaned close and called his name, then drew back and shook his shoulder. For an instant, she thought she saw movement.

"Careful there," AJ warned, bracing himself for an attack he prayed wouldn't come.

"Nick," she repeated. "Open your eyes." Then she was looking into a confused sky-blue gaze.

"What... what happened?" Nick croaked. "Ooh, my head..."

"A lot more will be hurting once your brain kicks back in gear," AJ said, eyeing his friend closely.

"I feel like I've been run over..."

"Don't you remember anything? The fight?"

"What fight? Did we win?"

"Brian won, you lost," AJ said, helping Nick to sit up.

"That doesn't make any sense," Nick muttered.

"Not much of this does," AJ agreed.

"Nick, what's the last thing you do remember?" Zanell asked carefully.

"I... the guards came for us, they took Brian somewhere... um... then things got kinda fuzzy."

"Do you remember any flashing lights, low humming noises, disorientation?" she prompted.

"Yeah," Nick said, nodding. "And there was this voice, it kept telling me something over and over, I couldn't talk, couldn't say anything."

Zanell frowned. "You were subjected to a massive compressed hypnotic brainwashing session. No doubt my... Zator... headed it up. I've seen it before." She paused, shuddering. "It's highly effective."

"I was brainwashed?" Nick repeated.

"Yes, and you were made to fight Brian."

"What?" Nick exclaimed, wide eyed. "Is he... what happened, is he okay? Where-"

"He was injured during the fight, but not fatally. But then..." She stopped, the words sticking in her throat.

"Then what? Tell me!"

AJ's voice was low as he said, "Zator injected him with poison, a fast acting and very deadly one."

Nick's face paled in alarm and he scrambled to his feet. Quickly, he moved towards his best friend. Kevin was cradling Brian's head in his lap, an expression of stark grief on his face.

"Brian," Nick breathed. He sank to his knees, not believing what was happening.

Brian reached for his hand, and Nick grasped it tightly. "Glad you're okay," came the barely audible words.

"Okay? I can't be okay, not when you're like this!" Nick said. "We have to find a way to... to fix it, you can't..."

"Serafina and Howie are trying to retrieve the antidote and our amulets," Zanell explained. "Right now, they're our only hope."

"We need to move to the hangar bay," AJ said. "That's our rendezvous. They won't be coming back down here; they're supposed to meet us there."

Kevin got to his feet. "I'll take Brian," he declared, stooping to pick up his cousin. "You two help Nick."

AJ stopped him. "No way, Kev. You wouldn't make it ten feet, much less all the way to the hangar. Zanell and I can manage Brian, you can keep Nick steady."

It hurt Kevin deeply that he was so useless, but he pushed his emotions aside and simply nodded.

~~

Howie and Serafina moved down the corridor quickly. As they rounded a corner, a guard surprised them; before he could raise an alarm, or even speak a word, Serafina stepped quickly in his direction. With a hard, sharp blow, she rendered him unconscious, watching dispassionately as he slumped to the floor. Howie's eyes were wide as he regarded his partner.

"Wow," he breathed. "How did you... was that some kind of karate?"

"It's part of the deadly arts I was trained in," Sera said, moving quickly to the guard's body. "There's no time for subtlety."

"That might work on one of them, but what happens when we get closer to Zator's room?"

Sera retrieved several devices from the unmoving body. "Let's get him out of sight. And don't worry, I have a plan. If I can play this right, none of the guards will question us."

Together they dragged the body into a small storage chamber, shoving him all the way inside. Sera turned to Howie.

"Okay, put your hands behind you." She held up a small metallic device.

Howie backed up. "What is that?"

“Binders."

"You're going to cuff me? But if I have my hands in that thing, I won't be able to help in an attack!"

"You're going to be my prisoner, which I am personally delivering to Zator. The cuffs, as you call them, go on."

Howie swallowed. It was one thing to take a risk, but another to volunteer to become a prisoner and brought before the enemy.

"We don't have time," Sera said, this time with a bit more compassion. "You have to trust me."

He sighed, not seeing any other choice. "Okay," he said reluctantly. "But what happens when we actually meet Zator?"

"He won't be in his chambers," she said with complete confidence. "He'll be making plans for his underlings to begin the attack on Earth. It's what he's been waiting for... and he knows the amulets are safe in his chambers."

Howie winced as the device locked tightly. "I hope you have a talent for acting."

"You'd be amazed what I can do when necessary," she said, drawing a gun and gesturing to him to get moving.

Howie paled; the determined look on her face sure looked real. They headed down the corridor, and Serafina gave him a quick series of instructions.

"Remember, you're a prisoner. You have to act defeated, scared, and nervous."

"That won't be a problem," he assured her.

"If you resist a little, once we get to the chambers, that would look good. Um... I'm going to ask your forgiveness in advance in case I have to, er, make it look authentic."

"O-okay," he said.

"We've only got one shot at this," she said. "Brian's life is on the line."

"Not to mention the entire fate of Earth," Howie added.

They quickened their pace until they reached the final distance.

"Make this look good," Sera whispered, just before she shoved the gun into the small of his back.

"This is a forbidden area," said a tall, muscular guard, blocking the way.

"I am aware of that," Serafina snapped imperiously. "I am here under my father's edict. Move aside."

"No one may enter," the guard repeated, eyeing the pair.

Serafina's eyes blazed. "No one? Do you regard me as no one?"

"Uh..."

"I am Zator's daughter, heir to his throne and empire! I am not no one! You would best remember that!"

"I'm sorry, but-"

"I have a prisoner for my father's personal interrogation. He requested a human captive be brought to his chambers so that he could break him, personally. Would you deny your Emperor?"

"No-"

"Then I suggest, unless you want to be added to the interrogation list, that you step aside at once!"

Howie felt a slight nudge, and he took that as a cue. Wildly, he wrenched himself free of Serafina's hand and lunged at the guard. Sera let out a frustrated, irritated cry and shouted, "Get him!"

The guard obeyed instantly, grabbing Howie roughly. The smaller man was lifted off his feet and held aloft.

"Set him down," Sera said through clenched teeth. "This one has been nothing but trouble!"

The guard set him down, and Sera backhanded a very surprised Howie. He thumped against the wall, but kept his balance.

"I am going to enjoy watching Father break this man," she said sharply. "Perhaps I will be able to help." She snapped her gaze back to the guard. "The door."

"Yes, Princess," the man said, hitting a code near the entrance.

As Sera pushed Howie ahead of her, the guard whispered in her ear. "Make sure he suffers."

"Don't worry, he'll get what's coming to him, you may be assured. Thank you for your assistance, it will be noted."

The door shut on a very satisfied looking guard.

"Did you have to hit me?"

"Yes," she said unapologetically. "Now, we need to break into the locked box that holds the antidote. Hopefully he has not changed the codes since last year."

"And if he has?"

Sera moved quickly to a smooth section of wall and ran her hands over the surface. Finding something only her sensitive touch could detect, she pressed carefully. A small compartment slid out of the wall.

"We'll know soon enough," she muttered. Howie watched as her fingers danced along a small numbered panel. The softest of clicks finally sounded.

"Yes!" Serafina exclaimed, grasping the tiny vial that was revealed. "This is the antidote!"

"Terrific!" Howie cried. "What about the amulets?"

"Those," Sera said, pausing, "those... hmm. He would want to keep them close. That would mean either his personal console or his bedchamber. Console first."

She rushed to the elaborate console and frantically began searching through it. She pressed a few hidden buttons, but nothing of importance was revealed. When she had run out of options, she turned.

"Not here," she said. "Let's hope it's in there."

Howie followed, his anxiety rising. Sera wasted no time, moving towards a series of recessed wall units. Howie glanced around, expecting to see all sorts of weird things in the room. The only thing he saw, however, was extravagance. The finest silks and satins, gold and glittering gems surrounding rich works of art, opulence that was almost blinding. Somehow he'd expected to see medieval torture devices hanging from the ceiling, not this display.

His gaze rested on a small, almost painfully plain portrait along one wall. It was almost lost among the glitz. While Sera worked on a particular wall unit, he peered closely at the image.

"Yes!" Serafina suddenly shouted. "Yes, they're here!"

Howie's heart leaped at her words. "Quick!" he said, holding out his hand. She tossed an amulet to him, and he donned it instantly.

"Let's go," Sera said. "Now you can get us to the hangar bay with no problem."

Her eyes flickered to the small portrait, and then she looked away with a frown. "Come on," she urged, practically pushing him out of the room.

Once they had reached the door, Howie activated his amulet; Illusioneer began his work.