The Daughters of the Mayze

J.2.H.0.P.3.Y

Echo and Keri were going to hang out with Keri's best friend when their lives got turned upside down another time.

When the two girls were little there had been in greater numbers, but they hadn't seen Libi in years. They had grown up in what only Echo remembered was named the Sternum lab in that terrifying labyrinth. All three of them had been marked with glowing green codes that they had chosen their names from; except for Echo, that is. She had always been the self aware, independent and uncooperative of the three and when she was old enough to realise what was going on she rejected it all. That was why she had been discarded. Keri was too emotional for their plans, Echo was too uncooperative and Libi was just perfect. Naively obedient despite her intelligence.

Yet, here were two of the soldiers she hadn't seen in a good 8 years, attempting to kidnap her and her sister and she would not have it. That training was engrained in her mind and body as if carved into her bones. If she couldn't get rid of it, then she was going to use it and make sure she made Korps and Sternum regret ever teaching her.

She twisted the arm that she was being dragged by and contorted herself and the soldier so that she was pinning the masked man, chest up. He struggled and squirmed so Echo thanked her lucky stars that Keri had forced her into a pair of, painful to get hit with, high heels for their afternoon/evening out instead of her every day ones. She positioned one sturdy foot on the man's chest, kicked him in the head with the other and then stood on his chest. Then the girl proceeded to stomp once, as hard as she could, on the man's groin.

He let out a howl and she jogged over to where her sister was being dragged away. She noted three teenagers in unfamiliar school uniforms maneuvering themselves into fighting positions and temporarily dismissed them. She clawed at the henchman's arms and was begining to pull them away from Keri when,

"Excuse me. Does the Number 12 stop here?" the dark haired boy she had seen called out as an obvious distraction. She rolled her eyes and separated her hands from the arm of her sister's assailant. In true Keri fashion, her sister said,

"I doubt those two will help you, they seem like they'd rather take you somewhere against your will over directing you to a bus. The 12 doesn't stop here," everyone came to a stop about two feet from each other and a dark skinned girl said,

"That's okay, we only said that to get close enough to rescue you." A blonde boy grabbed the Korps soldiers head and yanked it back, whilst taking a leaf out of Echo's book and kneeing him in the groin. the man released Keri and collapsed next to her comrade.

The blonde one grabbed Keri's arm and said, "Let's go," as he reached out to Echo and began to try and run off. And her sister butted in again,

"Hang on we don't want to go with you either." Echo glared at her sister for talking for her again, "We've had a really long day and you've clearly got us mixed up with some other people soo. . ." she made to walk off before Echo grabbed her arm,

"K, they just saved us from them, I think we can here them out." her tone made it clear that she knew exactly what had just happened and was not in a mood to be argued with by her less than responsible sister.

The girl turned to the blue clad boys, "Truth?" they nodded, "You're names are Keri and Hope," Echo stiffened,

"You have marks on your arms that I'm guessing include K3R1 and H0P3," The girls pulled up their sleeves and bared their marks. Echo glared at hers, "The greatest threat to the world is called the Mastermind; he created you both in a lab with his DNA, now he's looking for you so he can put his mind into one of your heads. We work for M.I.9 and we're trying to save your lives, any questions?"

Keri looked unjustifiably surprised, they had been eight when they left, it wasn't that hard to remember, especially when Echo reminded her of the danger and trouble their lives could have contained. Then again, Keri had never known about the mastermind despite sneaking about that Labyrinth. For all her learning ability she had very selective hearing and chose to block out most of the non fighting that Korps tried to instill in them.