mutated

chapter eight: hi! here are the rules. shut up or get beat up

Going through my school uniform, I searched for the hidden blade I had kept on the edges of my brace. Hey, it was plastic and rigid straight anyways, might as well use it. Finding the dagger, I tucked it into the edge of my boot where the ankle sheave was. Might as well keep it.

I dragged myself through the doorways, and a smirking Chase greeted me. "So, Viper, you made it through."

"Viper? Really? That's the best you came up with? Viper." I said.

"Now, now, Jade, you can't get testy with me. I am your superior now. And you will listen."

"Like we'll listen to someone like you." Abby retorts, coming up from behind me. "Is he actually flirting with you, Jadie? You're thirteen, and he looks like he's 18. Hot, but still 18."

"You just admitted that he was hot." I pointed out.

"He is. But he is a douche." Abby argued.

"That is enough chit-chat." Chase broke in. "From now on, you will stay silent. Talking is not allowed."

"Oh, that's going to be hard for some people," Abby muttered.

"I heard that, Ms Tang. Now shut up, and get in line." Chase said again.

"Shut up, and get in line." Abby mocked under her breath, and Chase took in a sharp intake of breath. "What are you going to do, hit me, Chase? Because that's what you do right, attack a class full of innocent children."

"My name is Buzzard to you." He said sharply. "And yes." Chase swung back his fist and punched her square in the face. I didn't flinch, though I thought I would have. Apparently, I was tougher than before. I guess having a knife in your boot gave you that confidence. She held her face, and glared at Chase. Chase glared back, and then stared at the rest of the assembling class. "Mockingbird has been kind enough to help me split you into three similarly skilled groups, as well as supplying me with personal details of your life. Owl?"

"You will be put into three squads, Squads gap, yuet, andbing. In gap, there will be Adrian, Alyssa, Anson, Camellia, Elliot, Jade and Martin. In yuet, there will be Abby, Alicia, Evan, Meredith, Ryan Lam, Ryan Yip and Sophia." A groan sounded from Ryan Yip's mouth at those words. Those two really hated each other. "And in bing, there will be Alpha, Charlotte, Jason, Jay, Karyn, Lia and Ruby." There were a couple of wolf-whistles when Jay and Charlotte's names were mentioned, which was returned by a sharp glare by Chase.

"Did I say you could make noise?" He yelled, and everyone fell silent again. Damn, he was scary. "Bing, you will start with Hawk in training, gap with Owl, and lucky yuet? You're with me." Abby let out another groan at this, which made Chase promptly walk straight up to her. "What did I say?"

"You said shut up. And I won't. Because, why are we even here? I wanted to live my life like a normal student, get a good job, have a simple life, not sign up for whatever boot camp you're going to put us through. So, why the hell are we here in the first place?" Abby said. "Why do you need a bunch of kids? What can you do? Why do we even have these stupid inhibitor collars anyways? Are you scared that we're going to overpower you? Your little experiments turning on you? Is that what you're scared of? Jade told me not to tell anyone about my powers because I was going to get killed for it. She told me to shut my mouth for the first time to save my own life. Well, I'm done. What are you going to do with me? Punch me again? Torture me?"

"Permission to speak, Buzzard?" I asked as sweetly as possible, knowing that I would sound like a suck-up anyways. He nodded curtly, and I continued. "Abby, the reason I told you to stay silent about your abilities, about our abilities, is because unlike you guys, I actually remembered what happened on Monday. And because of that, I had 6 gangsters sent after me to experiment and harvest me for their own boss. Two of them had knives and mutated into giant hulking monsters and the leader of them teleported out of there. I may seem rude and mean half of the time but if any of you guys died because of me, that's going to remain on my conscience for the rest of my life."