Zanna flew towards Brianna with the intent of kicking her head; but Aderes stopped her.

“No; you have extended power thanks to my “upgrade”, so find it and use it. Don’t resort to actual violence unless necessary.”

Rolling her eyes at the missed opportunity, and held a hand out towards Brianna. Gasping, the blond New Police member fell to the ground as though holding something extremely heavy. Meanwhile, Aderes had used her abilities to somehow paralyse Kyle, and had now made herself and Zanna visible again. Upon spotting Zanna, Shuddit grinned with happiness and a touch of awe at his friend floating in mid-air.

“Welcome back Aderes. Hey Zanna, you look a little different… did you get a haircut?”

“Very funny. I’ll get Aderes to explain all this to you on the way. First, we’ve got to get our friends out of here.”

“Alright!” They disappeared with these words having been spoken.

First, the three of them tracked down Sean, Inoke and Ellis. Aderes was able to sense the “good luck charm” tracker given to them, and soon they discovered the small tent, which their friends were apparently residing in. They peered in.

“Oh…” Zanna faltered, for her friends were a sad sight to see. Dressed in the green martial arts suits of the New Police, the three of them were sitting on the ground in various pitiful states.

Ellis’s once sparkling green eyes and happy demeanour were gone, replaced by sorrowful eyes and an expression that suggested that she had been through a lot in very little time and wouldn’t be surprised if it got worse.

Inoke appeared to be his usual quiet self upon first glance, but as Zanna watched him, she noticed that he was shuddering uncontrollably and his pale blue eyes gave the impression that he would break his silence and start screaming any minute.

And Sean was simply lying flat on his back, staring up at the roof of the tent. He was muttering to himself, and Zanna caught a few words of it.

“I don’t matter… nothing matters…worthless…” Zanna was slightly stunned; Sean had always felt his opinion meant something, Inoke was generally calm and Ellis had always maintained a cheerful, mischievous attitude. And now, without speaking a word to them, Zanna could tell that her friends had changed greatly.

“Guys... what happened?” Zanna asked, bringing herself into visibility along with Aderes and Shuddit. Strangely, her friends didn’t look too surprised that they had come out of thin air; indeed, they looked happy just to see her. They got up and walked over.

“I-it was horrible. They were telling us we had to k-kill and that if we didn’t, they- they...” Ellis broke off, and all three of them looked at the ground. Aderes turned to Zanna.

“I must search for other new recruits; they may be in similar or worse states.” Aderes left, and Ellis, Inoke and Sean stared after her questioningly.

“I’ll explain later.” Zanna said quickly, “OK, so what happened to you guys? You look like you’ve been to hell and back.”

The three seemed to have recovered a fair amount, though they were still far from their old selves.

“Well, the New Police hasn’t exactly been what we expected...” Inoke started.

“That’s an understatement.” Sean said, and at this point Ellis took up the story.

“We were assigned Kyle as our leader, and he wasn’t exactly nice to us.” The three of them laughed bitterly, “We had to get up early in the camps, and slave all day. First thing, we had to collect a gallon of snow each, melt it and use our powers to heat it for him to have a bath in. Sometimes he made us do it again, and he really humiliated us sometimes...” she trailed off, looking at her feet with tears splashing to the ground.

Zanna immediately went to comfort her friend, hugging her reassuringly. Shuddit awkwardly put a hand on the similarly distraught Inokes shoulder, and for a moment there was silence as none of them knew what to say. Then, Sean took a deep breath and tried.

“I-I’m sorry we made you come all the way out here.” The other two muttered their agreement. “Is there anything we can do to help you out?”

Zanna wondered about this; maybe they could help stop this fight? It was then that Zanna realised that while before she had simply wanted to help her friends, she was now intent on stopping the fight altogether. Maybe her friends could help.

“Well, come with us and see.” She told them simply with a smile.

I’m baaaaack! Silence. I ran out of inspiration for a while, so I went on a break to work on other things (which will be up soon). Thanks to a beginner for the review, it gave the boot up the rear I needed to start writing this again. Hopefully I’ll be updating soon, byeeee.