The door starts shaking. It's flimsy, young shoots of bamboo held together by twine. The shake is subtle and stops almost immediately. The two occupants of the hut lift their heads to listen, a fourteen-year-old boy and a fifty-year-old man. They lay on opposite sides of the hut. Mosquito nets lay over their hammocks.

The man lifts his net and swings his legs around silently. As he stand up, the door shakes again, and this time a crash, like a twig had broken, but in this case it sounded like the entire tree. The man picks up a sharp, curved metal knife with a glowing blue stone set in the blade and moves towards the door. He presses against it, eyes scanning the dark that surrounds them. His eyes are drawn to the flickering torches they have set up outside, but there's nothing. He turns back around and relaxes, a slight breath escaping him as he looks towards the boy. The boy slumps forward, eyes shifting to the dusty floor.

The door snaps apart behind the man, and he has scarcely enough to look back and take one stride forward before he's pulled out of the hut. The boy shakes, hearing his screams, and then launches himself across the hut, tearing down the mosquito net. He breaks down the wall, which shreds apart like a cobweb, though it's made of strong, African mahogany. The hut collapses behind him, and a huge, dark shape launches itself from the debris.

The boy sprints at a speed around 60 miles per hour through the thick jungle. His sight and hearing are beyond human. He rips through snarled vines, dodges trees, leaps small streams with a single step. He trips over a root, and turns it into a front flip, landing and striding forward in one smooth motion. Behind him, the ground shakes.

The crashing nears. The boy hears a low, intense roar. He sees a break in the jungle up ahead. When he reaches it, he sees a huge ravine, three hundred feet across and three hundred feet down, with a river at the bottom. The river's bank is covered with huge boulders. They would break him apart if he fell. His only chance is to get across the ravine. He has one chance. One chance to save his life. Even for him, or for any of the others on Earth like him, it's a near impossible leap. Going back, or going down, or trying to fight them means certain death.

There's a deafening roar behind him. They're twenty, thirty feet away. He takes five steps back and runs-and just before the edge, he takes off and starts flying across the ravine. He's in the air three or four seconds. He screams, his arms outstretched in front of him, waiting for either safety or the end. He hits the ground and tumbles forward, stopping at the base of a massive tree. He can't believe he made, that's he going to survive. Not wanting them to see him, and knowing he needs to get farther away from them, he stands. He'll have to keep running.

He turns toward the jungle. As he does, a huge hand wraps itself around his throat. He is lifted off tjhe ground. He struggles, kicks, tries to pull away, but knows it's futile, that it's over. He should have expected that they'd be on both sides, that once they found him, there would be no escape. The Mogadorian lifts him up so that he can see the boy's chest, see the amulet hanging around his neck, the amulet only he and his kind can wear. He tears it off and puts it somewhere inside the long black cloak he is wearing, and when his hand emerges it is holding the gleaming white metal sword. The boy look into the Mogadorian's deep, wide, emotionless black eyes, and he speaks.

"The Legacies live. They will find each other, and when they're ready, they're going to destroy you."

The Mogadorian laughs, a nasty, mocking laugh. It raises the sword high above it's head. The blade ignites in a silver flame as it points to the sky, as if it's coming alive, sensing its mission and grimacing in anticipation. The boy closes his eyes as it falls.

It slides across his chest with a screeching sound. The boy's eyes flash open, and he looks down. The Mogadorian is confused, searching for a wound that should be on the boy's body. The boy reacts with inhuman speed, punching the inner elbow of the loosened arm around his neck. He drops to the ground, lands on one knee, and looks up.

There are six mogadorians standing behind the one with the sword. The first two pull out blasters, aim at his head. Green lights begin to swirl in the chambers. The boy dives between the first Mogadorian's legs, grabs the leg of the one on the right, and pulls him down, putting him in a headlock in front of him. The other one shoots, and the one he's holding explodes into ash. He tastes it on his tongue, bitter. It encourages him.

He swipes out with his leg, tripping two more. He pounces forward and lands on the one with his blaster pulled out. Swings around him, grabs his hand, feels the trigger under his finger. He forces his blaster towards the Mogadorian with the sword and pulls the trigger. He falls with a snarl. The Mogadorian he's riding slams him against the tree and his breath is forced out of him. He gets his elbow around the monster's neck and tightens with all his strength until he feels bones snapping under the thin, pale skin. He puffs into ash, and the boy catches his blaster and shoots blindly one, two, three times. He's rewarded with two more puffs that indicate he's hit the mark.

There's only two more standing. The boy rushes forward, arms outstretched. One hand smacks something. The boy hears a whistling and ducks under one's arm, spinning and hitting him in the chest, open-palm, sending him flying. The other one plants his feet to stop his spinning. There's a bruise forming on his arm in the shape of a hand. He pulls out a blaster and shoots. The boy dodges to one side, slow enough that he feels the heat of the blaster on his shoulder. He steps forward, bats the blaster out of the Mogadorian's hand, and punches him between the eyes. He falls backwards, unconscious.

The boy stands still for a second, feeling the racing of his heart. Then he's dragged backward, a large wrapped around his leg. He squirms and kicks. The Mogadorian with the sword is standing, and he suspends the boy upside down, looking at him with those empty black eyes. He whips the sword, covered with silver fire, through the air. The boy swings backward and it passes through the space his neck was. The Mogadorian kicks him viciously in the side, and his foot crumples, bones snapping and splintering through the skin. He screams and drops the boy. He lands on his back and twists to avoid the sword, slicing through the air. It stabs the ground inches behind his back.

He rolls all the way onto his stomach and jumps up, dodging the first punch. He get under the Mog's arms and strikes him with an uppercut to the chin. It lifts him two feet in the air. The boy kicks him in the side, and he flies off the ravine into the river below.

The boy surveys the scene. There are four piles of ash, two unconscious Mogadorians, and a silver sword sunk into the ground. He pulls it out of the ground and sends it spinning down the ravine. With any luck, it'll find the Mogadorian.

He starts the long run around the ravine back to the hut. He pushes himself. The longer it takes for the furious Mogadorian currently floating down the ravine with a broken foot to radio in, the higher chance reinforcements will come. He reaches the hut in only 10 minutes and slows down. His Cepan's body is laying in the wreckage on top of two logs. He crouches down next to it, his expression unreadable, eyes scanning for any sign of life. He's ashamed, because he forgot about him in the fighting. His whole mind had been consumed, but now his breath is slowing down.

He pulls his gaze away and steps up, pulling away fallen bundles of grass and logs until he can see the floor. He pulls away the woven rug and tears up boards of wood until he can see a wooden chest tucked into a snug hole. He lifts it out easily and holds it under his arm.

He keeps his eyes high, focusing on the trees. If he looks at the body, he's not going to able to leave. He steps over his Cepan's body and breathes out, shuddering. He keeps self-blaming thoughts at bay and begins to run towards the village.