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In the next room John Jr sat in detention, writing lines.

'I will not throw erasers at Mr. Clark's head'

'I will not throw erasers at Mr. Clark's head'

'I will not throw erasers at-

The urge to scribble something phallic in the margins of his paper weighed heavy on his pen. His gaze flickered from the top of the desk, over the heads of the other students misfortunate enough to have also upset Mr. Clark somehow and bit back a groan at the face of the clock on the wall. It was three minutes to the end of detention, and the second hand moved so slowly it seemed almost to have stopped.

He squinted at it to make sure that time had not actually stopped, and felt a great easing in his chest when the minute hand crept closer to where he wanted it most.

In the seat next to him Corie Lamb noticed John Jr checking out the clock. John Jr caught her watching out of the corner of his eye. He shared a smile with her, and then thought that she was pretty when she wiggle-waved her fingers at him. She was older than he was by a year, with piercings and attitude and the sort of reputation that boys made crude jokes about in locker rooms. He had heard things about Ms. Lamb, and felt his cheeks warming at the memory of them.

Another glance at the clock.

One more minute.

Corie looked away from him, a smirk on her lips.

45 seconds.

Should I ask for her number? She looks like she wants me to ask for her number.

30 seconds.

Corie tore off the bottom corner of one of her detention papers. She waited until Mr. Clark was not watching, and then passed John Jr the scrap without looking at him. He closed his hand around it quickly. Did not need to open it to know what it contained.

15 seconds...

... Done!

There was a mad scramble to put away pens and papers. Mr. Clark turned sharply and ordered that everyone remain until he had given them permission to leave. John Jr earned himself an extra five minutes when he could not bite back his groan of frustration.

Mr. Clark was a tall, gangling man with a bottle-brush moustache and more hair on his chin than the top of his head. John Jr did not think that he was all bad, as far as teachers went, but it was generally agreed amongst the student body that Mr. Clark would have benefited from a transplant of his sense of humour. Madeline had told John Jr that she'd heard Mr. Clark was jilted at the alter by the love of his life when he was twenty-five, and that was why he never smiled.

'And then,' She'd said in that way of knowing-all-things she'd had for as long as he'd known her, 'she stole his cat.'

Madeline had stories about Mr. Sanders too, though John Jr could not say where she'd heard them from. He suspected sometimes that she was lying, and would have told her more often if it did not upset her so goddamned much. She'd said that Mr. Sanders sometimes looked at her funny over top of her easel during art class. When he'd pressed her for more information, Madeline had not been able to explain.

'He's just weird.' She'd said, but Madeline thought everyone was weird if they didn't follow baseball or tied their shoe laces the wrong way. John Jr. did not often take her seriously. She was his best friend. Had been his best friend since kindergarten, when she'd asked to trade her butterscotch pudding cup for his chocolate one.

Once Mr. Clark finally gave him the green light to go John Jr. burst out of detention like a rocket and would have blown right passed Mr. Sanders' classroom if it was not for--

SLAM-- and then the sound of a girl's whimper.

John Jr. skidded to a halt, sneakers squeeling against the floor, and stopped to peer through the window in Mr. Sanders' door. He was tall. Could see enough to guess at what had happened. Mr. Sanders was laughing -if the sound he made could be called laughter- and leaning over a girl. John Jr. watched with his heart in his throat as Mr. Sanders reached for her, hand stretching towards her chest.

Holy s**t. Madeline was right.

There was a brief moment where he wondered who he should call. Maybe Mr. Clark could help? His own father would have broken Mr. Sanders' fingers one at a time. And Vulcan, Vulcan would have-- no, I can do it. I am strong enough for this.

John Jr. pushed the door open.

"Hey!" he shouted at Mr. Sanders, "Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?"

While he had only seen sixteen summers, John Jr already stood as tall as most grown men. He was Fresh Prince scrawny, but not weak. The breadth of his chest and the length of his arms were proof enough that he would be large, one day. His grandmother assured him often that he would outgrow his father. It was a point that filled John Jr with pride.

There was no hesitation in John Jr. No pause for discretion. He flickered into Syrtis like a match struck against coarse stone the moment the Sandersbeast turned his way. A torch from Mars, Vulcan often said-- John Jr. did not pretend to know what she meant by that, but she had for him an older sister's undying love and the way that she said it had implied to him a sort of brilliance. He knew that she worried. He knew, also, that she did not need to. He was a good boy. What cause had he to fear?

Syrtis shone in the doorway with all the confidence of a sixteen year old boy athletic enough to slam-dunk basketballs and then dangle from the hoop by his fingers. The Sanderbeast lunged, hands outstretched. Syrtis' heart quickened. With exhilaration more than panic, and deep in his bones there awoke a sort of knowing. This was not like training with Vulcan and Ophelia, or sparring with Benji or Sailor Victoria. This was a real fight, and he had done this before. A thousand years before. Whatever John Jr lacked in technical skill, Syrtis more than made up for with instinct.

A decade darting around opponents on the pavement at the basketball courts in the park made it a simple matter for Syrtis to duck out of the way. He was as quick as he was skinny, slamming his forearm into the Sandersbeast's back and driving him face-first into the chalkboard.

They grappled. Syrtis struggled to close his fingers around the youma's wrists, tried to pin them together. The Sandersbeast elbowed him in the ribs so hard that he stumbled backwards.

Syrtis had never seen a youma before, but he thought that he had heard enough about them to recognize one when he saw it.

Save for the occasional housefly, Syrtis had never killed anything before, but he did not suffer with anxiety over the idea of putting down the Sandersbeast. The Sandersbeast stood up on two legs. It moved like a man, and looked like a man, but John Jr knew that he could not really be human. It had assaulted a young woman in the middle of a classroom. It had launched itself at him like a monster.

And a god could not lose to a monster, and Syrtis would not lose to the Sandersbeast. He was confident in his abilities, if no one else was. There was nowhere he stepped where he did not feel the loom of Vulcan's shadow- whether it was there or not.

Syrtis recovered from the blow to his ribs like an athlete; rebounding in time to block a second strike. The youma had whirled, arms raised, and tried to sink it's hand into Syrtis's chest. Syrtis seized the youma's wrists; yanked it forwards instead of shoving it away, brought his elbow down on the back of the youma's neck. The youma doubled over. Syrtis shoved his knee up into it's chest. Heard something crack and paled a little, disgusted by the sound.

The youma wheezed. Syrtis backhanded it in the face and sent it stumbling into a row of desks.

It was somewhat to Syrtis' chagrin that he had arrived so late to Destiny City's dirty party. He had known about Vulcan for years, of course, and envied Vanessa almost as much as he admired her. For a brief period he had dressed himself up as little boy hero called Mini Van, and went around doctoring wherever he could with a First Aid kit that was just a smidge too large for him.

He had pined after Syrtis- or to become something like him. Strong enough to fight alongside his sister. To defend their father. He had not known what it was, when he took his discuss up for the first time, but understood in a matter of heartbeats.

At last, he'd thought, prepared to save the world-- only to find that everyone seemed to have done a much better job of making a mess than they had at fixing anything. It was hard for him to listen to Vulcan sometimes, when it was not clear how useful a soldier she was. He felt, since his becoming, that he would finally make a difference. Thought that things never would have gotten so bad if he'd been a Knight in the first place.

A smile exploded across his face when Flo transformed. She was not of Mars, and it was plain she was no Senshi either, but they were kindred spirits.

The Sandersbeast struggled to its feet. Blood oozed from a wound in its side, where a rib had cracked and pierced through the skin. It looked from Syrtis to Hercynia, and then paled again.

Syrtis waffled a moment over actually killing it, but moved to stand between it and Hercynia just in case.

"Nice rope," he said, summoning his discuss with a flourish.

'We should kill it.'

The urge to turn and look at the girl was strong. Syrtis kind of did- turning his head sideways to stare at her, expression quizzical, while still trying to keep the Sandersbeast in his peripherals. The way she said it - she sounded so calm. So matter of fact. As if it was something that should be done.

It impressed him.

She was right.

Whatever lived inside Sanders now had taken his body hostage. It had assaulted a young woman. He'd shown up to save her life, and found himself with a fresh ally instead.

They had not really talked. Not agreed to fight together again in any place other than this. He assumed that they would. She was the first he'd met without Vulcan's help - it occured to him that, since she appeared to have just found her rope, that this girl might not know anyone else.

It was thrilling. To think of himself as her introduction to this world. Maybe he could train her. If he was being honest with himself he'd have to admit he didn't know very much about what was going on, but it was already clear that he knew more than she did.

And she had courage - it appeared, some understanding of what a hero was and did.

"Yeah," he agreed, turning to look at the Sandersbeast again. A smile took over his face. "Let's kill it."

The Sandersbeast recoiled, lip turned upwards in a permanent sneer, and tried to skirt around the back of the desks - it was making for the door.

Deciding that something ought to die and knowing how to make that happen were two different things. Within Syrtis these pieces spun like gears with spokes that almost lined up, but didn't quite. He had never killed anything more than a fly before, and for one childhood summer had even let a bulbous spider live in the corner of his bedroom.

Video games made things simple. Just press x on the control until the dust settled and the threat stopped shooting back - if you failed, just press restart.

This was not like that.

The Sandersbeast had attacked a girl. If he had not shown up, Flo might have died. If they let it go, it might hurt somebody else. And because Hercynia was so very new, Syrtis felt the responsibility to take care of things rested solely on his shoulders.

How come one of us doesn't have a sword, he thought, fingers flexing around the rim of his discuss, what kind of knights are we?

He followed the beast when it stumbled away from Hercynia's rope – stalked it, cast a shadow on the wall that was twice his size in width and looked like it belonged more to a full grown man than a teenage boy.

Without a word or a sound, Syrtis brought his discuss down on the back of the Sandersbeast's head hard enough to indent the skull.

It fell to the ground with a splat. Blood poured from the wound in its head onto the concrete floor. John Jr's eyes looked like they might pop out of his face.