The New Order by Sean Fay Wolfe Page A

Kat,” he said softly. “What if that was you who’d died? I don’t think that I could bear it.”
    â€œEnough, all of you!” cried the Mechanist, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow. “Kat is more than capable of making her own decision, so everybody, stop talking! Kat, what is your vote?”
    Kat had not said a word throughout the entire debate, but as she detached herself from G, she now looked more lost for words than ever. She looked slowly around the table, eyebrows knitted in confusion, sweat rolling down her forehead. Her eyes passed over the faces of all her fellows before finally resting on G, who raised his eyebrows expectantly. Kat opened her mouth, and it hung open for a moment, before . . .
    â€œI vote . . . Pro-Emergency Powers,” she muttered in a resigned, uncomfortable voice.
    A ripple of shock emanated from Kat and made its wayacross the room. Stan felt as if he had just been slapped across the face. Kat, one of his best friends, who had fought long and hard alongside him to instate the constitution of Elementia, was now voting against it. He glared at her, and caught her eye for a moment. She seemed embarrassed and tense, and soon broke the connection to hug G, which did not seem to ease her tension or embarrassment at all. Stan gave a subtle scowl, and shot a determinedly neutral look at Blackraven as he lowered himself into Archie’s chair, a faint air of smugness about him.
    Stan was hardly listening as Blackraven dived straight into his ideas for hunting down the Noctem Alliance. After all, Stan trusted Blackraven as a strategist, and he knew that together with DZ and Charlie, the other two gifted strategists, they would figure out the best way to hunt down the remaining members of the Noctem Alliance.
    It was undoubted, however, that something had changed within the council. The nine of them had always gotten along as friends, ever since the rebellion against King Kev. They had had their minor issues, sure, but they were always on the same side. This had been the way the council was, and it had served Elementia very well.
    Now, as Stan looked around the table at the Council of Eight, he saw a divided group. As Blackraven spoke on, Charlie was huddled in deep conversation with the Mechanist,while Jayden and G did the same. The two groups kept shooting dirty looks at each other. DZ glared down at the table, a brooding expression on his face, while Gobbleguy looked straight-up terrified at all that had gone down. And Stan was sure Kat was feeling a lot of things at that point, but no feeling was as evident as the discomfort reflected on her face as G hugged her in thanks for her support.
    Even Stan himself felt like he had been torn apart from half the group. He could never see eye to eye with G, Jayden, and Blackraven, and he would have a hard time forgiving Gobbleguy too. And Kat . . . what Kat had done was outright betrayal, and he had no idea where they were going to go next.
    As Stan looked around and saw all his friends arguing, it scared him more than a little bit. They were in the midst of fighting a war against an evil terrorist organization that had killed one of their own, and if they couldn’t even cooperate with one another to take their common enemy down, then how was the Republic of Elementia possibly going to survive?

CHAPTER 9 THE BATTLE OF THE BASE
    I just don’t understand!” cried Leonidas. “Since I came out here, nothin’ you’ve had me do has made any sense!”
    â€œThe decisions are not mine, Leonidas,” replied Caesar, a note of irritation in his voice as he paced the main floor of the Jungle Base. “Lord Tenebris has assured me that he has a plan that will make complete sense in retrospect, but will only succeed if you, Minotaurus, and I follow his instructions to the letter!”
    â€œAre ya tellin’ me he hasn’t told ya stuff? Ya know, ya being his right-hand man and all?” asked