Well, here it is. The next installment in the Shadowatch Saga. Next, we get to see just what the heck they were up to during "Parallel Lives" and "The Misfit Chronicles". For better or for worse, things will never be the same for Shadowatch once the dust settles and the smoke clears.

Shake Your Foundations

1. Temporary Goodbyes

Mutants. Homo Superior. Villains? Heroes? Threat to humanity? Misunderstood souls? These questions and several like them permeated common speech in the days following the big reveal and the Sentinel battle.

Every town in the world was talking once the initial shock wore off, and Chicago, Illinois, was no different. Everyone seemed to have their own opinions, and each of said opinions was different from the next. The cast of the local hit cable show "Growing Up Biker" also had their own opinions, but their lawyers thought it best not to voice them. As you might guess, this didn't go over very well at all for the group of mutant teenagers and their guardians.

"Remind me again just why we can't give a press release stating that we support mutant rights?" A beautiful blue-eyed blonde girl in a white blouse, pink skirt, and white high heels asked. Regan Wyngarde, resident telepathic illusionist also known as Lady Mastermind, had blossomed into quite the proficient businesswoman since the series began nearly a year ago. She was usually seen working the front register on camera rather than actually fixing anything. Since her mother had once been a famous model, no-one was surprised that the Italian bombshell turned out to be one of the most attractive young women in all of Cobra.

Spike Freeman, TV producer and the man who initially bargained with Zartan to get the kids on television in the first place, groaned. "It's too controversial! You know that!" He was currently trying to talk some sense into the team and a few of their handlers. Maybe getting teenagers on film wasn't such a good idea.

"So was taking all of us to the modern art museum, but you did it anyway." A dark haired ruddy-skinned teen wearing a red polo shirt, blue jeans, and red Converse sneakers pointed out. He was Neal "Thunderbird" Sharra, and had the ability to generate heated plasma and fly. He had hit a growth spurt of his own over the last year, but was still the shortest boy on the squad. On camera, the Bangladeshi mutant could be seen stocking shelves or handing out tools to the other cast members, all while consistently messing up American figures of speech. Some of his mangled phrases had become small-time Internet memes.

"Talk about a disaster!" A lanky blond boy in a white t-shirt, yellow fleece vest, dark wash jeans, and yellow and black checkered shoes groaned, rubbing his temple and eyes. Calvin "the Mimic" Rankin, the last person to have joined the squad, was the son of one of Cobra's hired research scientists and gained his powers through a mishap with one of his father's experimental mutagens. Following his less than stellar induction onto the team, the power-copying mutate began the arduous process of learning when to keep his opinions to himself. "So much for learning about culture."

"It wasn't that bad." A muscular teenage boy covered in dark green scales from his head to the tip of his alligator-like tail grinned widely, revealing a set of sharp teeth. His long neon-green streaked black hair was tied in a messy ponytail, while gold eyes sparkled with the not-so-distant memory of the infamous "Art, Not-Art" exchange. He leaned back into his chair lazily, giving everyone a better view of the WWF logo on his black T-shirt. "Seeing ol' Vince hanging like a booger from that nose statue was totally worth the trip!" Steve Garrett, mutant nephew of Dreadnok poacher Gnawgahyde, was brought to Chicago and the Dreadnok team after his parents tossed him out of the house because of his mutation.

"You would think it was funny, Iguana-boy!" A British teen with a barely-tamed mane of brown hair and bright green eyes grumbled. He wore an Iron Maiden t-shirt, leather vest, and denim jacket with ripped jeans, heavy boots, and numerous spiked leather armbands. Vincent James, commonly called "Virus" due to his ability to possess and control electronics and his overall annoying personality, could be seen on film making updates to existing technology in the garage or scheming up plans to win the affection of the leader of the squad- A blue-scaled hydrokinetic shapeshifter known as Atlantis. "Your lesser evolved brain only ever seems to find pleasure in causing others pain."

"Not that the rest of us mind in your case." A short girl with spiked teal-tipped black hair, pale turquoise eyes, and gray skin stated. She wore a short black dress with a purple cropped jacket over the top of it, purple striped tights, and black platform-soled Mary-Jane shoes. "Watching him beat you up is a favorite pastime of ours!" Eventide, the dhampir (half-human half-vampire) more commonly referred to as Kristen Mortisson, captivated audiences everywhere with her bubbly personality and slightly morbid sense of humor. She also shocked viewers by consistently lifting objects easily twice her body weight.

"And to be perfectly fair, the trip to the ballpark was also quite a mess." A tanned girl with long brown hair and glistening honey-brown eyes pointed out with a shrug. Known only as Corona, this Hispanic beauty charmed viewers with her lively personality and restricted opponents by creating ropes or ribbons of multi-colored energy to bind them. Today she wore a tight orange tank-top with equally tight capris and tan wedge-heeled sandals. "I thought the owner was going to sue us for sure!"

"Yeah, Ry and Mitch were kinda eating him out of hot dogs and popcorn." A tall blue-scaled girl with black-striped blonde hair and dark blue eyes put in with a slight chuckle. She was Andrea (usually shortened to Andi unless she was in trouble for something) Creed, second generation mutant and Shadowatch's squad leader. Her gray t-shirt and black jeans did nothing to hide the fact that the shape-shifting hydrokinetic mutant known as Atlantis had finally developed an enviable set of feminine curves. It was now quite common for her to be caught fielding some rather awkward questions in her fan-mail.

"That's exactly the point!" Spike bellowed, desperately trying to get through to the young mutants. "The public is terrified of mutants right now. They don't understand all the particulars of that giant robot fight, and until they become more comfortable with living and working alongside mutants in general, outing yourselves could be deadly."

"Be that as it may, I'm sick and tired of hiding in this damn closet!" Andi exclaimed, pounding her fist on the wall in frustration. "All of us can take care of ourselves! It's not like we don't know basic self-defense!"

"No!" Spike shook his head. "No way, no how. No PSAs. No press releases. No coming out episodes until the network tells you."

"For now." Regan added. "When something terrible and mutant-related goes down in this city—and trust me, it will—we will deal with the situation as we see fit. Eventually one of these new hate groups is going to take things too far and someone is going to have to run damage control."

The man sighed. "Fine." He glanced past the kids over to a large, dreadlocked African-American man behind them. "Keep them from killing themselves."

"I can only speak for my boys on that." The man chuckled. Burn-Out, the Dreadnok's best mechanic and now the shop owner of Burnout's Custom Cycles, had been assigned the task of mentoring two of the boys on the team roster—the half-brothers Bryan "Chaos" Dukes and Mitch "Golem" Dukes. "If you want that one to behave," he jerked a thumb Andi's direction, "you need to talk to Zartan."

"He cannot get back from that conference soon enough!" Spike grumbled.


"You're leaving? All of you?" Burn-Out gaped incredulously. He and the other handlers were speaking to Zartan via video chat. "Is this a joke?"

"I'm afraid not." The Dreadnok leader sighed, not pleased about having to re-work the structure of two teams on such short notice. Sure, long term jobs paid well, but he wondered if this gig in Bayville (with the Baroness, no less!) would be worth the effort. With he and his siblings all going along, something would have to be done about the kids. "We could be gone for months this time."

"There is no f'n way the three of us can handle ten kids for months on end!" Heart-Wrencher spoke up. "Can't you take a few of them with you?"

"No. First of all, half our kids know someone in Bayville, which could potentially jeopardize the mission." Zartan pointed out. "And even if that weren't an issue, there's no way in hell we could convince our kids to help capture other mutants." Especially not when a good portion of the team had once been captured themselves…

"Can you at least speed the assignment up?" Burn-Out inquired.

"I won't know until we arrive, but if there is any way at all to make dragging back some of those brats go faster, I will take it."


"How long is 'long term', exactly?" Kristin asked, her face scrunched up in thought. Everybody had crammed into both communications rooms for this chat.

"We don't know yet, kiddo." Zarana sighed. "Depends on how successful we are."

"Are you going anywhere exotic?" Corona asked, eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Somehow I don't think Bayville, New York, is considered a very exotic destination." Zandar rolled his eyes. If he wanted to get stuck looking after a bunch of teenagers, he could have just gone home

Andi felt her spine straighten before her brain could tell the rest of her body not to do it. She couldn't afford to react to this. Too much was on the line here…if her real connections to the Bayville mutants were discovered…

"I see one of you has already figured out the reason for this excursion." Zartan's green eyes locked onto her blue ones.

"Mutants. They're sending you to capture mutants." She did her best to keep the alarm out of her voice despite knowing she would not completely succeed.

The small communications room erupted with the protests of nearly a dozen teenagers.

"What?!"

"You gotta be kidding."

"No way!"

"This is bogus!"

"Why do they need other mutants when they have us?"

"Settle down!" There was no need to yell or scream the command to Shadowatch. In fact, Zartan knew that the tone of his voice usually got the group's attention far quicker than the volume. The kids were far smarter than his co-workers wrote them off as being. "Believe me, I would much rather spend the next few months working with the lot of you than listening to the Baroness's endless bitching and pretending to be a qualified teacher, but at the moment it cannot be avoided."

"Can you guys throw the mission?" Bryan frowned. Zartan shook his head.

"Not if we want to get paid, and since this is a rather large paycheck it would be foolish to intentionally try to sabotage this job."

"But if you're dragging Torch along for the ride, there's a good chance it will be unintentionally sabotaged." Regan pointed out. "This won't last more than a couple months at the most."

"With any luck, you'll be right about that." Zarana grumbled. "Look, while we're gone, you kids need to maintain your own cover. The last thing we need is for the Joes to have a reason to go snooping around Chicago."

"Don't worry; we got it covered." Kristen confidently smirked. "Just bring yourselves back here alive when this is all over with."


"Don't you think you should have told him?"

Andi wasn't surprised to find Kristen invading her room after the conference call. "How?" She inquired of her much shorter companion. "How was I supposed to tell the adults anything with everyone else standing there?"

"Well, you could still call and come clean." Kristen folded her arms across her chest.

"What good would it do?" Andi hissed. "Xavier might look the other way if they start asking a few questions, but if our guys start poking around Magneto's crew too much, he will get suspicious and we'll all be in trouble." The dhampir shook her head.

"You think the adults aren't going to figure it out on their own?" Pale eyes looked on in disbelief. "All they'll need to do is look at a couple photographs to see what's been omitted in their dossiers."

"The less they know going into this mission, the less likely it will be that any suspicions will be raised." She didn't particularly like keeping secrets from her boss (she owed him a lot more than she wanted to admit), but at the moment there was too much at stake for her to tell the whole truth.

An audible sigh escaped the petite dhampir's ebony-stained lips. She didn't like where this was heading, but she also knew that her friend wouldn't be talked out of it right now. She had met defiant donkeys less stubborn than Andrea Creed. "Fine, but if this blows up in your face, I reserve the right to say 'I told you so'." Andi frowned.

"It will not blow up in my face, so there won't be any need for you to tell me that!" She had a better handle on the situation than that!

"Don't say I didn't warn you." Kristen sang as she left, closing the door behind her and leaving Andi to her own thoughts.