Title: Gen13: Mystics

Author: Joshua

Disclaimer: JK Rowling has Harry, and whoever else from the books show up in these plots. Gen13 and all associated characters and events were created by Jim Lee and J. Scott Campbell, and the original comics/events this story covers distributed by Image Comics, though are now owned by DC Comics. Same for the Coda. BtVS and all associated characters, in particularly "Sunnydale, CA", is owned by Joss Whedon and Mutant/Enemy Productions. I don't own either and I'm not making any money from all this, so don't bother suing me. Spoilers for first 10 or so issues of the original Gen13.v1 comics series.

Summary: Full Sequel of my stories "Harry Potter and Project Genesis" and "Gen13: Quarters". They've been in Sunnydale for a few months now, and the world hasn't ended. Trends like that don't tend to last.

Issue 01: Among Friends And Enemies!

Summary: Life is going good for the Gen13 Team. They train and prepare and enjoy the beach and the easy side of life. Until they come across a group of dimension-hopping demon mercs hunting a portal-making Fae.

Lynch Villa

Sunnydale, CA

June 1999

"Harry's BACK!"

The shout echoed from the top of the multi-tiered geometric villa and throughout the house. Several ears perked up, but the majority of the occupants remained fixated upon their current tasks. For the singular individual that did care, well, she hurried to finish what she was doing before racing to greet their returning team member.

Robert "Bobby" Lane, aka Burnout, being the one to have announced the return of their intrepid leader, instead went back to what he'd been doing before eyeballing Harry James Potter, aka Thundercrack, walking up the path from the road to their front door. Which was playing his guitar.

Percival Edmund "Eddie" Chang, aka Grunge, and his teenage girlfriend Roxanne "Roxy" Spaulding, aka Freefall, didn't so much as take their eyes off the screen as they focused all their attention on kicking each others virtual butt in the video game they were playing. They did have enough awareness to shout out, "Hey Harry!" when they heard the front door open and shut.

In the privacy of her own room, Sarah Rainmaker, aka Rainmaker, heard the shout, and sent a brief magical pulse of welcome through the building's wards. She was pleased to note she could feel the responding pulse as the young wizard crossed the threshold.

Getting up from her workstation, just off to the side of the living room, Caitlin "Kat" Fairchild, aka Fairchild, quickly walked over to give her friend and teammate a welcome back hug. Being a perfectly normal heterosexual male, still waiting for his 19th birthday in fact, this was nothing he would dare say no to. Especially, seeing as he was a five-five, runners-build, dark-haired, green-eyed youth standing next to a six-foot-four, green-eyed, redheaded amazon with the body and physique super-models would die for. Who would say no to a hug from that?

"Welcome home, Harry," Caitlin said, smiling down at the skinny wizard. It may not have been just skin and bones, but the fact remained that despite being built and well-muscled now, Harry was as skinny as he ever was. "How was the trip?"

"I think you mean, mission, but, eh," the dark-haired wand wielder shrugged. "I handled it. How goes the training on this end? I'm perfectly willing to take the team with me on these missions from the ICW, but you have to be able to defend yourselves. Which means developing your mystical talents. Been practicing?"

Sighing, Caitlin acknowledged the fact that he'd already 'headed off' her argument about going with him next time, and instead answered his question.

"We were just taking a break," she answered. "I've been researching as much as I can to find authentic protection spells, and I practice the seven you taught me, and the others I've learned since almost daily. Roxy says she uses her divination powers almost constantly, if only to find where we all hide her cigarettes. Bobby and Rainmaker won't tell me what they're up to unless they need me to ward their practice area. And Grunge..." she trailed off, and shrugged helplessly. "Well... he's Grunge."

"And Lynch?" Harry asked, as they made their way up the stairs, removing his robes and various equipment with each step level.

"Daily training," Caitlin said. "Gives us one day off every week. Incidentally, today happens to be that day for this week. He'll probably want to give you the third degree, now that you're back. Been keeping up with your skills?"

"And getting new ones," Harry said, smiling. They had reached his room, and he was now down to his 'costume', which was basically what he wore as underwear whenever out on missions. He briefly considered teasing his—still somewhat innocent—friend, but decided it wouldn't be worth it. This time.

"Look, Kat," he said, "I'll tell you all about it. I promise. Just let me shower, change, get something to eat, and I'll meet you in the kitchen. We can talk about it over dinner. Or breakfast. Damn, changing time zones really does a number on keeping track of meals."

"Oh," Caitlin suddenly flushed, and looked down. "Right. Yes, of course. I'll, uh, I'll see you downstairs in the kitchen. Right." She then stood there for a beat, before abruptly about-facing and practically marching back down all three flights of stairs to the main kitchen and dining room area, where the team's live-in maid, house-keeper, and android bodyguard was busy preparing a virtual feast of, of, of... well, of English foods.

"I see you've prepared for Harry's return, Anna," the tall redhead remarked, taking a seat at the bar.

"It is my duty to see to the welfare of all you children," the shorter pixie-cut blond replied. "Even the rebellious ones that think they know better."

"Harry doesn't know everything, but he knows a lot more than you and Mister Lynch believe he does," Caitlin defended her friend.

Speaking of whom, he entered the room, now dressed quite casually in board shorts, beach slippers and a loose green t-shirt that matched his eyes. Caitlin couldn't help it when her eyes shot down and took in his muscular legs, and arms, and the quiet strength he somehow seemed to emanate from every one of his pores. When she saw she'd been caught, evidenced by the teasing smirk on his face, she ducked her head and blushed, remaining quiet. Meanwhile, Harry took in his own appreciation of his red-haired friend's attire, tight fitting skinny jeans, ankle socks, a sleeveless white t-shirt, and a blue knitted vest. All as comfortable as his own clothing, of course, but formfitting enough to allow her enhanced physique to shine through.

"Thanks Anna," Harry said, still speaking in his forced American accent, making Caitlin wonder why he hadn't relaxed and returned to his native English accent. "Looks great, as always. Best prep the dishwasher, all the same."

The blond android smiled demurely, but continued preparing the last of his 'welcome home' snack all the same. By the time that it was all finished, Harry had actually completed six full plates of horderves, as well as the entire roast and was in the middle of devouring the remainder of the chicken. Less than ten minutes later, as she was actually loading the dishwasher as a matter of fact, he downed the last of his drink and popped the final bit of his meal into his mouth.

"Every time I see it, I'm never quite sure whether to be amazed, or disgusted," Caitlin admitted.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, "Tell me about it. Every time I'm going somewhere that food won't exactly be available, I have to make sure I fully stock in waybread, otherwise I'm going to be starving before I can get anywhere. And before you ask, yes. Waybread is like lembas bread from Tolkien. Except it would be better described as the wizard version of a protein energy bar. I make sure to pack plenty of those too."

Caitlin laughed at his joke, until she looked him in the eye and realized it wasn't a joke.

"Harry," she said, suddenly concerned. "Have you gone to check those doctors and that Healer that you said you were going to? Just to make sure that you aren't aging rapidly every time you use your powers?"

Harry smiled and nodded. "Yes, Kat. I did. And I have check-ups scheduled with all of them for the end of the month. They're going to monitor the situation for a full year, but in the short term, I have nothing to worry about. Despite increased metabolism, by all appearances, my body doesn't actually speed up—in that way—when I use my speed. That, or my magic is negating it. Or, my lifespan as a wizard is long enough that it isn't making a difference. However you look at it, I am fine, and I can keep using my powers without worry."

She gave a sigh of relief and nodded. "OK then."

"So, this last mission you went out on," she segued. "What was it like? Rescue any fairy princesses? Slay any dragons?"

"Hahaha!" he laughed out loud. "Ah, no. Slaying dragons was my fourth year in school. Ironically, so was rescuing drowned princesses," he briefly mused.

"Well, I'm a Hit-wizard, Kat. Despite how it sounds like I'm some kind of magic assassin, it is more closer to being a bounty hunter, or perhaps a better analogy is the ICW answer to the United States Marshall service. More often than not, I get sent after various dark wizards, magical criminals, or some raging out of control magical creature that got loose in public. That's all this one was. Some... utter bastard by the name of Felix Faust pissed off the wrong official, and I got sent after him."

"How'd you catch him?" Caitlin asked, eager to hear more. "You did, didn't you? Catch him?"

"Yes," Harry nodded. "Turned him over to the Greeks, actually. They have... well, let's just say that he's pissed them off the worst of everybody, and they know how to keep him under lock and key. Plus, none of them will just let him go, no matter what he offers as bribe."

"I don't believe it!" she exclaimed. "Bribes? To let somebody like that out of prison?"

Harry shrugged and replied, "Happens all the time. It's called the bail system, remember? Or if you're political enough, prisoner-exchange. It's why I didn't just give him over to the Americans, the ones that put forth the bounty in the first place."

"Wait, really?" she sounded surprised.

Harry blinked, seemingly just as surprised. So much for Caitlin being smarter than Hermione, as even she'd have known about this particular connection, given how often she raved about... well, about you know who...

"Felix Faust, Kat," he over-pronounced the name. "From America's Most Wanted, Super Villains edition? I mean, for me, it was part of the man's file, but I know you actually watch that show, so I figured you would've recognized the name—"

"WAIT!" she screamed. "That Felix Faust?! And... wait, Greeks?! Did you turn him over to the Amazon Nation?!"

Harry just smirked, and reached for the bowl of snacks that Anna kept fully-stocked in every room of the house. To keep from answering, he merely grabbed enough to fill his mouth for the time being, before getting up and wandering off.

"Harry, do you know Wonder Woman?!" Caitlin chased after him.

Every ear in the household perked up at the shouted question, but after a few seconds of silence and no discernible answer, they each returned to their respective tasks. In John Lynch's case, it was to enter the kitchen once he was sure Harry was gone to have a discussion with Anna.

"Hey guys," Harry greeted as he entered the living room. "Who's winning?"

"I am, of course," Grunge practically preened, before refocusing his attention back on the console game.

"Yeah, not for long, stud muffin," Roxy retorted, successfully executing a combo and then working to keep it going for as long as possible.

"Ohh! Good one, Rox, but check this out!" Grunge retaliated.

Shaking his head in bemusement, Harry quickly moved on before Caitlin could catch up to him. Having lost sight of the speedster, not that he'd actually employed his GenActive powers at any point, the red-haired amazon sighed in defeat and returned to her workstation there in the living room.

Passing Bobby on his way down the hall, Harry nodded in greeting to the blond musician and paused long enough to say, "Hey Bobby, how's it hangin'?"

At those words, however, the plasma-wielding GenActive actually stopped and turned, responding, "OK, Harry, dude, seriously stop trying to mimic Grunge. It is seriously creepy when you do it."

Looking back, the black-haired speedster said, "Hey! I thought I was getting pretty good with my American accent."

Shaking his head and mock-putting-his-hands-over-his-ears, Bobby retorted, "Please, I'm begging you, just stop!"

"Fine, I suppose I have 'practiced' the accent enough for now," Harry relented, reverting back to his native English accent. He then turned fully around and asked, "But in all seriousness, how are things? Kat says you and Sarah have been working on your magicks, sometimes needing her to set up protections. How is that going? Everything all right?"

Bobby sighed and shrugged helplessly. "Eh, I'm... making some progress. Can't fly or create heat-shields like I can with my plasma powers, but I can make almost anything... uh, already flammable, ignite with just a thought. Well, an intentional thought," he quickly amended.

"That is actually some excellent progress," Harry told him.

"Really?" the young-but-slightly-older pyromancer perked up at the compliment.

"Truly," the wizard confirmed. "We'll have a get-together sometime tomorrow, I'll check on everyone's progress, and we'll set aside an hour for just you and me, see what we can do to push things along, all right?"

"All right!" Bobby nodded enthusiastically.

"Later then," Harry briefly said in 'American'.

"Ahh! Stop it! It's like kryptonite, dude, seriously!"

Harry just laughed and continued on his way.

Meanwhile, back in the living room, Roxy was finally getting the best of her beau in his favorite video game. "I—I can't believe it!" Grunge exclaimed, jaw dropped to the floor in shock. "You beat me, Rox! But... but I never lose at this game!"

Smirking, and trying to gloat without gloating, she responded, "It was probably beginner's luck, Grunge-man. And besides, it's just a game. No big deal." Glancing over, resting her chin on the palm of her raised hand, she gave him an alluring glance and added, "Though you do make a really cute loser-face." She giggled.

Glowering, after picking his jaw up off the floor, Grunge said, "So it's just a game, huh?"

He then, faster than she could figure what he was doing, snatched the cartridge out of the console and forcible ejected it, saying, "Then you won't mind if I take the game card out..." he then stood up well out of her reach, even as she sat up in shock at what he'd done, "...before you register the new high score! Which means that I'm still the master assassin! Hah!"

"Hey! Wait a minute! That's not fair!" she whined, starting to get angry.

"Like they say, Rox," Grunge taunted her, dancing further away from the TV and her wrath. (Too bad it wasn't far enough) "All's fair in love and—w—whhoooaaaa!"

Roxy had caught him with her gravity-manipulation powers, and was currently negating the Earth's natural gravity field from affecting him, her hands and the area around his body lit up with a bubble-like sky-blue glow, as he floated up to the ceiling, higher and higher off the ground. Once he was halfway between the floor and the ceiling—considering that the 'living room' was as tall as the building itself, that was about fifteen to twenty feet in the air, at the least—she halted his progress and held him there, just floating.

"Wha—whatcha doin', Rox?!" Grunge desperately questioned.

"Just thought I'd lighten up that attitude of yours!" she remarked.

"Aw, c'mon, honeybear. I was just teasing you," he said, hoping to appease her. "Besides, I know you'd never do anything to hurt your cute and lovable Grunge-man."

Smiling mischievously, Roxy said in return, "Sounds to me like somebody's ego needs to come back down to Earth. Happy landings." She then cut her powers.

Feeling gravity immediately start to exert its full force upon him once again, Grunge cried out, "Rox! No! Wa—AAAAIIIITT—*!"

Grunge crashed to the floor, but felt himself hit something and an unnatural tug at the point of impact, followed shortly by the entirely natural sound and sensation of his head hitting a hard surface. Thankfully it wasn't the floor, but rather the thin metal side of a desk. Reaching under him, he pulled at what he felt pinching his backside and saw a handful of wires and plugs, not all of them still intact.

"Uh-oh," he mumbled, struggling to sit back up. "Hope these weren't connected to anything important."

Turning from her suddenly dead computer and monitor, Cailtin spun in her office chair to face the prone idiot leaning up against the side of her workstation desk. Looking him over, she shook her head, mostly disgusted at his appearance, but more for his lack of hygiene than anything about him specifically. Grunge had completely embraced the Californian Surfer way of life, having the same hairstyle, his signature tattoos on full display, and what shirts he did wear were always short-sleeved and left open to display his compact muscular chest. At the moment he was wearing a green shirt with the sleeves rolled as far up as he could get them, and completely unbuttoned and untucked from the cut-off khaki shorts he wore. On his feet, he was wearing a disgusting pair of over-sized patched green socks.

"You mean, besides my computer workstation, Eddie?" the composed amazon said in answer to his question. She snatched the offered cables from his hand as he responded.

"I'm sorry, Kat. It was most uncool of me. Any damage?" he apologized, getting to his feet.

Sighing, she did a quick inspection and realized that it was all reparable. Especially with a couple of magicians in the house. "Not really," she said. "Luckily, I keep all of my work backed up on my hard drive, and a few external drives that you managed to avoid destroying."

Deciding to just go ahead and shut everything down, and worry about repairs later, she fully faced her two friends and decided to try and have an important talk with them. "Look, I know you two were just having some fun, but don't you think it's time that you started taking things a bit more seriously around here? I mean, if we're going to be working together as a team, then I think it is really important that we try and do all our work assignments and attend all the training sessions and master our various mystic abilities..." she stood with her hands on her hips and faced them both squarely, "...instead of passing the time playing video games. We've got a great opportunity here to do a lot of good, you know?"

"Opportunity," Grunge nodded along, eyes glazed over, rubbing the back of his neck. "Right."

Catching the glare she sent his way, although in truth it was more about his lack of attention than the accident, he apologized again, "Look I really am sorry, Kat..."

Roxy, arms crossed as she stood next to her boyfriend, cut him off and snapped, "What exactly do you want from us, Kat?"

Surprised at the vehement response, Caitlin backed off somewhat, and tried to come up with a suitable reply. She found it wasn't exactly difficult.

"I want to be a part of a team, a cohesive unit that can count on one another in any situation," she said. "I want to be part of... of a family, I guess. And I want this team to be that family. More than anything else, I want to go out with Harry on his next mission, but he insists that he can't risk taking any of us with him if we can't even meet Mr. Lynch's criteria. According to him, none of us get to go unless all of us get to go. So if it were just me, maybe, but." She stopped and renewed her glare at the two of them and went from hands on her hips to crossed arms. "But I can't do it all by myself, now can I?"

She let out a huff of frustration and ran a hand through her hair, gesturing hopefully toward the pair, saying, "I guess all I'm saying is that we've got to start taking more responsibility for ourselves. I know that I'm doing all that I can to improve and learn everything that I can get my hands on about my mystical abilities, and I sometimes help out Bobby and Sarah with their own exercises and training. But outside of Mr. Lynch's official training times, I hardly ever see the two of you working out."

"We work out!" the pair of them said at the same time.

Then Grunge flexed his left bicep, incidentally putting it right in front of Roxy's face. "This kinda work don't come from just good genetics, babe."

"Ugh, get over yourself," Roxy snorted and pushed his arm down.

"That is not what I meant, Eddie," Caitlin sighed, hands back on her hips. "Why are you two in here bickering over a video game you've been playing all afternoon, when you should be reading up on your... divination and barrier skills?"

"Well, okay," Grunge muttered, then pointed a finger at the punk girl at his side, "but Rox started it all."

"You are such a LIAR!" she screamed, rounding on him, before snapping her fingers, now lit with the same earlier blue-bubble glow, saying snarkily, "You can't get me to take the fall!"

Rising to the ceiling once more, Grunge had a 'Homer-Simpson-moment' and cried out, "D'OH!"

Throwing up her hands in defeat, Caitlin rounded on her heels and stormed out. "That's it. I give up!"

"Me too, Rox!" Grunge surrendered. "Rox?! NOOO—UNGH!"

This time his head really did hit the floor first. Thankfully it was carpeted.

Later That Evening (After Dinner)

"You wanted to see me?" Harry said as he entered Lynch's office.

"Yes," the scarred, one-eyed man replied. "How did the mission go?"

"Eh," Harry shrugged, emulating Bobby when he was being moody. "It was just a job. Admittedly, it took me longer than expected to complete. On the other hand, there is the fact that I actually completed it, which apparently nobody in the local ICW office truly expected that I could, so I suppose that says something about my skills."

"You've been hanging around us Americans too long," Lynch said. "How long have you been hunting this one down?"

"Couple of months," Harry answered. "First month here, we were all settling in, then I got the assignment and had to head out to Toronto to meet a contact."

"I recall," Lynch said. "You were only gone for the weekend. Caitlin was frantic. The training room took a real beating."

"That was when I met Goldeye," Harry elaborated. "If you recall, the next weekend is when I had him drop by to... evaluate the others."

"And then you had them split up to train under different masters for a little while during May," Lynch recalled. "Threw my schedule off a bit, but I've seen marked improvement from all of them. Yourself included, for the few times I can get you to stick around long enough for a training session."

"Oh, is that what this is about?" Harry laughed. "Want to go another round or three under the guise of it being a training session?"

"Your powers, Harry," Lynch stated, "both magical and the Gen Factor, are assets, tools that you can use in any situation. I'm just trying to show you how to use those tools. Don't let overconfidence be your downfall."

"Believe me, Lynch," Harry assured him, "I know precisely what my failings are, and what I can and cannot do. Fortunately, thanks to my Gen Factor, I now have a chance to actually think through my actions, rather than fly by the seat of my pants and smash into the rock wall of reality repeatedly. Is this about the conversation Caitlin and I had upon my return? About me taking the team out on these Hit-Wizard jobs of mine? Hunting down and capturing dark wizards?"

"Magicians are dangerous and unpredictable," he argued.

"Except against another 'magician'," Harry argued back. "Which is why I won't take a single one of them until all of them know what to expect and what they'd be dealing with. It is also why I insisted we take this particular safe house over the other one you'd pointed out. Sunnydale is a mystical hotspot. Before too long, I guarantee you that they'll all have the necessary experience that makes dealing with a dark wizard on the run seem like child's play."

"And the other missions?" Lynch put forth.

"That is your department, but I want in on those, so don't even think of trying to take the team out while I'm off on one of my other jobs."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Lynch laughed.

There was an air of comfortable silence for about twenty clicks of the grandfather clock in Lynch's study, and then neither one of them could take it anymore. Fortunately for the scarred colonel, Harry broke first, the impatience of youth.

"So," Harry said, "what is it that you really wanted to talk about, John?"

"..." the man hesitated before walking over and taking a seat behind his desk. Harry took the cue and sat down in the chair directly across from him. "The others, Caitlin in particular, have made it clear that they feel... that you are their team leader. They also have made it clear that unless you show your agreement, they are free to ignore my instructions. Not to mention Anna's house rules."

"I was aware of this," he acknowledged. "I'm fairly certain Grunge got the message, and Roxy is still too young to be buying her own cigarettes, and... quite frankly she's more addicted to the ones I conjure up than anything the stores sell."

"And Bobby and Caitlin's... disregard for my authority?" Lynch pressed.

"Which situations are you referring to?" Harry asked, struggling to maintain his composure. For some odd reason, he felt much as he had back in a certain detention setting when he'd gotten one particularly memorable scar on the back of his right hand. He may not be an anarchist, but his childhood and growing up in Hogwarts had taught him a... a great deal of scorn for authority. Particularly authority that seeks to take advantage of those younger and with less experience to further their own, unknowable agendas.

"It was nothing major," Lynch waved off any concern. "During training simulations, the pair of them, and the others as a result, ignored my instructions and very nearly lead themselves to injury. It was only thanks to their own gen-factors that allowed them to avoid a stay in the infirmary."

Harry nodded, resolving to go over all the records for the training sessions he hadn't been here for. Then he turned it around and asked, "Did they successfully complete the objectives of the simulation?"

Lynch frowned, his scars showing even deeper across his left eye from the expression. Eventually, he grated out a reluctant answer, "... Yes."

"How much effort would they have saved themselves if they'd done it your way?" he asked.

"At least a full ten minutes, and again, they wouldn't have nearly gotten themselves killed, or at the least put on the casualty list," he answered.

"So you just need to show them the difference then," Harry declared with a spread of his hands, as though the answer was obvious.

"What do you mean?" Lynch questioned.

Harry smirked, glad to have caught the man off-guard. "These are not..." he started, then stopped himself and sat up straighter. "John, we are not soldiers. Yes, we spent most of last year in a training program designed to turn us into SPB-soldiers, but the reason our team was in the top slots mostly came down to the fact that we stuck together, as a unit. Individually, we're still kids, teenagers and young adults that haven't even graduated college yet! We're all at the age where we make mistakes and go out late to parties and all the other stereotypes one sees in the movies and on TV. Also, none of us signed up for military service, like you did. We were recruited, by people in suits, or GenActives with a seduction-based power, and told that it was a 'government-funded development program' or other such rot. Stop treating us like soldiers that volunteered for service or signed up for a Special Ops Unit, because we aren't!"

Lynch sat back in his chair and stared with scrutiny at the young man seated before him. He may not have been the oldest of the team, but he was undoubtedly the most world-weary and experienced of the lot of them. "What happened to you, Harry?"

Surprised, the youth leaned back and crossed his arms, answering defensively, "What do you mean?"

Shaking his head, Lynch said, "Sorry, it is just... Sometimes I look at you and think that you're no different from the rest of the kids, needing guidance and support and... help. But then you say or do something and I... it's like I'm looking at your grandfather all over again. The man was the best commanding officer I ever served under, and it wasn't just because he was smart and knew how to get things done. It was because he saw all of us, all of his unit, not just as weapons, tools, assets to be used. He saw us as his brothers and treated us as such. You're..." Lynch coughed to clear his throat, "You may look just like your father, but you are just like your grandfather."

Blinking away his own outpouring of emotions, Harry nodded, but didn't say anything.

When they both had themselves more under control, they straightened in their seats and as before, Harry spoke first. "I'll, uh, I'll talk to Caitlin and Bobby about things, and make sure that the rest understand the chain of command around here. In the mean time, though, maybe you should try and have the team complete the simulation objectives on their own, and then try it again following your instructions. Keep it simple and randomized, and they may come to the correct conclusions on their own. Also, be sure to schedule in time for their mystic training. Right now, it seems they're all free-styling it, and while Kat and Sarah are taking full advantage of that, the others seem to be viewing it as extra free time. They can't afford that. Especially not Grunge. Around here, his powers are going to be the most effective and the most desirable when the demon community gets word of us being on the Hellmouth."

"About that," Lynch spoke up. "We haven't come across anything... supernatural. No vampires, demons, or ghosts, or much of anything really. Where have they all gone, I wonder?"

"Eclipse. High school graduation. Explosion. Mayor presumed dead."

"... OK," Lynch reluctantly admitted. "Nothing supernatural has happened to us."

"I've got every ward in the wizarding book, and then some on this place," Harry pointed out. "Why is it you think that I really spent a solid two weeks staying here before going out on Hit-Wizard jobs? Took a full week to get the bloody things installed, and then a total thirteen days before they could be charged enough to start drawing off of not only the local ley lines, but the others' magic as well! Of course the wards would be more stable and a good deal stronger if they all used their magics more often, but..." he trailed off with a sigh.

"We haven't exactly been hermits," he said in counterpoint.

"The wards extend down to the water and an equivalent distance in all directions," Harry explained. "As for the rest, well... Explosion? Mayor presumed dead? Safe to say that if there was an organized supernatural community, they either just got their head cut off, or were told in the wake of said explosion to keep their heads down. That will change before too much longer, I guarantee you."

"And then what?" Lynch prompted.

"And then, hopefully," Harry said, "the others will be prepared to handle it when evil rears its ugly head. And unfortunately, John, evil isn't just mercenaries with no morals, megalomaniacs with WMDs, or supervillains with godlike powers. Sometimes, it's the devil."

Getting up to leave, Harry stopped at the door and looked back. "I'll talk to the others, see what I can do to make sure they understand. In the meantime, I think you've got a new schedule to write up."

Smiling, which somehow seemed to make the scars across his eye almost disappear, Lynch nodded and waved the young hero out of his office. Then he turned to his computer and started to write up a new training schedule. A few hours later, the same computer began to give him an alert as highly specific sensors he'd installed detected a nearby threat in town.

Seven Weeks Ago

It was the last weekend of April. Harry had left the previous weekend for some kind of mission having to do with his Hit-Wizard job, coming back pretty beat up and tired enough that he'd actually slept for a solid fifteen hours. He'd also 'left' this weekend, only to come back five hours later, bringing someone with him.

Now they were all sitting in the 'backyard' of their villa home—which in all honesty was just the deck-area next to the pool and about seven meters away from the 'stairs' that went down to the beach on the other side of the retaining wall—waiting for Harry and his new friend to explain what was going on. The sound of waves at high tide in the background certainly wasn't helping with Grunge's concentration.

"What is this all about, Harry?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah," Roxy pointed out, "I thought you were all about us training while you were away on your little side-missions. What's with coming back so soon? Are you just that awesome that you finished up already?"

"Dude! This is prime surf time!" Grunge whined.

"While we're raising concerns," Sarah added her two cents, "Who is this that you brought back with you? And for the record, even if you were only going to LA, you were back far too quickly to have actually done anything."

Harry sighed and glanced to see if Lynch, Caitlin or Anna were about to add anything. Upon seeing them remain silent, but curious, he decided to go ahead and get started.

"Fine," he raised his hands to stall any further comments. "I'm so sorry to have taken you all away from your busy pursuits of shopping," a glare at Roxy, "surfing," a harsh frown at Grunge, "and vegging out!" an accusing glance at Bobby. They all had the decency to duck their heads and look away, before refocusing their attention on his next words.

"For the record, I actually still have yet to complete my first assignment as a Hit-wizard, but while I was working on that, I came across somebody that will be able to help you all out in your own mystical paths. Everyone, this is Niklaren Goldeye, a powerful mage. From Toronto. Canada. You can call him Niko."

That raised some eyebrows, and not all for the same reason.

"Knee-koe?" Grunge repeated. "That some kind of cat-thing?"

The dark-eyed man sighed, rolling his eyes, apparently having heard similar throughout his life. Thankfully, he'd dressed down in preparation for the Southern Califonia heat, so instead of a three-piece-suit, he was wearing a white cotton shirt and light beige khakis. With his black hair pulled back in a tight ponytail and his trimmed beard combed straight, he presented a cool and in-control demeanor.

"It is a name I only let my friends call me," Niko told them. "I assumed that friends of Harry could be considered the same. Was I mistaken?"

"Not at all, Mister Niko," Caitlin immediately got to her feet to offer her greetings. "We're just all curious as to why Harry would invite you into our home like this. He said that you're a powerful mage. How is that different from Harry being a powerful wizard?"

At the question, both experienced magic-users' eyes lit up.

"That is a... complicated question," Harry admitted.

"With a rather simplistic answer," Niko said with a teasing smile. "Mister Potter here, uses a wand. I do not. That's all. Wizards use wands, mages use magic directly, through force of will and other foci."

"Which isn't to say that wizards can't use magic directly, we just... our magic works better with wands," Harry defended.

"And that brings us right around to why I am here today," Niko concluded.

"Why is...?" Caitlin started to say before it suddenly clicked for all of them, except Grunge. "You're here to help us figure out what kind of magic each of us has."

"Exactly," Niko nodded.

"How exactly are you going to do that?" Sarah asked, suspicious.

"It's the way Niko's magic works," Harry quickly said, before anyone else could speak. "His specialty is Sight Magic. Or, for the layman, he can see magic. He is also one of the world's foremost Diviners, but that is neither here nor there."

"Whoa," Grunge perked up. "That means you got like, X-Ray Vision? I want that magic power!"

Niko rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"I did warn you," Harry shrugged.

"Yes, well, thanks for that warning, I suppose," Niko responded.

"How would this work?" Sarah interrogated them. "What would we have to do? What exactly are you going to be seeing about us? Why do we even have to do this? Aren't dealing with our... other powers difficult enough?"

"Magic doesn't affect and isn't affected by the Gen Factor," Harry elaborated. "But that doesn't mean we won't all have to deal with it at some point. Sarah, you can shoot lightning out of your fingertips, Bobby, you make plasma and can control fire, Grunge, you control every molecule of your body, Roxy, you control gravity! And Caitlin is an all-around-super-human. Every single one of you have held my wand and gotten sparks at the least! Kat, you actually poured out so much raw magic that it is amazing you're not already levitating and transfiguring and blowing up everything around you. My point is, just because you can't use it the same as your Gen Factor powers, doesn't mean you won't use your magical powers—whatever they may be—anyway. So, first step, since it is clear none of you are wizards, or the female equivalent," they'd already had a 'thing' about him calling the girls witches, "is identification. Once we know what you can do, then the next step is figuring out how to use it. After that, you guessed it; training."

"As for how long this is going to take," said Niko, "shouldn't be more than an hour, at the most. Then I can head on back to Toronto and deal with young people far more mature than you lot."

"An hour?" Grunge whined. "C'mon, man! Can't you hear those waves? They're callin' me dude!"

"Well, since you're so impatient," Harry smirked, stepping in front of the tattooed surfer bum, "you get to go first, Grunge. Congratulations. You're the guinea pig so that the others can be reassured."

"Uh... I, um, well, when you put it that way, I don't mind goin' last, y'know...?" Grunge gulped.

"Really? You sure?" he was asked.

At the nervous nod, Harry continued, "You won't mind just sitting here, doing absolutely nothing, just waiting while Niko talks with the others, listening to the call of the waves, staying completely still?"

Sweat began to bead on the youth's forehead, and it wasn't even a few seconds before he broke.

"All right man! I'll do it! It won't hurt will it? I mean, I'll still do it, but I still won't have to stay here for the whole hour, right dude?" he begged.

"Best get this outta the way for all our sakes," Harry guided the shorter, yet bulkier man inside.

"You do have a talent for understatement, don't you Harry?" Niko joked, leading Grunge further inside.

Once the two were out of hearing range, Caitlin immediately got back to her feet and towered over her team leader. "All right, Harry. In all seriousness, what is going on here? First of all, you tell a complete stranger about us, second, you bring him to our safe house, and third, most importantly, what exactly is this going to involve?"

Looking up into her green eyes with his own flashing in amusement, he replied, "First, Niko and his student already know about me, and they're both sworn to secrecy. Magically sworn. Not only won't they tell anyone, they can't. Second, he doesn't know where we are and if he somehow found out, he still would not be able to pinpoint it on a map, digital or otherwise. It is one of the protections I placed here, this location is unplottable, meaning that it can not be mapped. Furthermore, the method of transportation that I used to bring Niko here is called a Portkey. Suffice it to say, one minute we were in Toronto, and then the next we were on the outskirts of town. And third, as I mentioned, Niko is a Diviner, he uses divination. Most assume that has something to do with telling the future, but the practical is considerably... more simple. If it has anything to do with gathering or revealing information, magically speaking that is what divination is. So, in most cases, Niko probably already knows what each of you can do, just from sight alone. He'd be able to see it in your auras. For the few that it wouldn't be that easy for, he'll need to use magical tools. Whatever or however he uses those tools to determine it, the whole process will be completely non-invasive. At most he may have you hold something, or stare into a candle and meditate for a bit."

"Why can't you do this?" Roxy pouted.

"Because I'm pants at divination," he said vehemently.

"Well, that and I've actually been trying, but all the spells I've cast have either come back with a non-result, or a measure of the amount of power you can bring forth. Should come at no surprise to everyone that Kat is, of course, the strongest out of all of us, magically speaking. Wizards are actually sort of insulated. At least the ones I grew up around were. If it wasn't carrying a wand, it wasn't a wizard and therefore wasn't a magical person but instead a magical creature. I'm trying to keep you lot away from that sort of prejudice, thank you very much, so please appreciate the effort I've gone to in order to get us some bloody answers without having you all labeled as sub-humans."

They all blinked in shock at his reaction, but were quick to assure him of their cooperation. Caitlin even going so far to hug the shorter man to her chest. Not that he'd ever say no to a full-on-Kat-hug.

About ten minutes after they went inside, Niko came back out with a rather stunned-looking Grunge, although that truly wasn't saying much as the surfer-bum often appeared stoned or otherwise out-of-it.

"Can I see Miss Rainmaker next, if that is all right?" Niko requested.

Frowning, but quick to mask it, the Apache was soon on her feet and following along behind the Sight Mage. Meanwhile the others began interrogating Grunge.

"Well?" Roxy demanded of her boyfriend. "What did he say? Did you find out you've got magic x-ray-vision like you wanted?"

"Huh? Oh, no, nuthin' like that," Grunge shook his head.

"You weren't in there long," Harry observed. "And being the second most powerful of us magically, your talent must be pretty close to the surface. What did he call you? In the end, after the testing? He would have told you what the name of your talent is, Eddie."

Blinking owlishly up at the wizard, he nodded slowly and repeated the word he'd been told and the explanation behind it. Or at least as much of it as he could remember.

"Uhm... he said I'm a, a Kekkaishi," Grunge said. "I can, uh... like, make kekkai, um, barriers and stuff."

Harry's brows went up in surprise. "Did he show you how?" he wanted to know.

"Uh, yeah," he nodded and then looked over at a nearby potted plant along the railing. He held his first two fingers up on his right hand in front of his chest. He closed his eyes and then opened them, focused solely on the potted plant. He then spoke three words, pointing right at the plant on the second word and then sweeping his fist upwards on the third. "Houi! Jouso! Ketsu!"

In reaction to his words and gestures, there was a spark of magic in the area immediately around the plant, followed by the spark then hastily tracing out a perfect square along the ground, before instantly expanding that square into a perfect cube forcefield of a reddish-crimson shade, but transparent.

Harry blinked and looked back and forth between the fully-developed kekkai and the one that had cast it for several seconds. Finally, he couldn't help commenting, "So, it's safe to assume that most of the time was spent explaining to you what a Kekkaishi is, does, and convincing you that you were one by teaching you this spell?"

"Uh, yeah, something like that," Grunge said, still pretty out of it. "He, uh, he also taught me a couple other things that I can do. Also, uh, gave me a card. Some place called Karasumori, where I could go to learn more. Think it's in Japan or someplace like that."

"What other spell did he teach you?" Bobby asked, suddenly a whole lot more interested in learning magic as he and Caitlin investigated the crimson forcefield.

"Kai!" Grunge snapped, holding his fingers before him again. The kekkai vanished.

"He also showed me how to destroy spirits," Grunge grumbled, turning away. "I'm going surfing."

Nobody stopped him as he raced to get his board and then jumped off the wall down to the sand, bypassing the stairs entirely. Harry frowned and glared back towards the house where Niko was currently informing Sarah what her magic was. Caitlin put her hand on the wizard's shoulder to calm him.

"He shouldn't have done something like that," Harry growled.

"Maybe it was the only way Grunge would listen?" she suggested. "Or maybe there really was some kind of evil spirit in the house and he just took advantage of an opportunity?"

Harry took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "No, I know what a kekkaishi is and what they do. Most of them, yes, they employ themselves as exorcists. Grunge wouldn't be able to complete the spell-chain, not without a talisman, to create a portal to the ether. Which means that he would've been forced to destroy it entirely. That sort of thing weighs on a soul, Kat. I should know."

Before the conversation could continue, Niko and Sarah returned, having finished much quicker than Grunge had, and the young woman in considerably better spirits. She was also carrying a rather thick, leather-bound book with her.

"I'm a witch," were the first words out of her mouth.

Which was more than a little surprising, as she'd been the one most against Harry calling the girls by that particular title.

"More of the modern definition, rather than the old belief system," Niko was quick to assure them.

"Can I talk with you for a moment?" Harry snapped.

Smiling, Niko nodded, and only took a single step off to the side as Harry rounded on him. "What exactly did you show Grunge to convince him of what he could do?"

"I had him vaporize an orange, and told him to imagine it was a ghost of a little girl that would possess and kill all his friends if he didn't send it on to the afterlife," Niko replied, still smiling.

"... An orange?" Harry confirmed.

"I think he was a little bit more disturbed by what I told him would be waiting for him if he did go to that address I gave him in Karasumori for more training. He really does not like to work, does he?" Niko surmised.

"If he doesn't now, he soon will," Harry growled, now at the bum that had just played him.

"Miss Fairchild, I apologize, but I fear that your results will actually take us the longest to deduce, so if you, please, wouldn't mind going last? Bobby, is it? This shouldn't take long, but, er... perhaps we'd best take care of this outside. Harry? The, er, device that you mentioned? Just in case?"

"Really? Him? Not who I would've figured but, hm, not all that surprising either," said Harry as he handed over a small circular device to the mage.

"So, what's with you calling yourself a witch now, Sarah?" Roxy questioned once Niko and Bobby were quite a distance further down the beach.

Taking a closer look at the book in her hands, Harry's eyes lit up once more as he whistled, appreciative. "You're a Nature Witch?"

"Not... exactly," Sarah muttered, embarrassed.

"That's a... a book of shadows, isn't it? A grimoire, used by those of the wiccan faith," Caitlin clarified.

"... Yes," she admitted. "But I'm not a wiccan, if you must know. But I do have a... a connection, to Gaia. The spirit of the Earth. Mother Nature, if you will."

They all stared, but it was Roxy who said, "Wow. Talk about calling it. You control the elements, can create any kind of weather you like, and you are a witch that has Mother Nature on speed-dial. Whodda thunk?"

"That's not... exactly the case," Sarah said. "Look, I just, I need some time to process this. And, well, I doubt that I'll be hard-up for teachers, Niko says there are covens of real witches out there all over the place. And natural witches, those born with a unique magical power, may even be able to help me out. Mostly though, I'm going to be like Harry, having to cast spells with different kinds of foci, just not wands apparently."

"Or if you do use a wand, you'll need spells compatible to you, rather than wizards," Harry commented.

"This is a starter, a... guidebook, filled with spells, to help me better understand what I'll be getting into. IF I pursue this. There are... a lot of dangers out there," she explained.

"Nature witches do have their own magical power, like wizards," Harry quickly elaborated, "but that core is tied into the surrounding... mana, for lack of a better term. In order to use their magic at all, they have to draw in power from other sources. Most often from various gods and goddesses out there. But, sometimes," he took a deep breath and shared a look of concern with Sarah, "there are also demons and other dark forces to draw upon. Those that make using magic... easy, if you will. The most pure source, of course, would be Gaia, but she... well, there is a reason that the phrase 'Don't mess with Mother Nature' can be translated into every language on this planet."

"Will," Caitlin hesitated to say anything, but she quickly found her voice, "will Sarah have to join one of these covens? In order to learn, I mean?"

"No," Harry shook his head. "This sort of thing is entirely voluntary, and for the few that aren't, I highly doubt that you would be interested in that kind of group, Sarah. For right now, I'll get you as many books as I can, and you have the book there to help you get started. After that, well, we'll see where we go from there. Either way, Sarah, know that we have your back and you can count on all of us."

"Even me," Lynch finally spoke up to say something.

"You can count on all of us," Anna reiterated.

"Thank you," she nodded her head, much relieved.

About five minutes later, after some impressive fireworks further down the beach, near where the driftwood was naturally collected, Bobby and Niko returned, the human torch practically bursting with excitement. He couldn't even make it all the way up the stairs before announcing to the whole group, "I'M A PYROMANCER! WOO-HOO!"

"What were you saying about whodda thunk, Roxy?" Sarah joked.

"Tell me about it," the punk-haired girl grumbled. "I swear, if my powers are to like, levitate and stuff, I'm calling cheat!"

"Your powers have nothing to do with telekinesis or the like, Miss Spaulding," Niko stated clear as day.

"Oh, you can tell that at just a glance, can you?" she sniped at him.

"Yes, that much I can," he said, smirking. "As I can tell that you are not a witch, such as Miss Rainmaker, or even more distinctive as Bobby and Edmund are. I'll actually need to utilize my tools to further narrow down yours, and Miss Fairchild's, true talents. Shall we then?" He gestured and then followed her inside.

"So, pyromancer?" Caitlin questioned Bobby.

"Oh yeah, here you go, Harry," the blond tossed the same tech-device the black-haired wizard had handed off to the mage earlier.

"What is that?" Sarah questioned.

"A power inhibitor," Lynch was the one to answer, having gotten a better look at the device now. They all shot Harry surprised and suspicious looks.

"Like the ones Threshold used on us?" Rainmaker near-growled.

"Similar," Harry admitted, holding up the round device. "Got this one from Anna, actually. Doesn't so much turn off our powers as suppresses them. Since we escaped, I've made it a point to learn how to get out of every sort of type of this device that exists out there. Currently, I can escape or negate the effects of thirty-seven percent of them, almost instantly. After working at it for several minutes, I can negate a further twelve percent. Given several hours to a day, I can throw off the effects of over 97 percent of power inhibitors out there. The dozen or so that not even I can break away from, well, thankfully those are all used by people we either know are our enemies, or don't know about us in the first place. I fully intend on making it so I can get out of that 97 percent instantly sometime in the future, I just have to keep working at it."

"When Niko explained what my magic powers were," Bobby said, "I couldn't figure out how to use them instead of my plasma-based powers, seeing as they both have the same triggers; I want something hot, I focus on it getting hot. So he pulled out that thing, and voila, next thing I'm setting on fire, I'm doing it with magic, and I can feel the difference!"

"I had a suspicion that one or more of you guys might have 'similar' magics to your Gen-Factors, so I told Niko about it and had this little thing ready, just in case," Harry explained. "See, this is one of the few power inhibitors our there that cannot be negated by using magic around it. Can still use magic on it, but it would have to be spell-specific to actually get it to stop working."

"So, you can feel the difference between your powers and your, er, magic?" Caitlin questioned the now-affirmed pyromancer.

Nodding, he happily replied, "Yep! Looking back, I'm kind of amazed that I couldn't tell the difference before, but then, I suppose the magic was always there, wasn't it?"

"Usually," Harry shrugged.

"I wonder if it is the same for me?" Caitlin asked, curious.

"Probably," the black-haired wizard remarked. "I mean, I'm not kidding about how much raw magic you can channel, Kat. If that is going on all the time, and you still can't feel the difference, then either it is very close in nature to your own abilities, or you can somehow channel it subconsciously and aren't aware because of that."

Getting to his feet, Harry drew them to the back of the deck, where he pulled out a wand and quickly conjured some standard blocks of wood. "Let's try something real quick. Bobby, using your magic, and focusing very closely on the targets here, I want you to cast the spell Incendio. It's a First Year spell, meant to light candles and hardly anything else. Normally I'd have you learn the wand movements along with the proper pronunciation, but I doubt you'll need either. Just focus on your magic, on the targets, and then say the spell."

"That's it? Niko had me going on about meditating and pulling my power in and containing it and stuff!" Bobby exclaimed.

"That's for control, and a measurement of your power," Harry replied. "I use a wand. Mages, like you and Niko, use your own will. If you don't want to go around setting everything on fire, I would listen to him about meditating. In the meantime, this is a simple exercise, and nothing more."

"All right," he said, taking a breath, he focused on the conjured blocks of wood, focused, and cast the spell, "Incendio!"

A candle-flames worth of fire sparked against wood and was quickly blown out by the wind.

"Oh what a jip!" Bobby yelled. "What the hell, man? Do I have like, the lowest level of magic or what?"

"No, actually, that would be Lynch," Harry responded, having paid closer attention to Bobby than the target during his casting. "I think I see why wizards tend to underestimate mages. With a wizard, put a compatible enough wand in his or her hand, and they'll be casting at full power with no hesitation. Mages, on the other hand, you really do have to focus to get your magic to do what you want it to, don't you? Lose that focus, and lose most of your power that we wizards get just from picking up a wand. Try it again, Bobby, but this time, do what Niko told you to do. Focus on gathering your power inward, take as long as you need, and then when you are ready, try the spell again. Please?" he added when it looked like he might argue.

"Fine," the pyromancer grumbled, closing his eyes and taking measured breaths.

After a solid minute and a half, during which nobody but Bobby—breathing in time with the sound of the waves—moved or made any noise, the blond pyromancer opened his eyes and softly whispered, "Incendio."

All of the blocks of wood immediately caught fire and within seconds were burned away to ash.

They all stared, stunned, even the one that had accomplished the feat.

"Right, so, meditation is now part of your daily schedule," Harry said, clapping his teammate across his shoulders. "I'll also be getting you what spells and books that I know have to do with fire magic. Something to keep in mind, Burnout," he called him by his code name to ensure he had his attention, "Fire magic isn't all destructive. You can do a lot with fire and the flame. Learn what all can be done, and then strive to do it. I know for a fact that some aspects of fire magic can be used to heal and protect, just as easily as it can be used to shoot off fireballs."

"Yeah, thanks, I'll, uh, I'll keep that in mind," Bobby nodded, still stunned at the difference in his casting techniques.

Fortunately, before much else could be said, Niko and Roxy returned, with the pink-and-purple-haired teenager looking just as out-of-it as Grunge had at first. That was quick to change, however, when she noticed everyone's stares. "What?" she snapped at them all.

"Well?" Caitlin said impatiently. "What kind of magic do you have?"

"Oh, that, yeah, I'm a divine whatever, like Niko here," she said off-handed.

Rolling their eyes in unison once again, Harry and Niko exchanged a look, and during said exchange, it was determined that Harry would be the one to explain.

"You are a Diviner, Roxy," he elaborated. "It means your talents lie with the practical use of Divination. What I was talking about earlier? Magically finding out or revealing information?"

"Like I'm going to go around reading everyone's tea leaves and tarot cards and looking into crystal balls while telling them that they'll soon meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger that will either love them or kill them," she said with disgust.

"Yeah," Harry laughed, blushing slightly, "No. That's how wizards use divination. I'm fairly certain that if Niko isn't already willing to take on yet another student, he at least knows somebody locally that could help you out?" He said this last bit in a begging, hopeful tone.

Taking a deep, meditative, breath of his own, Niko sadly shook his head. "No, I'm afraid that I am out of touch with much of the magical community in this part of the world. And really, Harry, you thought I wouldn't recognize the stench of the Primary Hellmouth? Besides, this is hardly the place to be learning magic. Far too many corruptive influences and temptations about. Even if the soul was as pure as could be, learning to cast magic, without knowing what pitfalls to avoid along the way, they'd be as black as night by the time they were twenty. And if not, then they'll have certainly been stained enough to be labeled 'Dark' by Harry's people."

He brought himself up and more closely inspected the young girl before him, who seemed to shrink in upon the appraisal. "No, I'm afraid that, to do my duty, and to ensure her safety, I shall have to take Roxanne in as my student. Or, perhaps... Hm, what do you think, Harry? Would Roxy make a good student for... my wayward student?"

Harry blinked, and then grinned, examining Roxy much as Niko had just done. "You are absolute evil, my friend. Do it."

"Hey, what about this all being voluntary!" Roxy exclaimed.

"That was in regards to Sarah, and the fact that she's a Nature Witch," Harry pointed out. "You are a Diviner Mage, one who doesn't even know how to use her powers properly yet. And you need a teacher, both for your safety, as well as all those around you. Or do you suddenly want to go around seeing people's deaths, or getting uncontrolled sounds and images and whatnot coming to you from out of nowhere."

Roxy flinched at that, but they all noticed.

"It's already started, hasn't it?" Harry sighed, saddened.

"Is this... is that how I got the vision of Roxy being in pain, when Threshold was torturing you all?" Caitlin asked, curious.

"... Yes," Harry said after some hesitation. "I had actually suspected it might have been your own magic activating, but Roxy 'reaching out', providing you information, to the one person she had a connection with that wasn't right there with her, it makes sense."

"She actually has a rudimentary form of Mage Sight," Niko reported. "She isn't able to see everything that I can, thankfully, but she is able to detect active uses of magic. Which might explain how she's noticed it more in recent weeks." He said that mostly as an accusation to Harry.

"I've actually kept my active use to a minimum, after setting up the wards," he defended himself. Then asked, curious, "Can you see the wards, Roxy?"

"Not... all the time," she shrugged. "Just, sorta outta the corner of my eye. Sometimes. It's the... the after-images and the things that aren't really there that really get to me."

"Which places?" he questioned.

"The abandoned lot on Bleaker, the Lowell House over on fraternity row, and that bar called the Alibi Room?" she listed the ones she remembered.

Harry whistled. "Rack's den, a place more haunted than my old school, and the one place in town with wards keyed to let in demons and vampires but to keep out ordinary humans. Looks like you'll be heading back with one other, Niko. Roxy, I hate to be this kind of guy, but you need to go pack. Now."

"Wait, what do you mean?!" she yelled.

Grunge, having had his fill of surfing, came charging up the stairs, surfboard in tow as he heard his girlfriend's shout. "Hey Rox, what is it? What's goin' on?"

"Roxy," Harry explained, ignoring Grunge, "You need training. At the very least, you need to gain control over your magic. If you're already able to see past wards like those places you mentioned, even partially, your powers are growing stronger every day. You have to go with Niko and start your training today!"

"But..." she whined.

"Not to worry," Niko was quick to assure her. "I'll only handle your teachings in meditation and control. If you truly wish to pursue the path of your power, I know someone... far more suited to your nature. She is nearly as irrepressible as yourself, young lady."

"Whoa, wait, Roxy ain't goin' nowhere!" Grunge shouted, finally catching up with the conversation.

"You're going someplace as well, Grunge," Harry grinned rather sadistically at the surfer bum.

Shaking his head most emphatically, the half-asian tattooed surfer forgot all about Roxy as he vehemently denied, "Unh-uh! No way! I ain't goin' nowhere! And you can't make me! No way, dude!"

"Niko, you and Kat better get started figuring out what her talents are. I'll handle this in the meantime," said Harry.

"Right this way, my dear," Niko gestured and allowed the sundress clad amazon to precede him through the doorway. The time since Niko's arrival and the 'testing' had begun had been just under half an hour by this point. It would be almost forty-five minutes before anybody saw either of them again.

Meanwhile, Harry continued to argue with Roxy and Grunge, the confirmed and reaffirmed slackers of the team, that not only should they go to receive magic training, but they would be going, and he would be hand-delivering both of them if it came to that. Fortunately, Harry had Roxy convinced inside of ten minutes, and all it took was casting a few esoteric and 'less-flashy' spells that nobody but Harry and Roxy could see the effects of. Grunge took... a lot more convincing. Enough that they were still arguing about it by the time that Caitlin and Niko finally did emerge from the young woman's evaluation.

"Hey guys," Caitlin greeted upon walking back out onto the deck. "What's going on here?"

"Not going!" Grunge shouted.

"Going!" Harry shouted back.

"Not going!"

"Uh, yeah, going!"

Sarah, sitting by the pool, reading through her grimoire, answered Caitlin's question. "It devolved to this about five minutes ago. Grunge doesn't want to leave."

"Not going!"

"And Harry insists that he learns how to better use his powers," she concluded.

"Going, going, gone even!"

"Plus," Bobby added, walking back over with his guitar, "the real reason Grunge wants to stay has nothing to do with his usual lazy attitude, or fear of his magic or the strange teachers or whatever."

"Not going times infinity!"

"Why doesn't he want to go?" Caitlin asked.

"You already used that, and Going times Infinity to the Infinitieth power!"

The redhead shot her team leader an incredulous look and almost missed Bobby's answer, but said answer drew forth its own incredulous look once she heard it.

"He doesn't want to leave such 'prime surf real estate' and miss out on all the babes in bikinis."

"He what?!" she exploded.

Before the 'going/not going' argument could even further devolve, the super-strong, nigh-invincible amazon stormed over to the shorter surfer and almost casually picked him up by his throat until he was at her eye level.

"You're going Grunge! No excuses! Because, quite frankly, the excuses you do have are worth shit!" she yelled in his face.

Everyone in earshot, they all gasped. Caitlin didn't curse. She just wasn't that type of person. Period.

"And I promise you this, Ed," she hissed in his face. "If I hear that you did not do everything that you possibly could to learn absolutely everything that you possibly can do with your magic... We. Will. Have. Words. And you won't like it." She tightened her squeeze until he was more purple in the face than red. "Believe it."

Dropping him to the floor, she turned and walked off toward the railing nearest the beach, but still on the back deck. Helping the shorter man to his feet, Harry patted the coughing GenActive on the back and added, "You're going, cause she's on my side. And, I say so."

"Aw man," he grumbled, once he'd caught his breath that is.

Once the situation had calmed down, they all regathered on the deck and settled down to hear about Fairchild's magic. As with the last few, in some ways it wasn't that surprising, but it also wasn't a clear "oh, that is so obvious" situation either.

"Caitlin's magic, suffice it to say," Niko said, "is Protection Magic. And you are right about her being able to channel the most raw power out of you all. Most defensive magic users tend to have greater reserves on average as it is. Also, she is not, technically speaking, a mage. Nor is she a wizard, or a witch, or even a sorceress. It also explains the reaction she had with your wand, Harry. She can use a wand. As she can create barriers and circles of protection as mages can. She can also cast magic with but a thought as sorcerers and sorceresses can. But she can only use defensive magic."

"So... she's a tank?" Grunge said, relating to the one subject he knew enough about to hazard a guess; video games.

"A little bit indelicate, but yes," Niko replied. "I tested her magic extensively with all the tools and spells at my disposal. She... her magic is, well, it technically defies classification. She is a mage, a wizard, a Nature Witch, a Natural-Born witch, a Sorceress and a Mystic, all at the same time. But the only spells that she can cast from those various disciplines are Protective Magic in nature. I have never seen the like."

"Can she do what I can?" Grunge asked.

In reply, Caitlin held up her hand as Grunge had when first demonstrating his kekkai, and without the words, created a perfect cube in mid-air, followed by a perfect cylinder, a flawless sphere, a three-sided pyramid, and an tetrahedron, one right after the next. Unlike Grunge's which was a crimson shade and transparent, Caitlin's was the same shade of green as Harry's eyes, and only some of them were transparent, while others were completely solid, and one or two even glowing with an internal power. Like...

"Hey, they look kind of like the Green Lantern's constructs!" Bobby pointed out.

"Except this is magic," Caitlin said, slashing her hand through the air, releasing all of them at once. "And whatever the superhero Green Lantern does, he uses alien technology. He's said so, as have multiple experts. Plus, everyone knows that he uses a ring to make all those constructs. I was just doing what Grunge did, but in my head, and I used magic to do it."

"You can feel it now?" Sarah confirmed. Caitlin nodded her head.

"Yes, it's... it is indescribable," she said, her voice and expression filled with wonder. "Like fire and lightning coursing through my veins, but, solid and tangible, but at the same time as intangible as water or air. I can... feel it with my mind, but when I try to define it, it's just... energy!"

"Hey, think maybe you can make us all as invulnerable as you are now, Kat?" Grunge laughed.

"She probably could," Harry remarked, thinking it over. "In fact... your magic goes a long way toward explaining how it is that your Gen-Factor powers work, now that I think about it."

"What do you mean?" the redhead asked him.

"Kat, look at you," Harry gestured at her body. "You're a supermodel, you're strong enough to throw a multi-ton tank the length of several football fields, and you're invulnerable to close-range explosions. The first two can be explained by the Gen-Factor increasing your muscle integrity and elasticity, but that last one? Unless you are unconsciously generating a psychokinetic field that terminates a few millimeters from your skin, it just doesn't make any sense! Physics dictate that, at the least, you should have burns and massive internal hemorrhaging from being anywhere within five feet of a grenade blast, to say nothing of scratches from the shrapnel. You don't even get bruised anymore, Caitlin. You may even have a regeneration factor, and that too could be attributed to the Gen-Factor. But back to your looks... have you even washed your face a day in your life, Kat?"

"Uh, well, I used to, when I was younger, but I stopped after... after high school," she admitted, blushing.

"You should, therefore, have the oiliest face right after Grunge, and more pimples than a steroid-popping body-builder," he pointed out. "Instead, it is like every single one of your pores stopped aging at the prime of their life. Your Gen-Factor regenerates your health, and your magic protects your body from the ravages of time and injury. You, Miss Fairchild, are the proverbial Tank's Tank. And I have made it my mission to teach you every single spell of protection and defense that this world, and many others, have to offer. Niko, got time for a quick lesson or two before you and Roxy head off?"

"No need," Niko declined. "In the course of our testing, I actually showed Caitlin here, every defensive spell that I personally know, and taught her the few others that I know of, but am unable to perform. It is how I know that she is in fact capable of Sorcery and Mystic magics. I think with enough practice and observation, she could even mimic that of a Natural-Born Witch's magical talent. If it were defensive or protective in nature, that is. Truly, quite remarkable."

The redhead was still blushing, and couldn't help crossing her arms across her body, like some blushing schoolgirl. It was interesting to note, as they all had yet to see their invincible second-in-command be truly embarrassed about anything. Roxy and Sarah both insisted that she was just unaware of how amazing she looked now, and Bobby tended to agree, as growing up 'ugly' through those awkward years can really leave a mark on somebody. Grunge and Harry both thought that she was actually an exhibitionist, even if she was still in the closet about it.

"It's still kind of early," Caitlin said, hoping to take attention off of her for a short while. "Why don't you stay for dinner? Anna is an amazing cook, by the way."

"Oh, yes, well, I imagine she is, being an android and all, it would be simplicity for her to merely download new recipes or... was it something I said?" Niko trailed off at everyone's stunned looks.

"..." Lynch casually remarked as scathing glares were sent his way. "Oh, did I forget to mention that?"

Lynch Villa

Present Day

Sunset

In light of Harry's return, the whole 'family', such as it was, had dinner a bit earlier than normal and Anna had quite the time cooking up such a feast. Immediately after dinner, they all scattered to do their own things. Lynch called Harry into his office, Caitlin went to her room to study, and the others just lounged around or did whatever it is that relaxed them.

Coming out of Lynch's office, Harry spotted Grunge back to playing video games, sans Roxy this time, while Bobby was on the couch tuning his guitar. From the wards, he could sense Caitlin in her room, Anna in the kitchen, and Sarah in the sauna, but no sign of Roxy.

"Hey guys," he greeted upon entering the living room. "Where'd Roxy go?"

Bobby smirked and answered, "Got fed up with Grunge here and stormed out of the house."

Grunge, not taking his attention away from the video game for a second, shrugged and replied, "Probably headed downtown to one of the dance clubs. Or, y'know, the Bronze, considering it's the only club in town. Don't sweat it, dude."

Harry scoffed and moved past them toward the stairs, intent on spending the rest of the evening in the privacy of his own room. He stopped mid-step, backtracked and did a double-take when Anna walked in with a tray of lemonades.

"Anyone for some freshly squeezed lemonade?" the blond maid inquired, ignorant of the sight right behind her that had frozen Harry in his tracks.

"I'll take one, Anna," Grunge called out, finally looking up from his game. As such, he too caught sight of what, or rather who, that had Harry so flabbergasted. "Hey, Sarah. Nice to see you..." It took a second, but Grunge's brain finally kicked into high gear as he processed what all his eyes were seeing, and he finished his statement with a choked gulp, "...guh—NAKED?!"

Indeed, Sarah Rainmaker was walking through the back half of the living room/downstairs from the hallway toward the open glass doorway leading to the back deck and the swimming pool. Naked. Stark naked. The only piece of cloth she had on her was a small red towel, draped appropriately across her neck, falling strategically over her chest. Her entire body was on full display, her smooth, flawless brown skin, tight over her feminine muscles, sweat and moisture from the steam of the sauna giving her a preternatural glow of health and beauty. Her legs and ass clenching and releasing with each, precise, delicate step that she took across the room. Her long, shoulder-length black hair falling in luxurious waves in a silken waterfall.

"HELLL—!" Grunge exclaimed, gripping his game controller so tightly that it actually snapped in half with a loud *KRACK*! At the same moment...

"—LLLOO!" Bobby yelled, pulling a bit too hard and in the wrong way on one of his guitar strings, cutting it with a loud *K-TANG*!

"Oy vey," Harry groaned, putting his hands over his eyes, although he would confess to peaking through his fingers, just a little bit.

Sarah stopped just inside of the patio doorway, actually posing as she stood there on the balls of her feet, like she was wearing high heels or something, one flawless leg straight while her other perfect limb was arched to show off the definition of her calves and thighs, while her tight tear-drop ass was cocked just so as to hint at what it hid without actually showing anything. Her back was arched, and unfortunately the towel covered what that might be doing with her bust, but the tight and well-defined muscles throughout her backside were on clear display, both from the moisture soaking her skin as well as the light of the setting sun splayed against her body. Looking back over her shoulder at them, she smirked and spoke to them before stepping out onto the back porch and toward the pool.

"Careful there, boys," she said impishly, "or you might break something really important. The three of you should try the sauna. The heat feels delicious. It reminds me of the sweat lodge back on the Reservation. And there's nothing better to complete the experience than a cool, refreshing dip in the pool." She called out right as she reached the edge of the deep end, removing her towel and revealing her perky, brown-tipped, c-cup breasts in all their magnificent native glory, "Anyone care to join me?"

Turning at the unexpected invitation, Anna gave an exclamation of her own, screeching, "EEEP!" as she dropped her tray of lemonades in shock. "Sarah Rainmaker!"

Rushing forward, actually standing in the patio doorway as though her body could somehow cover up Sarah's nakedness, the pixie-blond android admonished her, "What in the world do you think you're doing, young lady?!"

Smirking, the brown-skinned example of female perfection raised her hands, much like professional Olympic divers sometimes did, and replied, "Just taking a quick dip in the pool before bedtime. Don't worry, Anna. I do know how to swim." And then she dove in.

"Without a bathing suit?" the house-keeper/maid said incredulously.

"Her birthday suit works just fine for me," Grunge said from Anna's right, eyes glued to the pool surface.

"Water looks a little chilly, though, doesn't it?" Bobby remarked from Anna's left, refusing to blink.

"Oh my!" Anna gasped, covering her mouth in shame.

*SPLASH!*

Sarah breached the surface of the clear pool, standing upright with the water only coming to just below her waist, fully demonstrating that yes, the water was indeed 'chilly', as well as the general fact that apparently Sarah Rainmaker shaves. Regularly.

"It's not as nice as the freshwater spring back home..." she said aloud, running her fingers over her soaked black locks, getting the hair out of her face, "...but it'll do. What's wrong, guys? Not afraid to get a little wet, are you?" She gave them one final smirk before 'posing' again, looking right at the western horizon, allowing the dying light to glisten across her moistened body and make her look like the mermaids of myth, standing there in the shallow end. Right as the last of the sun's rays dipped below the horizon, she dove back underwater and did maybe two more laps before finally surfacing and walking out of the steps on the shallow end and finally accepting Anna's proffered—and quite insistent—towel. This one large enough to cover her entire body rather than just fit across her shoulders.

"Eyes back in their sockets, boys," Sarah said as she strode by them, back toward her room. "Don't expect a free show like that all too often. That was in celebration of our chief's return, as it were. Enjoy the show, Harry?"

"I didn't think I was your type, Sarah," Harry commented, from his position by the stairs as she went by.

"Doesn't mean I can't show my appreciation in... other ways," she mused, and ended the conversation by dropping the towel a few feet from her door and closing it only after she was sure he was still looking. He was also quite relieved to hear the sound of a lock clicking shut once the door was closed.

"Right," Harry said as he froze time around him. "Cold shower. Now!"

He raced up the stairs and only released his grip on time after it became apparent the shower wouldn't work at super speeds.

The Bronze

Sunnydale, CA, Warehouse District

Though its nightlife is not as avant-garde or fast-paced as that of Los Angeles, or even the border city of San Diego, Sunnydale has its own unique blend of after hours entertainment. For the younger set, there is the downtown warehouse district where they can find a limited variety of eateries, theaters, and the single, yet immensely popular night club known as the Bronze. Teens and college-age adults tend to make the nightly pilgrimage to the club for the same reason anyone goes to a night club.

Born with the grace of a ballerina and the kinetic energy of a fly-girl, Roxanne Spaulding looks upon the industrial discotheque as her own private refuge. It's a place to go when she wants to escape from all the personality conflicts and academic pressures at the villa, and simply enjoy the pleasures of being a free-spirited young woman, a place where she can forget about the responsibilities and risks of being one of the superhero team known as Gen13.

Roxy had transformed herself for a night out on the town, getting rid of the casual house wear she'd bothered with before, now displaying her body and her confidence with a light brown two-piece clubbing outfit; a pleated mini-skirt that sat low on her hips and high on her thigh, with a matching sleeveless formfitting scoop-neck belly shirt. She also had on her same black leather jacket that she'd had for like ever, steel-toed strapped work boots, and to complete the picture, her very own French black leather beret. It wasn't raspberry, but she was close enough that Prince himself would have trouble arguing the difference.

Nevertheless, Roxy soon found herself migrating to the dance floor and started looking for a distraction from her issues at "home" and dealing with a perverted boyfriend that was too ignorant to realize what he had in having a girlfriend like her... Nope! That is not why she's here tonight, she silently argued. She needed something to take her mind off her problems, something like, like...

... Like relishing the rapt attention of a dark and mysterious bystander.

Feeling his eyes upon her, Roxy puts on her own private show to the driving beat of the techno music, never considering the possibility that her mysterious admirer might very well have his own private agenda.

As her body and mind are swept away by the constant flood of music, Roxy quickly forgets about the stranger, and soon, all she wants to do... is dance...

"HEY!" An action brought to an abrupt and jarring end as she slammed right into the very stranger she'd been dance-flirting with moments before. "Oh... Hi!"

"Look, I'm really sorry about—" she tried to apologize the moment she realized who it was she had bumped into. It was kind of funny though, he wasn't much taller than her, and actually thinner than Harry, but if she didn't know any better, she would have sworn she'd walked right into Caitlin from how sturdy he felt.

"No harm done," he interrupted her apology, looking down at her through the bangs of his neck-length, stringy brown hair. He was remarkably pale, she noticed, even in the dark lighting of the club, dressed as so many of the others were in tight, dark, and leather clothing. "And apology accepted."

"I believe this hat belongs to you, Pretty Lady," he offered her the leather beret that had fallen off her head in their collision.

"Oh, yeah, my hat!" she smiled and flirtatiously ran her fingers through her bi-colored hair, accepting the accessory from him. "Thanks. Wow... You have the most... beautiful eyes..."

"Really?" he said casually, but staring intently into hers nevertheless. "Tell me what you see in them."

"I... I feel... so strange..." she murmured, her eyes glazing over and staying still as he leaned in closer. He was totally going to kiss her, she thought. But why was he 'aiming' for her neck, and why was his aura such a funky color...

*SPLASH!*

"Hey!" Roxy shouted, snapping out of the daze and jerking back from the tall, dark, mysterious stranger she'd been about to suck face with, when she felt something cold and wet start running down her back, and half her front.

"Whoa! Sorry about that!" the clumsy club-goer apologized upon seeing what he'd done.

Blinking, Roxy looked between him and her now soaked jacket, asking herself, "What happened?"

Seeing the inconsiderate jerk having already moved on, Roxy looked down at herself to assess the damage, subconsciously avoiding the stranger's intense gaze.

"Look at what he did to my jacket!" she exclaimed.

"Just..." Turning and looking for the restroom, she said as she departed the dance floor, "...hold on a sec. I'll be right back."

"I'll be waiting," he said, his intense, cold gaze tracking the young GenActive through the crowd.

Finding and securing herself in the Ladies restroom, Roxy took off her jacket and hurried to the sink to wash off the coke, or whatever the drink had been. Last thing she needed was for her best jacket and clubbing clothes to start smelling like she'd adopted Grunge's hygiene habits. While doing that, she stared at herself in the mirror and asked, "What's gotten into you, girl? You come here to relax and dance a little..."

She turned off the water and shook out the jacket, laying it out to dry for a bit.

"... But almost end up sucking face with some complete stranger!"

She was distracted by a flash of light, like lightning, that came through the window, reflected in the mirror, which is how she saw it in the first place. Mere moments after, if not simultaneous with the flash itself, there was a wall, floor, and ceiling shaking BOOM of thunder.

"Yeow! Lightning!" the young teen yelped, jumping at the flash as much as the sound. "It must've hit somewhere close by."

All of a sudden, the lights went out and there were sudden shouts through the walls as the music cut out. "Uh-oh! The power's out!"

Going over to the window, curious to see if she could see exactly where or what had been struck by the lightning, she said to herself, "Just great! What else can go wrong tonight?"

Unfortunately, despite not having lived there long, and in spite of Harry's many warnings about the place, Roxy was truly ignorant of the unwritten law that one should not tempt Fate, and especially not Murphy when residing on the Hellmouth. They always listen, and they both take cruel delight in demonstrating exactly "what else" can be.

"Strange how that storm came out of nowhere and then just seemed to disappear like that," she mused, unable to see anything through the barred window, not looking as a small shadow skittered across the floor and dove into the folds of her now mostly dry jacket.

All of a sudden, the lights, power, and music came back on. The accompanying shout from the club-goers very nearly drowned out the resurgent beat of the sound system.

Smiling, Roxy raced to grab her jacket, never noticing the extra weight in her enthusiasm as she announced, "The lights are back! Time for me to get out of this bathroom..." she exited the swing-door with a flourish, swinging her jacket back on with a smooth motion, "... and back on that dance floor!"

Lynch Villa

Same Time

*BEEP!* *BEEP!* *BEEP!* *BEEP!* *BEEP!*

-ATTENTION! THERE IS A CRISIS SITUATION!-

-ATTENTION! THERE IS A CRISIS SITUATION!-

-ATTENTION! THERE IS A CRISIS SITUATION!-

"Eh?" John woke up from the noise coming from his computers. He'd fallen asleep on the couch in his office. Looking at the computer displays, he quickly read the situation. "The sensors have been activated. Computer deactivate voice-mode!"

-ATTENTION! THERE IS A CRISIS—*!

Getting up and hurrying over to the sensor readouts, Lynch read the results out loud. "A magnitude Alpha energy disturbance? In downtown Sunnydale? What is going on here?"

A few seconds to pull up and decipher the readings soon provided the answer. "Registered four energy spikes. Wait, now there are four distinct power signatures in the area. Looks like we're dealing with some heavy-hitters. Hold it!" He started and typed in a command to clarify the data being displayed. "There's a fifth power signature in the same location. Registering as a GenActive?!" Checking the sensors for the house, he quickly confirmed who wasn't present. "Shit, Roxy!" he realized.

"Mr. Lynch?" Caitlin's voice came from the door. Turning, he stared with his one good eye, seeing that she was dressed in her 'pajamas', a large white and red jersey shirt with the number 13 on it, and a pair of pink, french-cut panties, and little to nothing else. "The alarm woke us, but we can't find Roxy anywhere in the hou—"

"I've already found her," he interrupted, turning away from the sinful sight she presented with the hallway light shining behind her so the shirt was almost completely see-through. "Tell everyone to suit up, Caitlin. Something tells me she's going to need our help," he said even as he readied his own gear.

The Bronze

POV: Freefall

Being the Bouncer at the Bronze was a dangerous job. A very dangerous job.

It also had an extremely high turnover rate. As a matter of fact, the owners were lucky if a bouncer lasted out the week. It was rare for the men hired to the position even lasted a full two weeks, and unheard of for the same Bronze Bouncer to last out the month!

Barney was on his eighth night, one of the lucky ones, and he knew it. He was saving up for a new car, and the hazard pay that came with this job would cover it, plus some if he could make it to two weeks. As such, when a group of shady, not to mention inhuman, looking characters strode up, he had a decision to make. Do his job and turn away troublemakers, or do his best to survive.

There were four of them; a huge green-skinned guy with three arms (the third was coming out of the middle of his back) dressed up like Colonel Trautman—if Trautman was the commando that couldn't leave the war behind, an alien in a spacesuit that looked like it came from the 1960s, a pale cyborg with pink dreadlocks of all things and finger-claws that were each as long as his entire arm, and a woman that was wearing a red dress that had less material than a table cloth—fashioned like it was supposed to be a Chinese dress-tunic that only covered her 'assets' and torso while proudly displaying all the rest of her skin. Especially the dragon tattoo on her back. They were all heavily armed and openly carrying their weapons. The 'colonel-wannabe', smoking a cigar like the Colonel from A-Team for crying out loud, had a heavy energy rifle. The alien-in-a-space-suit had his own, smaller gun, but was actually holding a hand-held computer of some kind. The cyborg was a weapon, while the lady dressed like a ninja from a fighting game held a spear rather than some kind of knife-fan.

Barney held up his hands to stop the three-armed mercenary from entering the club. Rather than give them some kind of excuse like "The club is full" or "No weapons" or even "No smoking", he instead just told them straight up, "Hold up. Look, nobody wants any trouble here. Keep the body count to a minimum, don't break down any walls, and don't start any fires. Also, bosses want to make it clear, you pay for any damages. Oh, and you're being recorded." He pointed to the camera over the entrance. "Keep that in mind, and we won't have any trouble." Then, without having any guns pointed in his face, Barney opened the door for the mercenaries and let them in.

"My kinda club," One-Eyed Jack remarked as he lead his crew into the building.

"Or not," he remarked upon seeing the occupants. "Bleeck! The creatures are an ugly looking bunch! No offense, Jade."

"None taken," the barely-clothed warrior woman replied. "Their weakness disgusts me! Makes me want to put them out of their collective misery."

"Cool it, Jade," Jack warned her. "No joy-killing norms on this job. We grab the Qeelocke and then we're outta here!"

"Bu—but they... loo—look so—soft... an—and juicy!" the cyborg stammered.

"Shut up, Rake," he growled, his third arm raising his gun as he took a drag of his cigar, "or I'll have ya recycled again! Talk to me Hardball, what've ya got?"

"It's here all right, Boss!" the remaining demon reported. "We've got it this time!"

"Damn straight we do!" he crowed, speaking around his cigar now. "When One-Eyed Jack is on the job, he sees it through to the end!"

All of a sudden Hardball's scanner started making loud meeping sounds, and the space-suited alien exclaimed, "I've got a lock on the Qeelocke, Boss!"

"According to my scanner..." he shouted, looking back and forth between his scanner and the crowd before pointing at the target, "...that female in the middle has got it!"

The quartet's appearance and shouting had drawn everyone's attention by now, and thus everyone heard and could see exactly who Hardball was pointing at; Roxy.

"Who?!" she exclaimed, trying to display an 'innocent' air around her, "Me?!"

She didn't really feel like giving them the chance to reply, declaring, "That's it! I am out of here!" She triggered her powers and took to the air, aiming for the ceiling, counting on the club lights to mask her exact position until she could find a proper exit. "I've had enough excitement for one night!"

"Awesome!"

"Totally cool!"

"Wicked!"

"Whoa!"

"They must be making some movie here."

"Ugh, what a skank, I cannot believe she wore that!"

"Right, Slayers are one thing, flying Fae girls being hunted by demons with guns is another..."

Puffing on his cigar to fully appreciate it before having to put it out, One-Eyed Jack said to his team, "Well, look at what we got here! A SuperGenic in the Neutral Zone. That makes her fair game, boys! Good thing I always come prepared." He pulled out his heavy gun and cocked it with a loud kaCHAK!

Unfortunately for Roxy, the bright lights and the dark ceiling didn't seem to be much of a deterrent for the three-armed mercenary, as he began to shoot up the entire ceiling, using rather loud bullets, which exploded on contact at that. It was all she could do to flip, dodge, fly and avoid the lethal projectiles. Fortunately, it was also the signal that everyone needed to evacuate as quickly as they possibly could. Hey, it was the Bronze, it was 'taken over' several times a month, they all knew the drill by now.

"Who are these freaks?" she asked to herself, even as she did a three-point gymnastic maneuver against the tiled ceiling, barely staying a few inches in front of the blasts. "And why are they after me?! … More importantly, why am I hanging out here like a sitting duck?"

"Time to find some cover!" After one sweep of the merc's gun came closer than she felt comfortable with, she angled her position and dropped faster than normal gravity could account for down to behind the bar at the back of the club. Didn't stop him from unloading the rest of his clip into the reinforced wooden barrier, but to everyone's equal surprise, was sufficient in protecting the GenActive.

"You... you've for—forced her... down!" Rake stammered, excited at the violence.

"Let's keep her there, Rake!" One-Eyed Jack ordered. "You and Hardball flank the bar and flush her out. Jade and I will take care of the rest."

"Bu—but you... ha—have all... the fu—fun!" the pink-dreadlocked cyborg whined.

Reloading his gun, the three-armed boss smirked at his underling and said, "Ya see, that's because I'm the boss, as well as bein' the brains o' this outfit! Now shaddup and just do what yer told!"

Behind the bar, Roxy was laid out as low as she could, ignoring the sticky mats she was having to lay on as well as whatever stains may be infecting her clubbing outfit. "This is unbelievable! I just wanted to cut loose a little tonight," she grumbled quietly to herself, "not get cut down!"

She was interrupted in her panic-pity-party by a gentle squirming against her side, and a soft, "Queep?" noise from the same. Looking, she was stunned to see... see a... to see... y'know, she actually had no clue what the hell it was.

"Hey! Where'd you come from?" she asked it. "Must've been hiding inside my coat!"

It was green, about the size and general shape of a small monkey, only it had cat-like ears, a face like a squirrel, not to mention its eyes were really weird, like red and pink and yellow all at once. Of course, that was nothing compared to the immense, yet contained aura the thing gave off. Roxy had the sense of looking into eternity itself. Suddenly, everything clicked in her mind.

"Stop the press!" she said to herself. "That's why those mutant freaks are after me."

"Vroot! Vroot!" the small green cat/squirrel/monkey seemed to agree.

Before she could really do anything with this, the clawed cyborg with pink dreadlocks and the alien-in-a-space-suit came around the corner at the end of the bar, weapons at the ready.

"Who... who you ca—calling a mu—mutant freak?!" Rake growled, flicking his 'finger-claws' so they went snikt-snakt snikt-snakt.

Backing away from the threats, Roxy scrambled back, ignoring the hint that she might be giving these two a free panty-shot at her white undies, she protectively kept the animal behind her as she tried to placate them, saying, "It was just a figure of speech, you know? Nothing personal!"

"Queep?"

"Give me the Qeelocke and I promise you a quick and painless death!" Hardball threatened. "Otherwise, it will be a slow and excruciatingly painful one."

"I don't suppose 'none of the above' is a choice?" Roxy whimpered, cowering before the two killers.

POV: Fairchild

The five of them rushed into the nightclub, even as the last of the civilians were running out. Ideally, that would have left just them, their wayward teammate, and the enemy inside the building, but Caitlin quickly caught sight of a few employees and a handful of teens that hadn't been able to escape yet.

Fortunately, their team leader had seen the same things she had, and he quickly took charge.

"The last patrons have made it out of the club, Thundercrack," Rainmaker reported. "The area is secure."

"Mr. Lynch isolated the energy phenomenon to this specific site," Fairchild informed him, careful not to contradict her teammate. "We'll need to find the source, and hopefully Roxy."

"I'll do a quick sweep-thru to make sure of that, Rainmaker," Thundercrack said as he shifted his round glasses into their battle configuration, making them look more like rounded visors of the same glowing blue energy that was coming from the bottom of his metal boots. "Fairchild, you find Freefall, get her secured and stick with her. Everybody got their toys?"

Smirking, the redhead pulled out the slim, metallic baton from her thigh-holster. While handling it, the simple weapon morphed into a morning-star mace. Months ago, when he'd picked them up in LA, Harry had promised that he'd gotten gifts for all of them. For himself, he got his frictionless equipment than let him run everywhere without having to worry about worn down shoes, or cleaning his glasses/goggles every two seconds when he couldn't dodge a bug in time. For the others, he got them... additional equipment that would help them better utilize their Gen Factor powers. For her, well, she got an unbreakable weapon that could transfigure itself into any single or two-handed melee weapon that she could possibly need. The impressive part of that was that it couldn't break. Not even her impressive strength could bend it when it wasn't supposed to bend.

"Oh yeah," Grunge grunted, fingering his 'utility belt', which had samples of every metallurgic alloy or element that could even remotely be useful in battle, allowing the tactile metamorph to adjust his molecules to be as fluid as putty, or harder than steel at a moment's notice.

"Shouldn't be too hard finding Roxy," Burnout commented, igniting his powers and taking to the air, although careful to keep away from the wooden supports or ceiling. "Look over towards the bar!"

"Can't say I'm too impressed with the company she's keeping," Grunge grunted, already morphing himself into either iron or steel, she couldn't tell in the club's low lighting.

"Orders stand," Thundercrack commanded. "I'll aid where I can, but my priority is securing the area. The rest of you, rescue Freefall and take those... visitors down." And then he vanished.

Fortunately, depending on your point of view, the noise they'd made coming in had drawn the four alien mercenaries' attention.

"Ye—Yes... mo—more of the—these special... ones!" the one called Rake stammered, turning around.

Grumbling, even as he held Roxy by the throat in one hand, his gun by his side in the other, he pointed angrily with another hand as One-Eyed Jack shouted, "They're really startin' to bother me. Waste'em ALL!"

"Good as done, Boss!" Hardball immediately complied, charging forward with Rake to meet Gen13 in battle in the middle of the Bronze.

Fairchild stayed back for a moment, taking in the entire situation before committing to any particular action. The handful of civilians and club employees that hadn't made it out yet were vanishing before her eyes one by one. Burnout was circling the ceiling, staying on the move so none of those with guns could get a bead on him, as well as confirming his limits inside the highly flammable building. Grunge and Rainmaker were both charging forward to meet the two adversaries rushing them, the short athletic half-Asian flipping overhead, while the Native American side-stepped and isolated the one opponent she had a clear advantage over.

Ignoring the commentary they were keeping up, Fairchild quickly decided how to best proceed. While Rainmaker dealt with the cyborg, she was unfortunately leaving her back wide open to the space-suited alien, which made her own opponent pretty obvious. Tapping the shorter, bulky figure on the shoulder, she spun him around forcefully, and said in a pleasant tone of voice, "Hi there!"

Then she punched him in the face, through the face-plate of his Sixties-era spacesuit, and said in her best Will Smith impression, "Welcome to Earth!" as she knocked him out, slamming him in the chestplate with her 'bat' hard enough to crack something, just to be sure.

The little alien taken care of, and the other two occupied with Rainmaker and Grunge, Fairchild turned her attention toward the leader, the one that still held Freefall hostage. For the moment.

Burnout was staying close to the ceiling, narrowly dodging the blasts from the three-armed, one-eyed soldier shooting his laser guns, or whatever they were. After a lot of very impressive confined-aerobatics, Burnout got a line on him and took his shot, practically covering the green-skinned demon in flames, while avoiding any injury to Freefall. It was enough for the pixie-like diviner to wriggle her way free and join Burnout in the air and away from One-Eyed Jack.

Fairchild took that as her cue to step in.

"Be careful, Kat!" Freefall called out as she and her small passenger joined Burnout around the rafters. "That big one's their leader! He's dangerous!"

"Stay clear, Roxy! I'll be fine!" she ordered, moving in and snapping off a flawless high-kick to the three-armed demon's head right as the worse of the flames began to die off. "He's not the only one around here who's dangerous. Especially when my foot can reach his chin!" She did a quick roundhouse kick to said chin, sending him flying, while she privately hoped that everything was 'covered' as she essentially did vertical splits.

"HUUNGH!"

The demon groaned as he struggled to get to his feet, looking a bit punch-drunk in his attempts, not that it would make much difference as Fairchild refused to allow him the chance to catch his bearings. It might be looked at as unfair or unsportsmanlike, but this wasn't some kind of duel or martial arts bout. This was a real, bloody, knuckle-brusing, bone-breaking fight!

Rushing the green-skinned demon, Fairchild started punching him in the head and across the face, repeatedly and refusing to let up for even a second. Taking full advantage of her melee weapon, she only held back in as much so he wouldn't go flying across the room so she didn't have to keep chasing him to keep hitting him. His third arm, the one coming out of his back, tried to strike back, but she saw it coming and didn't hesitate. She moved forward at a blistering speed, headbutting him in the process as she performed a flawless scorpion kick to block and parry the blow, even as she body-checked him by morphing her weapon into a solid round shield and hitting him in the sternum with it. She then spun backwards and did an inverted jump kick flip, straight out of a video game!

He tried to bring his guns to bear, but she moved too quickly for him, chopping at all three of his wrists, numbing them and making it so he was unable to hold any of his many weapons. She then went back to using him as her personal punching back. By the time Sarah fried Rake and Grunge shouted out for her, One-Eyed Jack was pretty much out of the fight, only staying up right because she was literally holding him.

"Yo, Kat! The ninja babe is buggin' out!" she heard Grunge shout.

Picking up the moaning Rake while still holding Jack with just her other hand, she replied, "She's smart enough to know when the odds are stacked against her." The green and purple clad amazon regarded the portal Jade was in the process of escaping through. "But just in case she's feeling a little lonely..." Fairchild then threw both of her burdens through the portal as hard as she possibly could. "... Let's give her some company! Stand clear, everyone!"

"KAT! NOOooo... * !"

POV: Grunge

The moment they entered the club, Grunge immediately sought out the position and status of his girlfriend. He knew he'd pissed her off earlier, and he knew that she'd only come here because she needed to blow off some steam and cool off. In short, he knew that her being in this situation was entirely his fault.

He was working on it. Honest.

So, when the three-armed, one-eyed jackass gave the order to "Waste'em all!" Grunge was probably the only one of the team paying close enough attention to see the tears in Roxy's eyes as she gasped out through the hand around her throat, "Nn—no! They're—mm—my—friends—*gasp*!"

"Not anymore, Kid!" One-Eyed Jack said in her face, his right arm holding her by the throat. "They're gonna be dead meat, after my posse's finished with'em!"

Grunge had seen enough and couldn't stand another moment of just standing around. He charged forward, screaming, "Hang on, Rox! The cavalry's on its way!"

He barely even acknowledged the two freaks out front, using a brief, silent and nigh-invisible kekkai to help boost him higher as he did a rolling flip over their grab for him.

"Guh...Gotcha—huh?!" Rake exclaimed, having expected to have grabbed and impaled the mad-dashing Grunge on his cybernetic talons.

"Where'd he go?!" Hardball asked, stunned.

"BANZAI, BABY!" Grunge cried out as he sailed over the two alien mercenaries.

Unfortunately, despite the extra air his magic trick had given him, it hadn't given him the distance needed to clear all three and make it to Roxy. Thus, he landed on his feet with a loud 'thumph' practically right in front of the scantily clad ninja-babe known as Jade. Of course, being Grunge, he couldn't help but comment on this.

"Whoah!" he called out upon seeing his new opponent. "Baby Alert! Now, what's a hot chick like you doing with these ugly losers?"

Smirking, she brandished her double-ended laser-sharpened spear while answering, "Out to make a King's Ransom by retrieving the Qeelocke and expunging the lives of you and your friends!"

"Sheeaah!" Grunge scoffed. "Time for a reality check there, babe."

She replied by moving almost as fast as Thundercrack, whacking him upside the head, "Well, I guess that means..."

"UNGH!"

"... I'll just have to..." she thwacked him with the other side of her spear, sending him reeling.

"AARGH!"

"...convince you!" She completed the maneuver by ducking low and swiping his legs out from under him with her fully extended left leg, coming back up into the same position she had started in, still holding her spear at the ready.

"HUUNGH!"

"Real enough for you now, babe?" she mocked him.

"Duuh..." Grunge groaned, having absolutely had his clock cleaned. "Look at all... the pretty girls! You know... I think she really likes me..."

Fortunately for the overwhelmed beach bum, his particular Gen-Factor was almost as good as the best Healing Factors around, and he managed to recover his senses enough to fully appreciate the mercenary standing over him with her spear pointed right at his chest.

"Your fighting skills are pathetic, Boytoy," she said. "But I do like your tattoo. And you are kind of cute... in a stupid sort of way—"

"You don't really think I've been trying, do you?" he interrupted her with a smirk. "I've just been playing with you, Dragonlady. See, I've got this thing for really strong women—" He cut himself off as her expression morphed into one of raw anger and feminine indignation.

"Insolent pup!" she screamed down at him, raising her spear overhead to deliver a full-force killing blow. "This is no game! It's a pity I'll have to destroy that lovely tattoo when I slice you open!"

There was a brief—very brief—stutter throughout the world right as Jade swung her spear down at Grunge's unprotected chest. It was in the moment after that stutter that he was found to have brought his hands together and caught the edged blade of her spear, holding it tight and with enough strength to fully stop her attack.

"Mess with my Tattoo?!" Grunge roared from the ground, triggering his powers and transforming his body into an almost liquid-metal form that was the same material as the spear he now held. "Think again, BEEYUCH!"

Pushing back, he gave himself enough space to at least get to his knees, and also driving her off-balance slightly. "Wha—What're you doing?!" she cried out, surprised.

"Just bonding the molecules in my body with the ones in your spear..." he answered, grunting slightly as he adjusted his stance from just 'on his knees' to a seiza sitting stance. "... so that I can do..." He then hefted and using the superior leverage of his bonded molecules, lifted and threw the double-ended spear back and across the room. "...THIS!"

Of course, Jade was one that had been trained to never relinquish one's weapon, so she ended up being hefted and thrown alongside her weapon. "Waa—AAIIIEEEEEE! OW!"

Grunge reverted back to his default and got to his feet, ready to continue the fight, seeing that Burnout and Fairchild had freed Freefall at this point. Besides, he wanted to get a closer look at the woman's own tattoo, maybe compare notes...

Jade, likewise, got to her feet and was prepared to finish things once and for all. Yet, one particularly flashy and violent display from Rainmaker and Rake's bout brought them both up short. In seeing the cyborg left sizzling on the ground, Hardball with his face plate smashed in and One-Eyed Jack actually losing his fight with the amazonian redhead, and not counting how outnumbered they now were, the alien ninja-babe decided a tactical retreat was in order.

"Well done, my dear!" she called out to Rainmaker, who wasn't exactly walking away from her fight unscathed at the least. "Rake had that coming to him. This day is yours, children! But be rest assured..." she turned and used her blade to tear open another portal, the violet tear in space making the same 'blown-power-transformer' sound that it had upon their arrival. "... the battle is far from over!"

"YEOH, Kat!" Grunge called upon seeing the new development. "The ninja babe's buggin' out!"

POV: Rainmaker

Rake stared hard at Rainmaker. In the wake of Grunge's 'disappearance', and Fairchild taking out Hardball with essentially one hit, all that left him for a target was the red-and-green-dressed dark skinned beauty. Swishing his bladed fingers against one another as he inspected her, he couldn't help drooling a bit as he stuttered out his challenge.

"Ye—Yes... you do... loo—look like... a tasty tre—treat!" he stammered.

"Do tell," the Apache warrior said, activating the modified Amp-Bands that Harry had gifted her with a few weeks back. "It's a pity your personality and looks aren't nearly as keen as those nine inch nails of yours, Rake. This might've taken me longer than a few minutes otherwise."

"Yy—you... dare to... mm—MOCK me?!" he growled out, no longer drooling. "J—just for that... I—I'm going... to skin... yy—you alive!" He rushed forward, exactly as he had when charging Grunge, slashing out with his cybernetic talons.

"That's it!" Rainmaker easily saw the move coming and acted accordingly. "Let the anger..." Where Grunge could gain a boost by using a kekkai as a platform, something that she had indeed noticed about her teammate's move earlier, she had to rely on her natural athleticism and training. "... cloud your judgment..." Fortunately, while nowhere near Olympic-level, Rainmaker had no problem using him as a vault-table, flipping over him while simultaneously getting in a hard hit to the back of the cyborg's neck and knocking him down while she landed, arms spread to maintain balance. "... so I can get behind you..." She then spun on the spot and shot a full-power long-range lightning blast at the cyborg, frying his circuits, and making his already wild and untamed pink hair go even more crazy. "... and do this!"

"My electrical charges used to be just painful," Even as he lit up, she couldn't help commenting, "but now with these new powerbands, they're supposed to be quite excruciating!"

"YEARGH!"

"What do you think?" she asked.

Getting fully back to her feet, Rainmaker prepared to finish the cyborg off so she could move on to helping Roxy. Unfortunately, it would seem she had underestimated her opponent as he shook off the electric shock a lot sooner that she'd expected him to.

"Is... th—that the... bb—best you... c—can do?! Hahahaha!" Rake taunted her.

He then moved in faster than she had expected, slashing and swiping with his sharp cybernetic talons, not letting up for a moment. It was all Rainmaker could do to stay ahead of him, ducking at first, and then rolling to the side and using her athleticism and superior agility to stay just out of his reach. Her mind was racing, trying to understand why her attack hadn't been effective. Harry had promised that her new power-amplifying bands would allow her to unleash ten times the amount of power than the ones provided to her by Project Genesis and Lynch. And that did seem to be the case, as the cyborg had definitely been affected. But...

Suddenly, it clicked for her. If only she hadn't stopped moving at the moment her epiphany had struck her, perhaps she might've been able to dodge Rake's next slash.

"AARGH!"

Grabbing her shoulder where he'd cut her, she winced at the pain briefly as she did a quick assessment on the wound. It wasn't fatal, provided she could stop the bleeding soon enough, and prayed to the goddess that this half-robot creep didn't poison his talons, or worse go around never washing or sanitizing them. Most forms of bacteria were infinitely worse than the most potent poison imaginable.

"I... I bet... that hurts!" Rake mocked her

"Not as much as having to look at you," she taunted, making sure to stand her ground. Behind him, she saw his female partner (hot as she was to look at she was still the enemy, Sarah reminded herself) go flying thanks to a simple trick by Grunge. She planned her own simple trick to likewise end this fight as quickly as she could. After all, everyone knew the basics of electrical physics, the further an electrical charge has to go through a non-conductive medium, the less of a charge it will have.

"Th—then I'll just... have to... po—poke out... your eyes!" Rake screamed in a rage, blindly leaping forward.

"That's it," Rainmaker smirked, ready for him. "Get in close!"

She ducked down and grabbed his over-extended cybernetic arm with her injured arm, holding tight to the conductive metal running throughout the appendage. "Now you're mine!" she crowed.

"A... t—trick! NOOO!" he screamed.

Rainmaker wasted no time in grabbing his other flailing robotic talon with her other hand, completing the circuit and unleashing every last volt of power that her powerbands could pour into the helpless cyborg.

*KRRUNCH*

*ZZAAAP*

*SSZZAAKT*

"GEGEGEGEGAAAHHHH!"

There were a few electrical snaps, a few crackles as his fuses blew, and then a very loud pop as he finally lost the battle and the last of his systems fried. She allowed him to drop to the ground, softly sizzling in the cool air-conditioned space of the room. She imagined the only reason he wasn't already a burned corpse was that there wasn't enough meat left in him to be microwaved in such a way.

Turning away, Rainmaker quickly applied a healing spell to her arm to stem the bleeding. She'd need to disinfect it sooner rather than later, but at least she wouldn't be passing out from blood loss.

"Your claws may be fearsome weapons, Rake," she said over her shoulder to the still-sparking cyborg, "but they're no match against the fighting spirit of an Apache Warrior."

POV: Burnout

Burnout was just glad that whoever built (or kept rebuilding) the Bronze made sure to use fireproof insulation at every point of the building process. He'd almost been afraid that one wrong move on his part, and Freefall would be needing to find a new dance club to frequent.

Already in the air the moment they were through the door, he'd instantly spotted their wayward teammate and let the others know. "Look over towards the bar!"

"Can't say I'm too impressed with the company Roxy's keeping," Grunge mumbled, fists clenched.

"Orders stand," Thundercrack commanded. "I'll aid where I can, but my priority is securing the area. The rest of you, rescue Freefall and take those... visitors down." And then he vanished.

Burnout wasted no time in gaining altitude, giving them the high ground. Apparently, the other side agreed that the high ground was important and refused to allow it to them as those of the group able to fight long range immediately started firing at him, forcing him to dodge, bob and weave between the rafters while keeping an eye on the floor so he couldn't be blindsided by ground fire. As such, he missed most of what was going on with the others, but he couldn't help keeping an eye out for one teammate in particular.

"Way to go, Sarah!" he called out when she struck down her cyborg opponent with a mid-range lightning strike. Unfortunately, he then had to do a rapid figure-eight and a few loops through triangular rafters to avoid weapons fire.

The three-armed jackass holding Freefall, apparently, only needed one hand to keep choking her, and thus his other two were free to wield some of the many weapons he carried on his person. Until, that is, right after he'd shot at Burnout, they all disappeared, even the grenades, but especially the two guns in his hands. Seeing his opportunity, he dove down before shooting back up to get at the right angle and shouted out a warning even as he unleashed a full-force flaming plasma blast.

"Now it's my turn," he called out. "Heads up, Roxy! Plasma Burst incoming!"

"AARGH!" One-Eyed Jack now had a face full of flames.

"Aces!" Freefall cried out in glee. "Direct hit, Burnout!"

"Queep?" the small green-furred monkey in Freefall's arms queried.

"That means we are out of here!" she translated, using her gravity powers to escape One-Eyed Jack's grasp and get away from the fighting. Turning when she saw Fairchild move in to finish the mercenary off, she warned her, "Be careful, Kat! That big one's their leader! He's dangerous!"

"Stay clear, Roxy!" the redhead replied, even as she kicked the sense out of him. "I'll be fine! He's not the only one around here who's dangerous. Especially when my foot can reach his chin!"

Burnout quickly turned away, and subtly made sure that Grunge was thoroughly distracted from Fairchild's unexpected display of her camel-toe issues.

"Who, or should I say what is that, Rox?" Burnout asked as they both floated nearby the sound system.

"I'm not sure," she admitted. "They kept calling it a... Qeelocke, wasn't it?"

"Queep!"

"Right, Qeelocke," she nodded. "Think Harry will let me keep him?"

Burnout just shrugged.

They both turned, however, when Harry appeared right below them, screaming, "KAT! NOOOoo...*!"

POV: Thundercrack

He already knew what this was before they even left the Villa. He knew who they'd find there, and he could accurately picture the image of Roxy's condition by the time they got to her. Rather than waste time using some identifiable vehicle of one sort or another, they merely daisy-chained themselves together as Harry essentially stopped time and Kat more or less ran them there. Still, they didn't get to the Bronze until a full fifteen minutes after the alarms had gone off back at the villa.

They needed to work on their response time.

As it was, the Bronze was nearly fully evacuated, and Roxy had not only encountered the villains, but had already been captured by them. Once they were through the door, however, he no longer had time to brief everyone on the threat.

"The last patrons have made it out of the club, Thundercrack," said Rainmaker. "The area is secure."

"Mr. Lynch isolated the energy phenomenon to this specific site," said Fairchild. "All we have to do now is find the source and, hopefully, Roxy."

"I'll do a quick sweep-thru to make sure of that, Rainmaker," Thundercrack said, shifting his glasses to battle configuration, and securing his gauntlets and boots briefly. "Fairchild, you get to Freefall and stick with her. Everybody got their toys?"

"Shouldn't be too hard finding Roxy," Burnout said as he took to the air. "Look over towards the bar!"

"Can't say I'm too impressed with the company Roxy's keeping," Grunge said.

"Orders stand," Thundercrack ordered. "I'll aid where I can, but my priority is securing the area. The rest of you, rescue Freefall and take those... visitors down." It took everything he had to avoid using the word 'demons'.

Alpha Energy Signature meant dimensional breech. On the Hellmouth, that means exactly one thing. On top of that, he'd taken a glance at the specific energy signature and unfortunately recognized it. He still hadn't told everyone about all his side-missions whilst hunting down and capturing Faust, and for good reason too. They weren't ready for demons, not yet. They absolutely were not ready for Damocles and his ilk!

This had to be handled very delicately. Before that though, he needed to get the group of teens on the top floor out of here, along with the five employees stuck behind the counter. That was another thing they needed to work on, Rainmaker's observation skills.

Thundercrack accelerated and ran to get the employees first.

Simply because they were first and closest, not because he was some kind of chauvinist, he grabbed the two waitresses at the end of the bar by the arms and 'froze' them, making them little more than statues and from their point of view making it look like they'd been teleported outside or something. He made sure to 'unfreeze' them before letting go of their arms and racing back inside the club.

By the time he had the bartender un-wedged from the corner he'd buried himself in, the rest of the team had fully engaged the enemy. Fairchild was putting the space-suited demon down for the count, Burnout was doing some impressive aerial acrobatics amongst the rafters while he dodged gunfire from the three-armed demon holding Freefall, while Rainmaker was squaring off against the cyborg, and Grunge was getting his ass handed to him by the scantily-clad woman (whom registered as a mage to his senses, although he had his doubts). Thundercrack might have interfered on behalf of his teammate, but said teammate was avoiding the lethal blows, and honestly his ego needed the deflating.

At the point he returned from transporting the two kitchen staff away, the battle had progressed little. Grunge was on the floor, Rainmaker had discovered the downsides to a long-range lightning strike, Fairchild's opponent was on the ground not moving, and Burnout was in the midst of dodging more gunfire from the demon holding Roxy. Glancing towards the balcony, Thundercrack could no longer see the civilians that he'd initially spotted up there, so he just hoped that meant they'd taken their cue to cut and run finally.

Taking that as his own cue, he accelerated himself to the very limit of what he could withstand and headed straight for One-Eyed Jack. As strong as the demon was, and as tight a grip he had on his weapons, one would think that no matter how fast the young hero was moving, or how slow his stationary target was staying, there should've been no way for Thundercrack to get those guns away from One-Eyed Jack. But then, they weren't taking into account his ability to 'freeze' people, or decelerate them to the point of immobility and a complete lack of awareness of the passage of time. This frozen state allows their body, posture, almost anything physically about them to be manipulated as though they were a mere mannequin. The only noticeable difference is that the whole world seems to 'stutter' whenever this is done.

At least, that is what Thundercrack has been told by those that he used his 'freeze' touch on, being unable to experience it himself.

Rather than release Freefall himself, or just leave the demon mercenary frozen, Thundercrack only permitted himself to the limit of removing all of his weapons. Yes, he could have taken down all four of these mercs himself, and rescues all the civilians, and yes, he could probably single-handedly defeat each and every threat he was to ever come across. But that was more work than he was willing to deal with, and his ultimate goal wasn't to be the Hero everyone looks to, but to be part of a team that could back him up when he needed them to. He wasn't going to do all the work for them, but he would help them out. Such as removing the thug's weapons so Burnout could get a shot in. Or sometimes by helping more directly.

Glancing over at the prone Grunge on the floor, about to be skewered by Jade's blade, he ran over and briefly 'froze' her while 'accelerating' Grunge into his time frame.

"Need any help?" Thundercrack asked mockingly.

"Dude, I got this!" Grunge insisted. "Put me back. Although..."

Thundercrack released his perverted teammate before he could actually hear whatever depraved suggestion was about to leave his lips. He then moved the blade 'back' up a few more inches before un-'freezing' Jade and stepping back to see how things played out from here.

As it turned out, Grunge indeed 'had it' as he caught the blade between his hands and instantly bonded his molecules with its, allowing him to disarm and disable the ninja mercenary. A quick look around confirmed the fight was all but over now, as Rainmaker finished off Rake, and Fairchild was tossing Jack around like a rag doll at this point. Doing one final sweep-thru at full speed, he joined Burnout and Freefall up on the stage, even if the two of them were still hovering over it by half a meter. He then decelerated back to regular time and watched the final scene play out.

"Well done, my dear!" Jade called out to Rainmaker, retrieving her blade. "Rake had that coming to him. This day is yours, children!" Thundercrack frowned, he did not like the sound of it, further confirmed when the woman opened up a portal right there inside the club! "But be rest assured, the battle is far from over!"

"Yo Kat!" Grunge called out, "The ninja babe's buggin' out!"

Hefting Rake and One-Eyed Jack in either hand over her head, every muscle of her core and arms straining within the confines of her tight green and purple costume, Fairchild replied, "She's smart enough to know when the odds are stacked against her. But just in case she's feeling a little lonely," she hefted and threw both her burdens through the open portal, "let's give her some company! Stand clear, everyone!"

"Shit, shit, shit!" Thundercrack cursed as he jumped off the stage and ran forward to stop her. Unfortunately, he'd neglected to activate his powers first. "KAT! NO!" But he triggered them now, creating an odd doppler-effect that he wasn't immediately aware off. He ran as hard and as fast as he could through the portal, unsurprised to find himself in a military-like facility on what most would call a hellish nightmare-inducing parody of Earth, but he knew was merely just one of the many hell dimensions connected to his world via the Hellmouth. Jade had been standing right in front of the portal, and (as intended) been knocked down when Rake and One-Eyed Jack came flying through.

Time didn't seem to be frozen on this side of the portal, but that was an easy fix as he merely accelerated himself once again and time, accordingly, stopped to his eyes. He grabbed Rake first and threw him back through the still-open magenta-hued portal. Then he picked Jade up, got a 'running start' and 'threw' her at the portal, making sure to let go at the appropriate point so that, while she would go back through it, there would be a second or two delay, allowing him to drag the much heavier three-armed demon through it at the same time.

Five minutes hard work later (from his perspective), and he and the team of demon mercenaries were back on Earth and in the Bronze, and the portal closed on its own. Harry made sure to personally knock out Jade and remove her weapon from her reach. He was (more than he was willing to admit to) tempted to do a more involved search of her person, to see if there were potentially any other devices capable of permitting them escape, but he settled for putting them all in conjured cuffs and other improvised manacles plus an Incarcerous spell, or four, each.

"Harry, wha—what are you doing?" Fairchild demanded.

"I don't have a problem with them leaving, Kat," he said, having finished with tying the four of them up. "I just want it to be on our terms, not theirs. Stopping them is all well and good, but keeping crap like this from ever happening again is better."

The team all congregated around him, listening (for once), and keeping their guard up. And then Grunge asked, "So... now what?"

Taking a deep breath, Thundercrack turned his white-blue-glowing gaze down upon their prisoners with a frown. "Now you lot get to see a side of me that you haven't yet. And all of you will keep quiet and stay out of my way. All I'll tell you now is that I won't kill them. But if you speak out against me in the next few minutes, this won't work and we'll have to actually turn them over to the Justice League... or the government."

They all shivered at that last word. They were, after all, still, sort of, on the run from the government.

"Ennervate," he cast the spell to revive them.

"Ooohh, that's a wake-up call," One-Eyed Jack groaned. Then he noticed their predicament. "What the...? Whoever did this, when I get my hands on them—!"

Harry punched him across the face. Hard. A tooth might've been knocked loose.

"Hi," he said. "Name's Thundercrack. I'm the one that tied you lot up. My team are the ones that beat you all senseless beforehand. They almost let you go. I decided not to."

"Big man," Jack mocked. "Having his people do the grunt work while he takes the credit. I can respect that. Yer still a pussy, but you've got some balls on ya. Why don't you take off these restraints and I'll show you how a real leader fights, huh?"

"But then I'd be forced to kill you, and then who would deliver my message?" he replied. "The girl isn't in your chain of command, and would be disregarded, and it is really hard to take these two seriously about anything. So no, I'm going to leave you tied up, talk for a bit, and then I'm going to send you back to your home the painful way."

"Wh—what... meh—message?" Rake stammered.

"You're... letting us go?" Hardball asked, too scared to be hopeful.

Thundercrack stood back up and held Jade's bladed weapon before him in his hands. "Nice," he said. "I recognize the material. Sword uses some of it in his own weapon, doesn't he?"

They all paled, or whatever demonic equivalent applied to feeling an unnatural amount of shock and sudden fear.

"Who's sword?" Grunge asked in the background.

"The Sword of Damocles," Thundercrack answered over his shoulder. "Right-hand man slash enforcer for a demon lord named Damocles. Nasty piece of work. Really hates people that fail him." He knelt down so he was eye-to-eye with One-Eyed Jack. "You or your people ever come back to this world, for any reason, I'll make sure that he finds out about this particularly epic failure of yours. Be sure to mention my name in his presence, even once, and just watch what happens. It is in your best interest if you say that you were anywhere but here on this mission, Jack."

Legilimency rocked.

"Nice bluff," the demon scoffed. "But I think you're just too scared to face me."

"You couldn't beat my second-in-command," Thundercrack laughed, indicating Fairchild. "What makes you think that you can beat me?"

Before he could answer, the world stuttered around One-Eyed Jack and his flunkies, and the next thing they knew, they were trussed up, hanging from the ceiling, in the middle of some kind of pentagram magic circle painted onto the floor beneath them. Thundercrack was standing there, in front of them and outside the circle, smirking at them. "Oh, and I can stop time."

"What is this?!" Jade demanded, looking nervously down at the circle. "What are you doing?!"

"What I said I'd do," the wizard speedster replied. "I'm sending you home. The painful way. Ladies?"

He stepped back and Rainmaker and Fairchild stepped closer on either side of the magic circle.

"Are you sure about this?" Rainmaker asked for the dozenth time. At least she'd kept her voice down so the mercenaries couldn't hear her.

"It is a simple transport spell," Thundercrack insisted. "The only thing 'dark' about it, is the destination we're sending these creeps to. And that is what we have Fairchild for. Keep up the purity-protection spell until after the pentagram vanishes, all right?"

The redhead silently nodded her head, keeping most of her focus on her task for the moment.

"Fine," Rainmaker sighed, and began casting the spell. Sixteen lines of Latin later, whilst Fairchild provided counterpoint with steady chanting of her own spell, and a fiery pit opened up beneath the demon mercenaries, extending tendrils of flame to draw them down to the depths below.

"One last thing," Right before they, and the pentagram with them, vanished, the leader of Gen13 called out, "Remember to deliver my message! Stay off our world! Or else!"

And then they were gone, along with any evidence of a dimensional portal spell being cast, beyond a slight scorch mark on the floor that is.

"So, who wants tacos?" Grunge asked.

"Queep?"

"What was that?" Harry deadpanned.

Lynch Villa

Next Morning

"Good work tonight, everyone," Mr. Lynch said. "From what I understand, you all worked together efficiently and covered each others weaknesses while playing to your strengths. What's more, you got out of there before the local authorities arrived."

"Everyone did their part for the team, Mr. Lynch," Caitlin dutifully reported.

"And we followed Harry's lead," Bobby pointed out.

"Queep?"

"Oops!" Roxy called out as the small green 'monkey' escaped her grasp and jumped up on Lynch's head while wrapping itself around his face. "Hey, come back here!"

"Queep?" the creature called a Qeelocke seemed very much like the small pet monkeys one would see on television or in the movies, looking at everything curiously, while treating it all with a healthy dose of caution and fear. Seeing everyone in the room defer to this man made it believe this was the Alpha and instinct demanded it beg for protection from the Alpha of any group it wanted to be a part of.

"Err... Roxanne. If you'd please..." Lynch indicated for her to remove the small creature from his face.

"Sorry about that, J.L." she apologized. "Come here, Qeelocke!"

"It's... Mr. Lynch, Roxanne," the man near-growled as the Qeelocke was peeled from him.

"Oh, right! Whatever you say, Mr. L," she replied, most of her attention back on cuddling her new pet.

"I've never seen a creature like that one before," Caitlin said, looking down at it in Roxy's lap. "You decided to name it 'Qeelocke'?"

"That's what those goons were calling it," Roxy said. "'Sides, it sounds kind of cute."

"That creature may be more dangerous than we realize," Lynch said, glaring down at it, arms crossed.

"Cheep? Geep? Jeep?" Grunge knelt down next to Roxy's chair, trying to 'talk' to the animal. "Queep? Hey! It likes me!"

"Vroot! Vroot!" the Qeelocke seemed to chirp as it grabbed Grunge's wandering finger and forced him back while snuggling closer into Roxy's chest, proving once and for all that however alien an animal it was, it was still more intelligent than Grunge.

"Do you really think so, Mr. L?" Roxy asked, ignoring the byplay between her boyfriend and pet.

"If those intruders were willing to kill you to capture it," Lynch said, "you can be sure we haven't heard the last of them."

"Which is why I didn't let Kat just throw them back home without a care," Harry said upon entering the room, carrying a rather hefty leather-bound book in his arms. "They won't be coming back here. But just to be on the safe side, we should make sure they don't have a reason to risk it either. And seriously, Rox? You're habit of naming people by what they are is starting to worry me."

"What are you talking about, Wizard?" Roxy blurted out, offended. "When have I ever... uh, oh yeah." She trailed off at his glare. "Sorry."

"And furthermore, you can't keep him," he said, indicating the Qeelocke.

"What? Why not?" she screeched, holding the green-monkey close.

"Several reasons," he said, opening up the book. "The most pertinent being that this world isn't his home. At first glance, I figured him for some offshoot or hybrid of clabbert. Except he doesn't have horns or the glowing warning light on his head. Plus, there is the whole reason for why those mercs wanted it in the first place. Qeelocke? Key, Lock? Put those two words together, one automatically thinks of doors, which means he has the power to transport or at the least open doorways, and given their own abilities at the time, I would be willing to wager on multi-dimensional doorways at that. So, I started looking at foreign magical creatures, and found this." He turned the book around so they could all see the content.

"Queep? VROOT! VROOT!" the little alien got real excited upon seeing for himself.

"Qeelocke here is from the Negative Zone, as the general public like to call it," Harry explained. "Wizards and mystics, however, like to call it Ledgerdomain, or at the very least an off-shoot from there. Near as the records tell, these creatures use our world, our universe really, as some kind of... mating ground. Because when these... creatures get in the mood, well, things tend to get... messy."

"Dude," Grunge grunted approvingly.

"Ew, gross," Roxy shoved at her boyfriend.

"By messy, you mean...?" Caitlin asked.

"Everything around them, not to mention anything between a mating pair, gets destroyed," he answered.

"And they do this here?!" Sarah exclaimed.

"Well, keep in mind that three-quarters of this planet is covered by sea water, and only four hundred years ago, this continent was mostly raw wilderness with nothing but nomadic tribes as far as sentient life was concerned. From the descriptions, I'd say this one is still a young adolescent, maybe pre-adolescent. He needs to be sent back to his dimension, not kept here as a pet."

"But..." Roxy whined. "He likes me! See?"

"So do puppies," Bobby snapped.

"So did that ghost boy from the frat house," Harry reminded her.

Grunge frowned and without a word grabbed the Qeelocke from Roxy and held him outstretched. "Sorry Rox. We gotta do what is best for the little guy. Not for ourselves. If you want, we can get you a pet. We're all mystics, right? Doesn't that mean we get like familiars or something?"

"You're a diviner, Roxy," Harry gently reminded her. "Why don't you tell us what Qeelocke here wants to do?"

Frowning, the bi-color-hair teen bowed her head to the inevitable. Lifting her head and opening her eyes, revealed her pupils were now whited out and glowing softly. Reaching out with one hand, she cast the prepared spell at the small creature, which glowed the same shade around its head for a moment before reverting to normal.

"Que—what did you just do... to me? I... I can speak your language now?!" the small green-furred monkey said in a perfectly understandable voice, sounding kind of like some familiar-sounding voice actor they'd all heard recently.

"Whoa!" Grunge backed away, his eyes wide. "Whuddja do, Roxy?"

"It's a spell Tris taught me," she explained, sounding sad. "Basically, a universal translator spell. If cast on a sentient being, that is. If... it were cast on, say, a wild animal, or even... a pet, the best you could hope for would be something like what you see from trained parrots. I... I thought... well, you said Harry, we should ask Qeelocke what he wants to do, right?"

Harry just silently nodded his head, keeping his peace for the moment.

"Thank you, Roxy is it?" Qeelocke spoke. "I appreciate this. It also makes matters somewhat... simpler. Yes, much simpler. I'm somewhat of a wanted individual back in my home dimension. You met the agents of the one seeking my... acquisition earlier tonight. And quite effectively dealt with them, if I may say so."

"You may," Sarah preened a bit, before turning serious in a heartbeat. "But what do you mean 'agents of'? Who exactly wants you?"

"Damocles," Harry and Qeelocke said at the same moment.

The wizard looked up at his team and sighed. "Damocles is the name of an individual who is, essentially, the lord and ruler over his dimension, which is classified as a demon realm, which... would, technically speaking, from a certain point of view, make him a... uh, um, well, a Demon Lord."

Sarah, Caitlin and Lynch all paled drastically. Bobby sat down and looked like he was trying not to puke. Roxy and Grunge, of course, were totally clueless.

"OK, so, bad guy, right?"

Everyone, even Qeelocke, ignored Grunge.

"He also was one of Felix Fausts' contacts and allies... who I sort of pissed off while making him believe I represented Faust, and resulted in him cutting all ties with Faust and tricked him into sealing off one of the minor Hellmouths leading directly to his dimension. Permanently." At the looks he received, especially from Caitlin and Lynch, he briefly squirmed, uncomfortable at the stares and diverted their attention by saying, "It's a long story, and not that relevant to the current situation. Qeelocke here, was apparently born in, or at least calls his home dimension the same as the demon realm we were just discussing. Sending him back into Damocles' grasp would be... well, I'm understating it just a bit, but it would be a bad idea!"

"Yes, I was actually hoping to hide out here for a while, but given your own apparent dangers that you face, I find it hardly fair to bring my own troubles upon you," the small alien said. "Although, I must confess, I don't really have anywhere to go..."

"Well, about that," Harry turned the page of the book. "It wouldn't be your home, but there is a world where there are plenty of your own kind. And we have the means of sending you there so it is untraceable by those hunting you."

"It... it sounds like paradise," Qeelocke gasped, looking over the information in the book. "Where... what is this place?"

"It's called," Harry answered, "Le Arcanes Magique Créature Conservation Preserve. But it is commonly referred to as the, uh, Veela Reservation. The one that has beach front property in Southern France."

They all just stared at him for a moment.

"Thanks for your hospitality, Roxy, everyone, and thank you for the tip, Mister Harry 'Thundercrack' Potter, sir! Oh, and thanks for the spell, Roxy. I'll never forget you! Even though I kinda just met you. I am outta here!" Qeelocke flashed all over briefly before a small portal opened directly overhead of the small creature and it was gone just like that.

"Oh poo," Roxy pouted.

"Ah, cheer up Roxy," Grunge tried to snuggle up to her. "If you'd like, I can get you a cat or something. Y'know, a black cat to go along with your awesome magical powers."

"Sarah's the witch," she continued to pout, but still allowed snuggling, apparently having completely forgotten the whole reason that set off the chain of events that introduced her to her never-actually-was pet. "I'm the info mage. Remember, Mr. Kekkaishi?"

"So does this mean you don't want a cat?"

The rest of the team sighed and rolled their eyes and immediately scattered. Harry collected his book and moved it back to its place on his shelf. It was a bit of a low note, but for their first mission as a team, where they were all together, everything had turned out all right.

Lynch went to his office and shut the door, turning on the news broadcasts and opening up his computer. Keeping an eye out for whatever was out there, preparing for the worst.

Caitlin got back on her computer and resumed her research and hoping that every mission turned out as well as this one had.

Harry looked down at the report he'd gotten via owl post while he'd been out with the team. Reading the summary, he knew that not all missions would have a happy ending. And some missions, even after they were over, they could still come back to bite you in the arse.

He crumbled up the memo and threw it in the fire, turning to walk out onto his balcony. The parchment burned up quickly, but the words remained until the last; "TRAVELLER, AKA NADIA BRESLOV, ESCAPED! PRIORITY RETRIEVAL!"

End Issue 01