Disclaimer: I don't own Suzanne Collins' characters or any plots that she came up with. I only take her wonderful building blocks and shape them into some semblance of a story.

A/N: I hope that everyone enjoys the story! Don't be afraid to send me suggestions- my ideas are fed by my readers!!

If you would like to review after you have finished reading then I would greatly appreciate it.

Ch.1 (version 2- rewritten upon questions and REVIEWS!) The Alarm

Alira: Creatures of Demon nature that posses animals and kill civilians to become more powerful. They seem to be pack hunters, and are able to level up as they eat more and more humans.

Gregor had pulled out the faded notebook once more and studied its contents. The worn pages were dusty but were all covered in extensive notes about the creatures he hunted. He pulled himself into his favorite corner and began to study his father's final journal on the Alira.

The Alira are high level demons that seem to be able to possess animals. I have studied them for the past four years and have come to the conclusion that there are fourteen levels, all organized by intelligence and strength.

An Alira will start off as a level one. It will infiltrate a very small creature and mutate that creature until it is much larger and more grotesque than its original form. IT will then begin killing and eating the flesh of other animals and humans. The lower levels (about one-four) seem to be able to sustain their growth with animals only, but as they become stronger Human flesh is needed to become more powerful. In my studies I have noticed a trend in the transitions between levels.
Each time and Alira levels up it moves into the body of another animal of higher ranking. An earthworm would become a mouse, a mouse a snake, a snake a cat- and so on and so forth. The possessed animal only lives while the Alira is attached to it, dying upon transfer.

Below I have included a list of known Alira levels with their animals. There are a few sketches, but the Alira seem to be individual and have certain characteristics that make them all unique.

I must warn you that if you are to become mixed up in all of this you may wish you hadn't. The most dangerous of all Alira are the level fourteen, the human. If an Alira can consume enough humans to gain level 13 then they can become a level 14. The level fourteens look exactly like human-beings. I believe that the human body does not distort because we are designed to hold some spiritual pressure, like a soul. This leads me to the conclusion that when a demon possesses a human as a level 14 the soul is pushed out and the person dies without their body.

An Alira that has reached level 14 is very hard to catch. It can speak, think, and act just like a human and on a few instances the Alira level 14 have been mistaken for serial killers…

The pages afterward went on to describe each level and the animals associated with it. Gregor had memorized the entire thing when the Alira had begun attacking the city of New York and it's surrounding areas.

When his father and mother had been… massacred by the Alira he had been sent over the edge for a while. He hadn't believed that the Alira were a real threat until the people he loved were taken away from him. Gregor sighed and pushed away the torturous memories of coming home to find his parents on the living room floor.

That had been three years ago. The Alira had shown up around the time that Gregor had left the Underland, but he hadn't started defending the city until three years ago.

'that would make it… seven years…" he thought to himself, wondering if everyone down in his deep home was okay. He knew that it would be almost impossible to go down there again. He had too much to do "upstairs".

The first thing he needed to do was to tell Creed to turn his music down. Creed was a tall skinny rager that Gregor had picked up fighting on the streets almost two years ago. He had been beaten up pretty badly but had held his own against two level five Alira and Gregor had decided to keep him.

At first it was just going to be Gregor, Boots, Lizzie and Ms. Cormaci, but when she had fallen too ill to take care of them Gregor took custody of his sisters and moved their guardian angel into a nursing home. She and a few other ladies had put together a fund and hired Gregor to be their bodyguard. He had accepted the job. At the age of fifteen he began to work against the Alira force. When he found Creed they had just fit the kid into their mismatched lives.

"Hey Creed?!" Gregor yelled pounding on the 16 year olds door, "Can you turn it down?"
"WHAT?" Creed yelled prying open his door, "I can't hear you!"

"I KNOW! TURN YOUR MUSIC DOWN!"

"Oh, cool. I only turned it up because Zeva had her crazy Indian music on." Creed reached behind him and flipped his radio off, "What's up?"

"That's all, I guess." Gregor shrugged.

"Oh hey man! Did you get a date with that girl?" Creed asked poking Gregor in the side.

Gregor flinched reflexively and moved out of the way, "No! I didn't like her like that!"
"DUDE! She was TOTALLY H-O-T!! And she gave you her number! What's wrong with you, you're almost twenty years old and you never look at girls!"

"It's probably because he's gay." Chloe said sashaying by. She was another Alira orphan (That's what Gregor called kids who had survived an Alira attack when their parents had been killed, although he never said it to their faces.)

"I am not!" He fumbled, knowing exactly where he stood, "It's just that I'm… I mean … I haven't really found the right girl… at least not recently… it's really complicated so could we just… I mean…"
"It's okay, dude. I'll totally forgive you for being an outcast." Creed patted him on the arm with a large grin on his face.

"Hah. Thanks," Gregor brushed him off playfully and then added, "Remember you have guard duty tonight."
"But I was on two nights ago!" Creed complained shuffling out of his dark room to follow Gregor down the hall, whining all the way. A large group of rich old people from one of New York's best nursing homes had paid Gregor and his new 'family' to guard them at night. Each night two guards would go and protect the residents from any 'Alirial Peril' or 'AP' as Ms. Cormaci put it. She was a strange one.

Anyway, all of their funding for their equipment, and technology came from these generous people, who could sleep peacefully without any 'AP'. So if they didn't guard they didn't have money, simple as that.

"I know, but Dalton asked off a few weeks ago."

"For what?" Creed said, catching up with Gregor.

"I have no idea?"

"Do you think he has a date?"

Gregor thought a moment, "It's possible. I don't want to gossip."
"Oh come on, Gregor! Please!! I'm begging!" He pulled on one of Gregor's sleeves, his face pleading.

"How old are you, Creed?" Gregor laughed and pulled his arm away, "You're acting like a gossiping old woman!" Creed huffed and mumbled something that sounded quite like, "I'll just ask Boots."

Gregor peeked his head around the doors down the long hallway. Each room was decorated uniquely to its occupants. To date there were 13 people living in the building, including him and his sisters. He was the 'father' of the house, which made Lizzie the resident 'mom.'

The third floor was the boys floor where Gregor, Creed, Dalton, Devon, Matt, Mark, and Rugger lived. The second floor housed the girls; Lizzie, Boots, Chloe, Zeva, Kayla, and Dakota. The top floor was a commons area, set up like a game room while the bottom floor was a huge garage.
Ms. Cormaci had found and rented this old building, an abandoned firehouse, on the edge of Brooklyn and it provided them with a home base for their operation.

It was really a perfect building for the jobs that they performed. Everyone in the building besides his sisters were ragers (or ragers in training as some hadn't mastered the art of killing.) Gregor had picked them up from the streets over the last few years. Some were too young to know what they really were, but many were part of his elite team that worked against the Alira. If they weren't on guard duty they were waiting at the firehouse to be given a mission. That's why the firehouse was good for the team. If Lizzie's radar picked up Alira anywhere in New York the fire alarms would blare and his team would jump into action.

This lifestyle worked for them and each new member of their mismatched family was accepted easily into their group.

Of course Lizzie and Boots had always held a special place in his heart, but he had grown to love these annoying silly kids that called him-

"CAPTAIN!!!" A high-pitched voice called out from behind him. He turned and saw a bright headed little boy running towards him. The kid jumped and Gregor grabbed him from midair. He was really skinny for his age and had a woolen hat on his head that was brighter than a rainbow. He hugged the little boy who giggled and climbed around till he was sitting on Gregor's shoulders.

"What's up, Rugger?" Creed asked the little monkey kid.

"Heaven, duh!" Rugger said, motioning upward. Gregor rolled his eyes at Rugger's frankness. He really reminded Gregor of Hazard, although Rugger was five and Hazard must be about 16.

As Gregor walked around checking on his family Rugger ranted about anything and everything he could think of. They went through the subjects of Christmas toys, boogers, Creeds smelly socks, the haunted toilet on the girls floor, and flowers.

When Gregor was satisfied that everyone was present and nothing new was happening he carried Rugger over to the elevator and sent him back to his floor, promising to come play later. The kid idolized him too much for his own good.

Then he and Creed headed down the elevator to his sisters lab in the basement. It was where Lizzie's genius came out to play. She tinkered with everything from chemicals to hover boards. She was really an amazing person and her laboratory was an amazing place to visit. The large underground room was filled with state-of-the-art technology, some of it invented by her and their father.

"Gregor!" Lizzie said from behind a large hover board. She pulled herself from underneath it, her face streaked with oil and her hair sticking out of her ponytail. She quickly hugged her brother and Creed, shrugging it off when Gregor asked her what the love was for.

"Listen I was wondering if you guys wanted to get out for dinner tonight? There's a new Chinese restaurant that just opened downtown and I think that-"

His words were cut off by a earsplitting alarm ringing through the echoing basement. Lizzie cringed, covering her ears and motioned for Gregor and Creed to get going. They rushed up the stairs, knowing that the elevator was too slow.

An Alira was in the area. It was time to kill.