Chapter 1. A New Team

A boy stands cornered in an alley, tears running from his eyes, with them being transfixed on his assailants. His clothes tattered; pants dampen by his own urine. Of the group of men that stand before him, one steps forward. The man sports a finely pressed suit, black; a mustache outlines his mouth.

"So, you thought you could escape us, did you?... Well you where wrong no one does. You think you can steal from the Hoods and get away with it?" The man stopped, holding his hand out toward the others. Another man, appearing more as a weasel than a man, stepped up and handed the original a gun. "We might get looked down on for beating a little queer to death… but no one will say anything about shooting one." He pointed the gun at the boy.

I'm so sorry Penny… "Bang!" The bullet ripped through his skull, leaving a splatter of bits of skull, brain, and blood on the wall behind.

"Come on guys, the night's still young. How about another match?" John said, looking at his friends in the adjacent corner of the ring. "After one more we can leave." He adjusted the Velcro the boxing gloves, then pleasing his mouth guard back in his mouth.

"Okay, but after this, your taking us out for burger." One of his friends, Bill, replied.

"It's a deal." John said as Bill started to get back in the ring.

Creek. The door at the other side of the gym opened. From the darkness the extended pass the threshold of the doorway a man emerged. He wore the same as John and Bill, trunks and boxing gloves.

He began to walk toward the ring, "Hey kids, which one of you two wants to fight an old man?" The man was considerably older than the group of kids.

John looked the man over, "I fight you."

"Good." The man replied.

The two men faced off. John's blue eyes looking into the man's black, dead eyes. He bolted at the man, going for a straight; the man dodged parrying with an elbow to the face. I thought this was a boxing match. John thought as he stumbled back. The man then delivered a fury of kick, hitting throughout John's body. They were fast, hitting hard. He let up for a second, only to throw a straight into John's solar plexus, then an elbow to the face. John fell to his knees; he looked up to see a knee coming directly toward his face. It hit, causing his to blackout a mere second; he fell backwards, a foot crashing down on his sternum. Blood filled John's throat and slowly ran from his mouth.

The man ambled from the ring and out the door, not even looking back.

Bill and the other ran onto the ring. John slowly opened his eyes to see Bill's blurry face. He tried to clean the blood from his throat. "Ah… man… duh…" He tried to speech.

"Amanda? What about her? Someone call for an ambulance!" Bill yelled, crying over his friend.

"I… lo... v... h… r…" John continued to try to speak.

"You love her? We know… she knows… she loves you to." He continued to cry.

This shouldn't have happened! I love her so much… Damn it! His vision faded, everything became black.

What the hell is he doing? Why is he strangling me? Carol thought as spared into the eyes of the man she loved; on top of her, hands around her neck. The hate, the anger, in his eyes blazed, with a hint of madness.

"I love you so much!" He yelled.

I hate you… She started to fade, her body tingling.

An audible buzz flooded the room. Slowly the interior of a large room came into John's view. A beam of light shot through the air, at it's end, leaving behind pieces of John's body. He looked around the room, standing throughout the room was roughly twenty people. In the middle of the room sat a large black sphere. What the hell is this? Where am I? But is thoughts quickly shifted, what the fuck? Beside him, against a wall, were two other people coming into form. Carol and The Boy.

John hastily stood up, "What is this?" He yelled. As the final piece of The Boy's shoe came to form, a loud "Bing" came from the center of the room, from the sphere.

From one of the small groups of people, stepped two people, a man and a woman.

The man started to speak, "Hello, there are quite a lot of you, so please be quiet. There are many new faces, here." He looked at the woman next to him. "Really there are a lot of them." Then back to the rest. "You are all dead." Everyone started to murmur to one another. "Be quiet! Soon we will be given a mission from that ball. It will tell us to kill an alien..."

But another man interrupted him, "You fucking crack head! Stop lying to us! I'll..." In an explosion of blood and bone, his head exploded.

Everyone started to yell. My God, what the hell just happened? John thought.

"Now," the man started, "I've killed that man, he was wasting valuable time. That sphere will soon give you weapons and outfits. Take the weapons and wear the outfits. Now; 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."

A melody started to sweep through the room. "You guys might want to do what my huddy says." The woman said, smilng, looking at everyone.