Title: "Initium"

Rating: T

Genre: adventure, friendship

Character(s): Skylar S., Bree D., Leo D., Oliver, OC

Pairing(s): none at this point

Summary: AR. This is where it all began. /or/ "None of the members of this team exists. Not in person, not in files. From now on, your actions will only be known by you and a small group of people who also don't exist. Are you up for it?" (Precedes "What Comes Next")

Notes: So if you've read What Comes Next, this is where it stemmed from - kind of like the beginning of the whole thing.

The Elite Force didn't form. The part in Lab Rats where Bree and Chase left Adam and Leo never happened. Mighty Med was never destroyed (kind of). Ran (the cranky OC in WCN lol) has not been introduced yet. Skylar, at this point, still does not have her abilities.

Many different things, but hopefully this would explain the AR a bit more.

Again, just to clarify, this ain't a dig on LREF. Just posting this since there seems to have been a bit of interest regarding the world WCN was set up in :)

Please enjoy!

. . .

[the meeting]

Bree gasped for air as she came to, feeling as if oxygen had been denied her for a long time. Her head quickly swam, buzzing with many fearful thoughts. Despite her vision swaying inexplicably, she was able to roughly make out some details of the room she was in: walls and ceiling of rusty dark gray cement, the light bulbs stuck on the walls reminding her of those ones she had seen at the coal mine they visited with the academy students some months ago. The metallic slab she lied on was uncomfortable and cold.

Cold. Her hands were freezing.

Her whole body was freezing.

What happened? she wondered as she carefully sat up. Where was she? The last she remembered was...was... Why can't I remember anything?

Nausea washed over her for a quick second, and the way it overturned her insides almost made her throw up.

As bile teased in her throat, she instinctively slapped a hand over her mouth to prevent it from spilling.

"There's a sink close to you. You can use that to throw up."

Bree looked to her left—and immediately regretted it. The last of her control slipped. The next thing she knew, she was standing next to the sink, spilling the contents of her already empty stomach.

Once she regained control, she turned on the faucet to rid the sink of its new content and to wipe her mouth clean. Trying again, she looked at the person who spoke to her. "Skylar? Skylar Storm?" she said with a frown.

From the way Skylar gripped her own metallic bed, her knuckles white and her face pale as she desperately worked to steady herself, Bree concluded that the other girl wasn't doing much better than her. "In this case," Skylar said a few breaths later, "I would say unfortunately so."

"Where are we?" Bree asked after noting their similar outfits – jogging pants and sweatshirts that were just a shade lighter than the walls. As she took in more of the room, it was only then she noticed the third person with them. "What's wrong with Oliver?" she asked in a panic, looking at his gaunt and ashen face. "Is he...Did he..."

Skylar shook her head. "I don't know," she said, weary and worried.

They both jumped when the boy in question suddenly bolted to life. He breathed with desperation—in, out, in, out in rapid succession. His eyes wandered around unseeingly.

Bree understood what and how he felt. "Are you all right, Oliver?" she asked after the boy seemed to have gotten his bearings.

Oliver swallowed thickly then nodded carefully. He still looked dead. "Yeah, I'm fine. For now."

"You don't look so good," the bionic finally commented as she drew closer to them. "Neither of you do."

"Thanks," Oliver deadpanned.

"This is weird, huh?" Bree said as she gazed around.

They must be in an abandoned building. Nothing seemed to be of significance here, though. It only had the lights, the two sinks, and the four autopsy tables placed at a precise distance from one another.

Bree frowned at that last observation. "Who's the fourth person?"

"We only know as much as you do," Skylar answered, irritated by all the questions. "I woke up just a few minutes before you. And Oliver, well..."

"I don't get it," muttered Oliver. "I was just in that car. The guy in the suit was talking...I don't know. My head still hurts."

A hissing sound from a distance put Bree and Skylar on alert. For a moment, there was only the sound of footsteps. Then... "Leo!"

Leo shot a dirty look at the man standing behind him as his sister engulfed him in her embrace.

"Are you okay?" Bree asked, letting him go. He was warmer than she and appeared a few notches better than she and Skylar combined, but he still looked defeated and worn out. She glared at the man in the suit who smiled congenially at the four of them. "Did he hurt you?" she asked her brother.

"Maybe just my pride." When that didn't appease his sister any, Leo assured her, "I'm okay. He didn't do anything to me."

"Who are you?" Skylar asked the man.

"I'm Agent Herman Delgado," the man, who looked to be in his early forties, responded. He extended a hand towards her. "I'm pleased to meet you, Ms. Skylar Storm."

Skylar only glanced at his hand then back at him.

"I see that you're all still getting acclimated to the effects of the serum," Agent Delgado said, withdrawing his hand. "It will take a while to go away, but don't worry – now that you're awake, it will happen fairly quickly. The speed, of course, depends on your physical make-up. Ms. Storm woke up first 'cause of her alien physiology, Ms. Davenport next because of her bionic infrastructure, Mr. Connelly right after since he's biologically, relatively still human.

"Though why Mr. Dooley woke up first before everyone else is a bit of a mystery." He frowned. "Maybe the dosage just wasn't en—"

"Where are we? What are we doing here?" Bree cut in.

Agent Delgado's smile tightened a little. "We're at an underground facility in a place codenamed Sahara," he answered patiently nonetheless. "The four of you are here because you agreed to be here."

The last statement spread reactions of confusion and surprise. "I'm sorry – we agreed to be here?" Oliver asked.

Agent Delgado nodded.

"Uh, no. No, we didn't," Bree said.

"In fact you did, Ms. Davenport," Agent Delgado answered. He drew out a folded piece of paper from the left pocket of his jacket. He unfolded it then handed it to her. "This is your signature, if I'm not mistaken?"

Bree read through the contents slowly. A contract. She had seen this before. When she saw her signature at the bottom of the paper, she frowned up at him. "How do you have this? It's supposed to be private."

"And it is," said Agent Delgado. "I come from the...group that had spoken to all of you regarding this."

Oliver thought about it. Then, he shook his head. "No. No, it can't be."

"Sadly, he's telling the truth," Leo said. "He has all of our contracts. He showed me mine while keeping me in a holding cell."

Agent Delgado only grinned at the teenage boy's spitefulness.

"I'm confused," said Skylar. "What contract? What group are we talking about?"

"Do you remember that mail you received, the one that you had to claim from the Post Office?" Leo said. "I'm assuming that's how the three of you got yours since that's how I got mine. Anyways, remember the job offer that it talked about? The one that's supposed to be top secret and had several rounds of interviews? With the evaluations and all those things."

Skylar tried to recall, which was easier now that the fog clouding her brain had mostly cleared. The frown on her face lifted when the countless meetings came back to her. "You're from the international organization?"

"It's not really an international organization per se. It's more like a group of very, very select people," Agent Delgado said.

"Which means...?"

"Which means its existence has never been and will never be known to anyone outside of it."

"So, it's kind of like the branch of the FBI that deals with people like us?" Oliver asked.

"It's not a branch of anything. It acts independently," said Agent Delgado.

"Well, it seemed like it was a government organization to me," Leo said, crossing his arms.

"Isn't this fraud? You got the four of us to sign up for a job with a phony society," Skylar pointed out, now deeply upset. "I'm not an expert on earth's laws, but I'm pretty sure this nulls the contract we signed."

"It's not fraud, Ms. Storm. The group that you are with now really is a society that works to defend the earth from persons or phenomena that could harm it. It just isn't what you think it is," Agent Delgado said. "It's non-political, not attached to anything commercial. It was founded by those who work in the justice system, superpowered or not, from different parts of the globe."

"Any chance we'll meet the guys in charge?" Leo asked.

"Maybe not 'til later," Agent Delgado said.

"That's what I thought," Leo muttered.

"What I am allowed to tell you is that there are less than ten founders. The agents and operatives are as few, if you compare our number to those of other agencies."

"Why all the secrecy?" Skylar asked.

"It's a protection, both for the organization and the people in it." Agent Delgado smiled sadly. "You'll be surprised how twisted humans can be, Ms. Storm, even those who profess to be heroes. That's why the founders thought it best to separate and just operate independently. That way, our purpose is met."

"You mentioned that this, whatever this is, was founded partially by people with abilities," Oliver pointed out. "So I'm assuming that you have agents and operatives, too, who have powers."

"No, which is why the founders reached out to the four of you." He explained, "With Earth increasingly becoming a place of refuge to some beings other than humans, the founders are beginning to realize that keeping innocent people safe is harder to do with just human agents. Yes, we're highly skilled, and yes, we're trained by the best of the best, but at the end of the day we're still limited. The four of you, though – you can do so much more."

"We have an academy full of bionic kids," Bree pointed out. "If your founders really needed help, why didn't they just reach out to us?"

"Because like I said, Ms. Davenport, anonymity serves as a protection for us. We can't trust all of them."

"What about Adam and Chase? You could've gotten them in on this, too," Bree asked.

"Kaz, too," Oliver said. "I mean, he usually can't keep a secret, but he did well with Mighty Med. Plus, he has a good range of abilities like I do."

"The three of them would have been good additions," Skylar agreed.

Though the trio looked at him in expectation, the shadow of disappointment that passed by Leo's eyes didn't escape Delgado's notice. "The job requires particular sets of skills and types of people, and both young Mr. Davenports as well as Mr. Augustyn just didn't meet them," he said.

He smiled at Leo, remembering how frazzled his fellow agents had been after the teenaged boy surprisingly unlocked the room they were in without too much effort. "The founders only wanted the best," he assured Leo.

Bree, unaware of what their comments had implied to her youngest brother, took offense in Delgado's words. Adam and Chase? Unfit for a job they've known how to do since they were little? Who did this guy think he was? "What if I decided not to go on with this? What if I said no?" she challenged.

Delgado smirked, taking her up on it. "No to what, Miss Davenport? Fulfilling the legally-binding contract you signed or helping keep Earth safe? Maybe both?"

"You drugged us, locked us up in here, and lied to us. You've treated us inhumanely," Bree argued. "Like Skylar said, this is a breach to our contract!"

Delgado almost snapped back with the response that came to mind but decided to hold back on it. He pondered over the best approach to the seemingly hostile situation, and then replied, "What was the last thing you, each of you, remember?"

Bree, though still upset, thought about it. The last thing that happened before she woke up? She dug deep for it, and slowly, surely, it started to come. As the violent tempest, with its howling winds and raging waves, ghosted in her memory, she reluctantly said, "There was a mission at sea. A crew had been stuck out there because of engine failure. The four of us were supposed to retrieve them."

She shook her head as the last minute before she lost consciousness played in the back of her mind. "We just pulled out one of the crew members who got stuck. Sera, Adam, and I slipped, but only I went overboard. I was holding on. Sera was reaching out to me. Then my hands slipped."

Delgado nodded. "Ms. Storm?"

"Mighty Med was on red alert. It was chaos in there, actually," Skylar admitted after seeing confusion on Bree's face. "There was a break in. Kaz and I were helping out some people but we got separated because Horace needed his help. He sent me to look for Oliver 'cause he'd been missing since that morning. I came into one of the rooms, and then I saw these four guys wearing those cloaks."

"Were they human?"

"They didn't look it." Skylar scoffed. "They certainly didn't fight like it. Two of them took me on. The next thing I know..."

A hologram blinked in the middle of the room. It displayed the front page of a reputable and widely-known newspaper containing a picture of people familiar to Bree underneath a headline that stunned her.

"Your brothers and your student made it to safety, Ms. Davenport," Delgado reported. "You didn't. You died."

"But I'm..." Bree stared at the words written in bold letters. "I'm not dead."

"Half of Mighty Med is destroyed, and unfortunately there were a number of casualties," Delgado told Skylar and Oliver when the notice from the Hero Network popped up beside the newspaper article. "Doctor Diaz and his nephew are safe. Your friend, Dr. Augustyn, has injuries, but he will survive. Because of who attacked you, many of the superheroes that had gone missing are presumed dead. That means you, too, Ms. Storm. You're listed as one of the fallen who's sacrificed yourself for your fellow heroes."

"This is crazy!" Bree exclaimed. "These are all lies! We're both obviously still alive! How can you say we're both dead?"

"Because to the people that last saw you and to the world outside these walls, you are."

"Is this a trick?" Bree demanded, now completely ticked off. "Your founders really wanted us this much that they would pull something like this? You'd put all of those people in danger and really hurt our families just to get us to work for you?"

"You think too low of us, Ms. Davenport."

"You haven't given me a good impression to do otherwise."

"The situation you were caught in was not a set-up. None of the founders, agents, or operatives had the ability or the desire to create that storm. Things that happened happened because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"As far as Ms. Storm, she just happened to encounter one of the several groups of beings our organization goes after."

"Beings?" Skylar asked.

"The Ravishers."

"I've never heard of them," Leo commented.

"As you shouldn't. And right now, all you'll ever know of them is what they're called," Delgado said. "By the way, Mr. Dooley – the plant that you encountered during your recon mission is an extraterrestrial plant, brought in by some lowlifes from the planet of Tauru. It grows into a huge flower from which they can harvest this drug-like pollen. It's harmless when it's already grown. Unfortunately you found it when it was still small, very defensive, and highly poisonous."

"Ah. So that's why it darted me on the face when I tried to touch it," Leo said, unimpressed.

Delgado smiled, amused once again by the teenage boy's lighthearted reaction. "Our methods of extraction are unusual but reasonable," he informed them. "Mr. Connelly can attest to that. Can't you, Mr. Connelly?"

Oliver shrank back a little as three more pairs of eyes turned to his direction. He shrugged. "They picked me up. At the weirdest place and the weirdest time, but they did."

"So what do you want us to do now? Stay here forever until our contract expires?" Bree asked.

"No. The founders acknowledge that after knowing all of these you may still want to withdraw, so they're giving you this opportunity now to back out. If you decide to not do it, we will destroy the contract then set you free. You can go home to your families, correct these incorrect assumptions that you died. You can just start back up from where you left off."

"But...?" Skylar prompted.

"But when you leave, all memories you have of this place, of me, the people and things that you've seen and heard about will be erased. It's for your safety, and for the safety of our people, too. Knowledge about this group, of The Ravishers and the people of Tauru are only for people who decide to do something about it."

"And if we decide to stay?" Oliver asked.

Delgado smiled. "Then you will continue as dead – or missing – " he said glancing at Bree, "for your loved ones. You cannot contact them, and for the next months, maybe years, your team will be the only people you'll have." Which is honestly much more than what the rest of us have, Delgado thought but didn't say. "You'll know things, go places, meet people, and encounter things you never thought even exist. It's going to be dangerous, but if you do well you might just get to save this planet and a few others from harm."

"Obviously, no one will know it's us, right?" Skylar said.

Delgado shook his head. "Formidable, but invisible," he said. "Like radiation, or magnetism."

Leo shrugs. "Why not. I'm in."

"Are you insane?" Bree snapped at her brother. "Tasha and Mr. Davenport will think you've been killed, and you're okay with that?"

"Do we get free food wherever we're going?" Leo asked Delgado.

"Your team will be provided with food, shelter, and clothing," Delgado confirmed. He grinned. "You get badges, too, as agents."

Leo thought about it. "Yeah, I'm okay with it," he told his sister.

Bree scoffed then shook her head.

"I'm in, too," Oliver said. "I think out of everybody here, I have the best reason to do this. My mom's still out there, and maybe with this I can help in making sure she doesn't do anything too dangerous."

"What about Kaz?" Skylar asked.

"He'll be all right without me for now," Oliver said with a sad smile. "And I know he'll know that we're still alive somewhere. Kaz has great instincts. I know he'll be okay."

Skylar pondered over it. Eventually, she acquiesced. "All right. Count me in," she said.

With this, the attention now shifted to Bree.

"No one will think any less of you if decide not to do this, Ms. Davenport," Delgado assured in hopes of easing the pressure off the bionic girl. "The things you do now with your brothers are also important. Your team is also integral to the safety of the world."

Bree thought about it. Of course, she wanted to come back to her family, to her brothers. But then..."What about my brother? I can't just leave him here," she said, looking at Leo. "Who will keep him safe?"

"Ms. Storm and Mr. Connelly will be with him. I will be, too," Delgado said. "We'll keep an eye out for each other."

"I haven't done so terribly this past year, too, Bree," Leo told her. He smiled. "I'll do my best to represent."

Bree said nothing. It upset her to see him like this, to not be as furious as she was about getting separated from their family. Did they not matter to him? And how could he just tell her that it was okay to leave? The agent said she wouldn't remember a thing about this meeting, but she just knew that somewhere deep down, she'd be haunted by the feeling that she had abandoned her brother.

What do you think about the future, Ms. Davenport? she suddenly remembered the female interviewer asking her during one of the rounds.

The future? she had asked.

The woman nodded. You and your brothers have accomplished great things together. Moving forward from here, what do you see the three of you accomplishing?

It broke Bree's heart, even now, as she thought of the painful truth that she had been mulling over for a long while. I think...I think we will always be a team, and the three of us will continue to do great things for people.

The three of you had made a big difference.

We did, we did. But...

But...?

I...I think eventually, the three of us would have to make a difference on our own someday.

You think you would have to separate?

Bree had nodded. When flowers get too big for the pot, they have to be taken out and maybe separated, right? That's how they live and thrive. Maybe that's what Adam, Chase, and I had become: flowers. And soon the three of us would have to grow on our own.

If she came back now, Bree thought, how would she know what lied ahead the road she refused to take?

She sighed. "This can't be the worst decision I could ever make," she muttered to herself. To Delgado she said, "Sure. Whatever. Sign me up."

Leo grinned proudly. Meanwhile, Oliver and Skylar smiled.

"Are you sure, Ms. Davenport?" Delgado asked. "Once you give your word, it will be hard to take it back."

"Everyone makes a few stupid decisions in their lives, right?" Bree said, weary and defeated, but also surprisingly thrilled and relieved. "Might as well make one that will benefit other people."

Delgado nodded. "None of the members of this team will exist from this point forward. From now on, your actions will only be known by you and a small group of people who also don't exist. Are you up for it?"

Bree only stared in displeasure at Delgado.

Leo grinned in excitement.

Oliver stood nervously but with a rekindled determination.

Skylar uncrossed her arm, welcoming what was to come despite the uncertainties.

Delgado smiled, highly pleased. This would be an adventure for him, too. He had worked alone for years, and to be suddenly placed in charge of four people, young enough to be his children at that, made him uneasy. It didn't help that the group was made up of a seasoned bionic human, a highly-skilled alien warrior, a newly-minted doctor-turned-superhero, and a teenage boy with brains that would surely give them a run for their money.

He didn't know what the immediate future held for each of them, but they still needed to press forward.

Especially now. This world and the others had gotten more dangerous and conniving. Really, they needed all the help they could get.

"All right," Delgado said, walking out of the room. "In that case, follow me."

"Where are we going?" Oliver asked as they followed.

"The hangar," Delgado said. "We're flying to your new home."

Eventually, there would be one-shots or short multi-chapters that connect in with this world. Eventually. Let me know if you're curious about anything regarding this AR.

Thanks for reading!