A/N: Hey you guys! I am working on Spectral Distortions, but this idea popped into my head and refused to let go. It's going to be a lot shorter than SD and I hope you all enjoy it.
Wadded up shirts and pants littered the floor of Vert Wheeler's room. Automotive books, posters and other things were all shoved into a pile while articles of trash were in another disorganized heap. Vert grunted as he reached under his bed again, hoping that he had cleared out the two years' worth of dirty laundry and empty soda cans. Who knew that the underside of the bed could store so much stuff?
He wasn't exactly sure when Sage suddenly decided that cleaning their rooms had become mandatory, but he knew it had to be with her learning about the term "Spring Cleaning" or the strange lump of mold that was growing behind Stanford's stereo a few weeks ago. Everybody thought for sure that thing was alive.
"I thought it tried to bite A.J." Vert said aloud. Of course he remembered that they were a little sleep deprived at the time from a bout of heavy Storm Shock activity, but to this day A.J., along with Spinner swore it had a nasty attitude.
Vert smirked from the memory while he felt around the cool floor.
A knock from his door brought him back. "Yeah?"
"It's Zoom. Can I come in?" The warrior's muffled voice came from beyond the door.
"Sure, it's open. Just watch your step."
The door slid back and Zoom found himself nearly stumbling on a mountain of CDs. "Whoa! I didn't know our leader was such as pack rat."
Vert threw a shirt at him. "Shut it. And please don't tell me you're done."
Zoom grinned. "When you hang out in a temple for most of your life, you learn not to keep many earthly possessions."
Vert stood up and walked over to the closet. He opened the door, revealing a wall of boxes that were marked with titles of various rewards. "Aw man…"
"You are going to be stuck in here all day."
"Have you heard how everyone else is doing?" Vert asked, unloading the first few boxes.
"Well, Tezz is pretty much finished, but of course everything it neat and orderly in his room. Stanford is complaining, your girlfriend keeps finding lost hairbands and brushes, A.J. is trying to make some extreme sport out of cleaning and the Cortez brothers… Well, let's just say they're finding out some things about each other."
"Do I dare ask?"
The scout laughed. "It's not bad, dude. Sherman found out that Spinner was hiding a bunch of files for improvement features on the Buster so he wouldn't get dragged into more training. And then Spinner found that Sherman was hacking into his blog and corrupting files and stuff that were embarrassing of the team. Needless to say, this cleaning hasn't done those two any good."
"It sounds to me like you were doing more than just checking in on them."
"I was just exercising my mad scouting skills." Zoom grinned again.
Vert sighed while he set more boxes of down on the floor. He felt around the top shelf to see if there was anything else. "Hey, can you see if I'm missing something?"
Zoom leapt onto Vert's bed and jumped up and down a few times. "I don't see anything."
"Thanks, now get off before you break a spring."
"Wait, hold on! There looks like a piece of paper right next to your hand. Move a little to the left… No, your other left! There."
Vert's hand slid off the shelf, carrying a rectangular piece of dust-covered paper with it. Blue ink was scribbled in a flowing fashion on its smooth surface. Zoom jumped off the bed and joined Vert, looking at the oddity.
"The team?" Zoom read the inscription aloud.
"Yeah, but… The hand writing is different. It doesn't look like any of us wrote it," Vert said.
He flipped it over. He and Zoom's eyes roved over the picture. It was indeed a picture of the team just after they formed. Stanford, Zoom, Sherman, Spinner were standing on the test track, all smiling, but then…
Vert and Zoom looked at each other, eyes wide.
Where Vert and Agura should have been standing were two strangers.
Vert took a deep breath. "Zoom, gather the team, now."
A/N: Argh, I didn't want to make this chapter THIS short, but that's how it turned out. Thanks for reading!