Zach, Billy, and Jason stood together at the meeting point, an old bus station, where they were supposed to be picked up by the men from beacon, who were being sent to escort them to the school, as requested by Zach, due to 'extenuating circumstances'.

The men were ten minutes late. Jason, always the pessimist, said 'they aren't coming' for the fifth time in as many minutes. Billy sat to the side, playing with a hacky sack he had found under one of the cracked, yellow seats. Zach paced, the baseball cap on his head giving an odd twitch as his ears searched for the sounds of an approaching car. He was becoming increasingly uneasy, and the constant shish/wack of the hacky sack was grating on his nerves. 'Another five minutes and we'll leave,' he thought.

Three minutes later, an unremarkable black SUV pulled into the parking lot, followed shortly by another, this one dark blue. Zach, always scanning for a trap, looked hard at the cars. The were built tough, but without any remarkable modifications. The silence of their engines leaned towards a lack of turbo, but it could easily be masked through numerous means. However, they could just be innocent people. The cars shared no noticeable features, even the colors.

The people who got out were equally unremarkable, each dressed differently, but with the general uniform being shorts, tees, and tennis shoes. No noticeable bulges to indicate hidden weapons, but Zach's own were proof enough that just because you can't see them, doesn't mean they aren't there. Each of the men appeared to be roughly college aged, and as they spoke to each other, they acted like friends readying themselves for some sort of trip. It might have been believable if it wasn't 9:14 pm.

Zach turned away, but kept an ear on them as he scanned for the trap. Another black car, this one bearing beacon's emblem, pulled up to the curb, and a man and a women stepped out, wearing matching black clothes. The man was almost six foot, if not quit, and the women was about five and a half. Each one had a strange looking black rod clipped to their respective belts.

'Those are stun rods. They want us alive.' Jason said, appearing bored even as she scanned the college students, who were now walking towards the group, appearing, to anyone else, like a group of guys out for a night on the town, laughing and shouting to each other. One of them caught Jason's eye, and let out a cat call.

'Yeah, their in on this.' She said, calling out the distance between them and the enemy while Zach stepped forward to confront the 'Beacon employees'. Billy continued with the hacky sack, seemingly oblivious to the danger. Shish/wack. Shish/wack. Shish/wack.

"Are you the ones who will take us to Beacon?" Zach asked, trying to appear calm. Shish/wack.

"Yes, but we were told you'd have something for us." Shish/wack.

"Is that so? I was told no such thing." Shish/wack.

'Thirty meters and closing' Jason said, letting out a yawn. Shish/wack.

"We have a letter from the headmaster saying otherwise" the women said, holding out a folded up piece of paper, inviting him to come closer. Her hand was loosely draped over her thigh, her palm resting on the rod, relaxed. Shish/wack.

'Ten meters. If we're going to do something, now would be a good time.' Shish/wack.

Zach stepped forward, hand held out lazily, telling the woman to give him the paper. Shish/wack. She gritted her teeth, but stepped forward as well, placing the paper in his hand. He unfolded it, pretending to look, but the second it was open, he saw her hand grip sharply at her stun rod.

He shouted "NOW" and jumped back, the women suddenly finding her face acquainted with a high speed hacky sack.

Billy, even as he spun to deliver the almost lethal kick to his squishy projectile, pulled from his pocket a home made Dust bomb, it's sole purpose to provide a smoke screen on impact. He hurled the bomb into the pack of college students, who had produced a verity of collapsible weapons. Caught off guard, they stumbled back as the smoke enveloped the bus stop. Billy, knowing the plan, leapt up onto the girders situated across the roof of the bus stop.

When things got bad, and he wasn't good enough for the open encounter, get out of the way and provide cover fire. He unfurled Burning Thorn, and with the flick of a switch, it turned into a single shot buffalo rifle. It had maximum power and range, but its one shot magazine and length made it difficult to use in any close quarters combat. From his vantage point, he could openly fire at any opponent with minimum danger to himself.

Zach and Jason placed their backs together, Zach drawing his swords out from beneath his trench coat, keeping them separate to allow for maximum coverage, Jason pulling a katana out of thin air, allowing for a good balance between length and versatility.

The women, enraged at the indecency of the weapon used against her, screeched, shouting "GET THEM!" Before a high impact round slammed into her male companion, shattering his sternum before puncturing his heart. He fell back, blood spraying as he hit the ground, lifeless. She gritted her teeth again, then decided to leave before something worse happened. She jumped into the car, driving off as a second round punched through the rear door.

Zach and Jason were surrounded, each of the SUV s having been fully loaded. The smoke was dissipating, revealing the full extent of the problem. 16 men surrounded them, armed with swords and knives aplenty, the man from the car lay off to the side, a pool of blood spreading around his body. The car was gone, as was the women. The men before them were dressed for a vacation, but the clothing was hardly restricting.

These ones knew what they were doing. Billy was over head, and fired at one of the men. The man, instead of falling, sidestepped the hit, and during the moment of distraction, hurled a knife at Billy, catching him unprepared. His aura absorbed the blow itself, but the force behind it was too much, and Billy was knocked from his perch. He landed on his feet, but had to jump quickly to Zach and Jason so he wasn't sliced to pieces by the gang of thugs. They formed a rough triangle, trying to decide how to deal with this threat.

The group of thugs pulled in closer, forming a double line as they tightened like a lasso. Enough of them staying back to cover them in case they tried to run. Zach readied his swords, preparing for the fight. Three men charged forward, closing the gap quickly. The one that charged Zach was using a bulky military style trench knife, one side smooth, the other with an inch long serration. They clashed, Zach not even blinking as he leveled his other sword at the crowd and fired. The blast did almost no damage, but produced quite a distraction. Suddenly finding themselves the targets, the outer wall of thugs began to crumble.

His opponent spun away, sporting numerous cuts and wounds from Zach's sword, he himself remained unharmed. As he watched, the wounds began to heal, telling him that most of the thugs had a basic understanding of aura-works and control.

'Watch out, they've been trained for this.' Jason said, a little too late.

Three more thugs joined the first, leaving the others to try and cover all the open angles. Billy had beaten back his opponent, but he wouldn't survive another assault, not by two opponents. Jason's opponent was being dragged back to the line of remaining thugs, holding his guts in as best he could. The wound wasn't lethal, not entirely, anyway, but there was a lot of blood now, the ground becoming slick.

Zach was considering running for it when a man and an oddly dressed woman jumped down from the rafters over head. They had appeared so quickly, even Zach and Jason hadn't heard them coming. The women wore mostly white, with small glasses balancing on her nose, and a black and purple cape strung across her back. He recognized her a Galinda Goodwich, three time recipient of the huntress of the year award, and vice principal at Beacon academy. The man was unfamiliar, but from the way he held his twin bladed axes, he seamed to be a huntsman of notable caliber.

"These children are under our protection, if you do not desist, we will resort to deadly force." The man said, his voice deep and deadly, like a sunken ship. The men considered for a moment, before turning and retreating to their cars. As they drove away, the two adults turned to the armed children they had just saved.

Zach stepped forward, extending a hand as he said "my gratitude, mam and sir. I take it the two of you were supposed to be the ones to collect us?"

The man nodded, saying "Unfortunately, our car was stolen. If we hadn't heard the gunshots kid, we may not have made it. I'll admit that when I heard extenuating circumstances, I was skeptical, but considering what just happened, perhaps I was wrong."

He smiled, and his whole face changed, like a kind uncle. Zach responded, saying "no problems, it seems. We have our things, and I think we should leave. If you would lead the way, you needn't worry about speed. We can keep up."

The man laughed, a deep, reassuring sound, and said "I like this one, plenty of spunk. Alright youngsters, let's go." He ran across the street and jumped, using his momentum to climb a building on the opposite side of the street, the group following. Galinda rolled her eyes, and in the process, noticed the body on the ground. It troubled her that children would be forced to commit such an act, but the police had already been notified, and the situation could be explained later. She turned, leaping after the group.

After they had all left, a shadow unfurled itself from the nearby parking lot. He had seen the whole fight, and couldn't hide his admiration. He almost wished the hunters hadn't shown up, if only to see how many the kids brought down before they were killed. He examined his scroll, then turned and walked off, melting back into the shadows without effort.