There was an eerie silence as the young team of super-heroes awaited the return of their speedy friend. The teammates were worried that Imp was in serious trouble. It had been a long time since he had left, leaving the group a little distressed.


"It's been 5 minutes, Imp should've been back by now!" WonderGirl had a concerned expression upon her face. Everyone agreed that something must have been wrong, except for Robin.


"I wouldn't panic." Robin said cooly, "He probably just got distracted. You know how Imp is. He's probably chasing squirrels." The others relaxed a little, but, only for a moment. All of the sudden, Impulse zwipped up to them a huge bunch of leaves flying behind in his wake.


"Guesswhat?" Bart grinned proudly.


"You caught the squirrel?" Superboy sardonically smirked.


"What squirrel? Where's the squirrel? Who said anything about a squirrel?" Imp pondered hard on what SB meant.


"Just tell us what you found, Bart" Arrowette sighed.


"Ok!" Impulse began again, "I was going through the forest looking for D.E.O agents an' I found one! I got him to tell me what he was doing there an' what we're looking for which we shouldn't be looking for anymore because it's a trap!"


"Hold on a second!" Cassie looked confused and glared at Imp, "Exactly how did you get him to tell you this?"


"Well, as I was running I hit the guy and flew backwards! I hit a tree and fell inside of it and all these bugs started climbin' all over me so I jumped up an' spun around and all the bugs flew off onto the guy and so, I told the guy that if he didn't tell me what he was doing there and what the subjects looked like I wouldn't take the bugs off him!" He crossed his arms with pride.


"What do they look like?" Secret asked curiously.


"The guy said that they were water sort of things. It looks like a puddle but it could be any kind of liquid form really." Imp replied.


"Then what did you do with him?" Arrowette question a little worried. When did Imp threaten people?


"I took the bugs off him and let him go then I-" He was cut short by Robin.


"You let him go!? And you knew it was a trap!? You've shortened our time to look for these things immensely!" The Boy Wonder turned to the rest of the group, "We'll have to do the best we can around here but we don't have as much time as before. Superboy and Wondergirl can do an aerial search…and Imp can look through the forest but that's about all I can do." The last statement was directed mostly towards Secret. The rest of team disbanded to look for the puddle beings. But before Robin left to do a quick search around the area he heard Impulse say softly:


"I was only trying to do something right." Imp's soft comment hit him hard. The way he had acted before…it just wasn't normal. He'd have to figure out what was wrong later. They only had a few minutes to search for the creature before the D.E.O came.


The man from the D.E.O had come to his partner panting and gasping for air. His brow was burdened by droplets of sweat that dripped down his face and off his chin. When he told his partner what had happened, his friend wasn't that understanding.


"YOU WHAT?!" The man exclaimed with fury in his eyes.


"I-I had to! You know how I am around insects!" The man pleaded. His partner sighed.


"The Major won't take kindly to this, Johnson. You're in deep—"


"What are they going to do?" Johnson sat on the ground holding his head a little, "Look at what he did to me, Cliff!" He raised an arm to show Cliff the termite shaped holes in his skin, "I can still feel them on me. What are we going to do?!"


"That's easy!" Cliff started taking out his walkie-talkie; "We just give the signal prematurely. The other agents will come and teach those punks a lesson!" With that, Cliff turned on his walkie-talkie and gave the signal.


* * * *


The group came back empty handed all around. Their 10-minute search was a failure. But Secret insisted they look harder for the escapees.


"We have to!" She exclaimed floating above the rest of her teammates, "If they catch them…they might go to the WABE*! We can't let that happen to them!" (*See Young Justice: The Secret) Secret begged them.


"Listen Suzie, we did all we could, but if we don't want to get caught by the D.E.O we better get out of here." Rob said sternly.


"But, the D.E.O will do horrible things to them! It'll be all our fault!" Secret tried but Rob wouldn't budge.


"I'm sorry, Suzie. But, we can't risk it." Robin whistled for the Super-Cycle as Secret pleaded desperately one last time.


"Please Robin! What will happen to them is far more horrible than-than…we can't leave them!" Tears were beginning to well up in her eyes.


"I'm sorry," He repeated and motioned everybody into the Super-Cycle just as D.E.O agents started to pour out from the forest. "Everybody in! NOW!"


Arrowette, Robin, Superboy, WonderGirl, and Impulse climbed into the Super-Cycle. The alien vehicle took off with a mighty roar as the D.E.O agents yelled from the ground below.


Secret looked back as the agents began to swarm the area ordering an aerial attack to block the escape. She sadly looked away and whispered silently, "I'm sorry." She flew up to get away as fast as she could even though she yearned to stay.