Hawks slammed himself into the steel door. Again and again. His shoulder throbbed with a bruise dotting over his thin skin. Bits of bone jutted out as he crashed into the door. His breath turning into angered grunts before he collapsed onto the ground in a heap. He laid on his back with his wings extended outward. He panted for air and stared up at the single tungsten lightbulb granting an auburn pallor over the room.

"Please!" Hawks shouted. "You have no idea what you are doing? Do you realize the consequences of your actions?"

The only response he received was the red dot blinking on the camera placed in the corner.

How long had he been trapped in this simple grey room? Decorated only by a rock solid cot and a rusted toilet, he felt imprisoned for decades in the room. He had no memory of before he entered, nor did he have any idea if there was anybody that would find him. The beads of sweat scratched at the scruff on his chin before he laid to rest on the floor again. He was growing desperate. Time had to be running out for both him and for all of humanity.

All he remembered was working with Linda to get the missing Salton Sea Scroll pages. Then, he had woken up here. However, he knew a large portion of time had passed. There was some rift that was threatening to completely tear reality apart, and he was worried that the prophecy of the Scrolls were about to pass.

He scrambled to his feet and rushed for the door again. He flailed his arms, his wings waving a terse breeze before banging into the surface again. He yelled even louder trying every position he could to smack himself onto the door to no avail. The camera watched his every move relishing in the panic from the Pro-Hero.

What the camera missed, however, was the single feather that escaped under the crack of the door.

When the scarlet feather slipped out of the cell with a small thumb drive hidden within its fragile branches. Stuck onto the bottom with a small adhesive, the feather flew out of the cell and zipped through the cavernous hallways of the hidden location Hawks was buried.

The ruse of Hawks' panic worked, the camera not noticing the feather leaving the building and traveling into the crisp California sky. It traveled through teh bright noon sunshine over the various mid-century homes and concrete before zipping over the city skyline and past fellow eagles and vultures. Past the Hollywood sign and the twisting turns of the Beverly Hills roadways. Beyond the mountains all the way into a random forest area just by the Santa Ana mountains.

Then, landing right by the door of a small shack. Dilapidated with only a small satellite dish on top of a wooden roof. The feather dropped right at the base of the doorway.

The door creaked open. A pair of boots plant themselves right at the feather. A boney hand dropped down and grabbed it. Turning it over, a finger runs over the small thumb drive that came from the strange imprisonment Hawks had found himself within.

"Just in time," A strange voice whispered.

Outside of Robyn's room, Anton paced around the door with trepidation. He was certainly not a fan of what he was tasked to do, but he was reliably told the fate of humanity depended on it.

"Great," Anton spoke more to himself than anybody. "Now, I have two voices in my head."

The earpiece hidden within his ear chirped so loud, it made Anton grab his head with a zap of pain sparking in his brain.

"Focus, Anton. We need you to get the pages and get out of there," Megan said through the speaker.

Earlier in the morning, Anton was cornered by Megan in a stairwell and given the earpiece. When he put it on, her voice ordered that he end up in front of Robyn's room. Somehow, she had come in contact with the missing pages of the Salton Sea scrolls according to the intel the Syndicate had received. When they were told by Deku that their trip had been delayed a few hours due to their charter bus disappearing, Megan decided this was the chance to finally get the pages back.

Anton had no idea that the work of the Syndicate was apparently supposed to come to fruition starting today on Christmas Eve. It also annoyed him that Robyn was implicated in the matter. Yes, the girl was somewhat annoying, but she was a cute girl that tolerated him. As a teenaged male, there was not much else he could ask for beyond a female with any kind of affection for a scrawny green boy. That said, all the cooky theories about the Salton Sea Scrolls made his spine shiver. Just how important were these things? Would it cause any harm to him or anybody else. Worse, what if it was a waste of time? An old fantasy by some weird Catholic bishops that Megan roped him into for no reason other than Robyn liked him.

So there stood Anton waiting for Robyn to open the door.

Did you put on the cologne?

"No, I didn't," Anton said.

"What?"

"I wasn't talking to you," Anton said. "I was talking to Pathogen."

"Okay, then stop talking and focus on the mission."

"I don't need you to tell me what to do."

Yes, you do.

"I wasn't talking to you, Pathogen! I was talking to Megan."

It's not my fault you don't address who you're speaking to.

If I'm speaking to you, I'll call you jackass. How'd you like that?"

"Excuse you! I'm just trying to help!"

"I wasn't talking to you! I was talking to-."

A throat clears from behind him. "Anton, are you okay?"

The green boy spun around on his heels. Robyn in a polka dot sweater and matching pants stared at the boy having a mental breakdown. Anton straightened his back and tapped on his ear to lower the volume. He flattened a cowlick on his obsidian hair and shuffled on his feet.

"I was wondering if I could come in for a second."

Robyn's face morphed into one of mischievousness. She curled a sly smile on her face and widened her door. "Well, Anton. Quite bold of you. Though, I was saving a Christmas present for you tomorrow."

She backed up and allowed Anton in. Her room was quite bright with periwinkle covers on her ornate bed and a golden dragon snaked around the opposite wall by the window. A small armory of swords lined the wall by a tall dresser filled with clothing. A mirror vanity with bright theater bulbs rested at the base of the wall next to the bed.

"Ask her about the pages!" Megan shouted in the earpiece.

Anton shook his head and blinked. Robyn sat at the edge of her bed and placed her hands on either side of her on the plush comforter.

"So...has anything crazy happened to you the past few months?"

Robyn blew out a deep breath and whipped her hair in a dramatic fashion. "What do you mean?"

"I mean are there any juicy tidbits or things that you've heard through the school? Anything crazy?"

Robyn perked up and counted on her fingers. "Many things. I saw Deku and Bakugo having a fight the other day. Something about not paying the bills. Some senior in Class 3-C got shot the other day by a frisbee. He didn't die, though. Blake said there was this really cool villain that has started causing trouble in Japan. He can shoot lasers from his body, but only when he dances. Oh, and I think Austin and Synaes are some sort of pair or something like that. She keeps going over to his room, which is weird since he has this giant snake which would normally scare girls. But I guess Synaes likes a big snake, know what I mean?"

"No."

"Oh," Robyn said. "Well, there's not much else going on. But...is that really why you came over, Anton? To hear about the gossip mill?"

Robyn patted the spot next to her bed. Anton, being a moron that doesn't understand a thing about human intimacy, took the spot and tapped his finger on the sheets. Robyn scooted herself closer with her hand almost touching his.

"Has anything happened to you the past few months?" Anton asked.

"I guess it's not really a secret. Moxie still thinks she's being haunted by some British guy. But frankly, the past few months have been a complete blur. It's almost like somebody forgot to write down all the things that have happened," Robyn said as she looked at you, the person reading this.

Anton felt his face warm from the hot sun rays peeking through the bamboo blinds. He had never been in a room alone with any girl around his age. However, he knew he had a mission to face. So, with trepidation, he wiped his brow of sweat and rolled up the sleeves of his wool sweater.

"Did you happen to come across anything a while ago?" Anton asked. "Something you hadn't seen before?"

"Uh...that math homework from two weeks ago was something I hadn't seen before," Robyn said. "What about it?"

"No, I mean...is there something you would want to show me? If I asked for it?"

Robyn twisted a strand of hair behind her ear. "Well, Anton, there's a couple of things I'd like to show you. If you were up for it."

Anton's breath hitched when Robyn crawled up to him on the bed. She pushed him onto the wooden post at the base of the bed and leaned up towards his lips. He sunk his hands into the comforter and felt the moisture in his mouth evaporate as if he had been transported to a desert.

"I never properly thanked you for saving my life at Void Industries," Robyn crooned. "Perhaps it's time I changed that."

"No, that's okay," Anton babbled. "I didn't really save your life anyway. You would have been fine."

Robyn hummed a small reply. She crawled up onto Anton's lap and grabbed him by the neck. His eyes grew to the size of dinner plates, his limbs shaking like a palm tree in a hurricane. His blood chugged through his body and blasted his nerves with a strange fuzziness ringing over his skin.

Hell yes! We're about to be kissed!

"No, that's okay, Robyn. We really don't have to-."

"But I insist."

Robyn opened her mouth, a flash of oddly sharp canines jutting out from her lips. She closed her eyes and tried to close the gap between her and Anton. The boy wrestled his head backwards and fro to avoid her lips, but she continued to pursue him like a hungry mosquito.

"Robyn, please. I just want to-."

She locked her lips onto his. Anton mumbled at the unpleasant feeling of her balmy lips pressed to his. She was aggressive, even violent with how she made out with the green boy. In fact, a sharp sting nicked at Anton's chapped lips. One of her teeth cut a small abrasion into his lips, droplets of blood dotting his mouth. Anton pulled his head back and pushed back Robyn's head.

"Enough," Anton shouted. "Stop it, Robyn."

Robyn licked a small drop of blood from her lips. "My, you taste quite good, Anton. I've been missing out. Let's keep going!"

Anton stood up. "That's it. This isn't worth it. You bit me and drew blood from my lips and now you wanna keep going? What if Pathogen invades your body?"

I wouldn't mind.

"I wouldn't mind."

"Shut up!" Anton said.

Just as he was about to leave, Robyn grabbed Anton by the wrist. She squeezed, and Anton gasped in pain from the sudden pressure cutting circulation off from his hand. He turned back towards her, a surprising and sinister glare on her face.

"Oh, no. You aren't going anywhere until you finish this with me."

Knock. Knock.

Both of the teenagers snap towards the door. They freeze at the sound before Robyn let's go of Anton's hand. She steps towards the door, a wry grin on her face.

"Well, I guess we'll have to save it for some other time, Anton," Robyn giggled with a strange lilt to her accent. She grabbed the doorknob and twisted it open.

"Oh, hello Mega-."

DONK!

A giant steel shotput blasted into Robyn. Her face exploded in a fireworks display of blood that ruptured her eye sockets. Her nose caved in, she falls like a toothpick onto the ground. Blood pools around her head with a deep scarlet stain enlarged onto the auburn carpet.

Anton screamed and fell back onto the bed. From the doorway, Megan crossed inside and stood above Robyn's limp body.

"What the fuck did you just do?" Anton yelled.

"I heard you over the headphones," Megan pointed at her ear. "I figured this was going nowhere, so I decided to step in."

"By killing her?" Anton shouted before realizing the nature of his words. He shuffled himself towards the top of the bed and grabs a pillow. He smothered it and pressed it to his body as if that would save him from any other errant shotputs. "Oh, God. Did you just kill her?"

"Possibly."

"Possibly? You just threw a shotput in her face with your quirk. That hit her at like a thousand miles per hour!"

"If only," Megan kneeled down next to the mess of torn cartilage and popped bone that was Robyn's disfigured face. "The fastest I've thrown something was two hundred."

Anton hyperventilated and grabbed his headpiece. He had no idea what Megan's plan was, but he didn't want to see it through to fruition. He threw it on the floor and crawled back as far as he could into the corner of the bed. "I want out. I want nothing to do with any of this! All I ever wanted was to go to school so I could get away from my shitty family and my shitty brother, and you force me to be in your stupid spy world."

"Relax, Anton. Besides, She forced herself on you. She sort of deserved it."

"That doesn't mean that I wanted her dead!"

"Okay," Megan grabbed Robyn's lifeless chin and propped it up. She felt the torn tissue around her jaw and nodded. "How about if she weren't really Robyn?"

"I don't care. I...What?"

Megan gazed at Anton and pointed at his lip. "Why did she bite your lip, Anton? You said over the speaker that she tasted your blood."

Anton slowed his breathing and rested on his knees. He blinked and looked down at the white pillowcase. Dots of velvet stained the top of the case with the lesion on his lip still leaking the metallic taste of his blood. He touched the cut on his lip with a sting zapping his mouth from the touch of his finger to the abrasion.

She's...really freaky?

"She's...really freaky?" Anton asked.

Megan raised up the palm of her hand. She swung it down onto Robyn's face.

SLAP! Bits of liquid skin splashed off her face like a spilt can of beige paint. Even Robyn's black hair gave way to the right side of what Anton assumed were twin blonde buns that donned the girl's hair. The color of Robyn's eye popped into a maniacal yellow with even the face structure changing to one slightly more gaunt and menacing.

Slap. Slap. Slap! Megan knocked off the layer of Robyn, and soon it revealed half of a face. One side was Robyn. The other was a completely different face.

"Wha-what the fuck is that?"

"You mean who," Megan said. "Her name was Himiko Toga. A villain from Japan."

Megan shot to her feet and charged for the dresser. She yanked open the door. Out of the wardrobe, the limp body of Robyn tied up and bond by her hands and feet in white handkerchiefs tumbled into a heap on the ground. Surrounding her, tubes of blood hanging on the interior door gleamed with IV lines connected from the pale white woman to the deposits of thick fluid.

"Robyn!" Anton shouted. "So...that girl was...then this girl is...was Robyn actually Robyn this whole time?"

"That's not important," Megan said. She turned back to Anton with a steel expression on her face. "What's important is that we find those final pages. And if we don't..."

Megan took out her cell phone. When she opened the device, a countdown on the screen in neon digits.

36:00.

35:59.

"We're fucked."

BANG!

Bakugo collapsed onto his back. The bullet strode through his torso and exited out his back clunking onto the ground with a dingle. His white tank-top now effused in blood, the back of his head smacked the hard concrete on the side of the highway. He gasped for air, the fumes from his hands fading into nothingness.

"Mister Bakugo!" Lloyd shouted. He dropped to his knees next to his teacher and felt the bullet wound. He applied pressure onto the area that was leaking blood and held down a writhing Bakugo.

"Stop touching it, stupid," Bakugo shouted. "I know what to do!"

"I must apply Cardiopulmonary Resusitation!" Lloyd screamed. He placed both of his hands on Bakugo's chest and pressed all of his weight down onto his chest.

"Stupid, I'm not having a heart attack. I got shot!"

"Mister Bakugo, open your mouth. I will fill your lungs with air!"

Lloyd pursued his lips and tried to chase Bakugo's lips. The teacher screeched and wrestled himself out of Lloyd's grasp. He scrambled backwards with the help of his arms and seethed at the pair of strange people examining them from the base of the van. Both dressed like Mormon missionaries, the black-haired male lowered his swords and stared at the blonde pointing a gun at Bakugo.

"Really?" Aslovee asked. "You decided to shoot him."

Isabel cocked the gun. "He was about to fight you!"

"I could've handled him. Even with those weird superpowers."

"Speaking of which," Isabel turned back to the two on the ground. "Aren't you all supposed to have like super-strength or something? Is a gun really all you need to stop one of you? I bet you guys don't really do that well here in America."

Lloyd balled up his fists and shot to his feet. He hated needless violence, but assaulting his teacher enraged him to levels he had not felt in a long time. "How dare you. Both of you cads can come up to us as we tried to render your automobile aid only for you to use a firearm on us. That's cheating! There is no honor to it. And now, you have rendered my teacher completely useless and helpless like a newborn baby."

"Hey, ketchup head. I'm not helpless," Bakugo grunted in pain. "I just need to get this wound fixed."

Lloyd pulled back his shoulders and paced for Isabel. "Disarm yourself at once, or I will be forced to do it for you."

Isabel, the gun shaking in hand, puts on a brave face. "You disarm yourself first."

"That doesn't even make sense," Aslovee chimed in.

"Listen, we have an important mission, and you two are going to ruin in!" Isabel said.

"I have a mission to," Lloyd said. "And it's to stop cantankerous, conniving cads like yourself from causing catastrophe and chaos with your cretinous ways."

"Huh?" Both Aslovee and Isabel asked in disbelief at the student's alliterations.

Before Isabel could respond, Lloyd charged for her gun. She pulled the trigger, but it stopped shy of firing. The safety was placed on by her after the last shot at Bakugo. Just as she realized this, Lloyd snagged the gun and closed his eyes. A quick grunt, and the gun erupted into a cloud of black dust. He morphed the dust into a thin rope and flicked it at Aslovee. The man grabbed one of his swords and flashed it at the dust.

ZING! The dust cut clean through the sword like butter. The top tip of the weapon slid off the frame and clattered onto the ground. Aslovee saw his black eyes reflect in the metal at his feet. For once, he looked both surprised and just a tad impressed.

As Lloyd was about to lash the dust at Isabel again...

"Okay, stop. Please."

Lloyd dropped his arm at the sight of Aslovee lowering his sword. The boy's eyes stared right into Lloyd's soul. It was almost hypnotizing to Lloyd. He had never seen such intensity in the gaze of somebody who appeared to be his own age. As if the boy was living decades of trauma and begging for Lloyd to not add more to it, Aslovee held his arms up and opened his hands to reveal no further weapons.

"We will tell you everything we know," Aslovee said. "But we have to work together, because a lot is at stake."

Lloyd evaporated his dust and sighed. Yes, these two had caused more than enough damage to him and his teacher, but there was a sincerity from Aslovee and Isabel's face that made him want to at least entertain their demands.

Then, a grunt from behind him. Bakugo grabbed the back of the car and propped himself up to a standing position.

"Okay, but can we find a place to heal me first? And why the fuck is no one stopping for us?" Bakugo gestures at the cars that simply whizzed past the odd mob fighting on the side of the highway.

Isabel shrugged. "That's California for ya."

Drake realized that James had a valid argument for being eternally annoyed at the class.

Pushing a pawn into the center square of the wooden chessboard, he sighed and sat back on his haunches for the next move from his opponent. He had sat at the edge of the bed this whole day, his chest of jewels open with his hands feeling the gold and silver running through his hands. The radio tuned to KWRP which played Christmas music slightly tuned just off the station so the music was peppered with radio static, he had been glued to the station for what felt like months. However, when he heard a knock on the door and a teasing invocation of a round of chess, Drake knew he would not get rid of that person so easily.

Having to turn off the heaters in his room for guests was bad enough, but having to play chess with lesser players was annoying if the opponent did not take the game seriously. It was a travesty that more people didn't understand or get excited at the artistry of the playing the game. However, his main problem at the moment was that his opponent was a person that took forever to make a move. Also he spoke at the speed of lightning.

Kneeling in front of his wardrobe filled with jewels, Blake stroked his chin in mock-analysis and drummed his fingers on his jaw.

"So if I move the queen over the pawn, I can be in line to check your king, right?"

"You can't jump a pawn. You can take it, but you can't just ignore it."

"But most pawns in life are ignored. My parents had a whole bunch of pawns and henchmen and they ignored them all the time. I mean, they did give them dental insurance which is a lot more than what a lot of other people in their line of work give. Also, they did sacrifice a few of them to escape the cops once in a while, so maybe th-."

"Just make a decision already," Drake grunted out. His yellow eyes pierced at Blake.

"Okay, knight to B8." Blake said proud of himself with a self-proclaimed smirk and crossed arms.

"Your knight is already on B8. That's where it starts."

Blake chuckled. "I knew that. I was just making sure you were paying attention."

"I am, now take the game seriously or don't play it at all-."

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Drake snapped his glare at the radio in the corner. Finally, the strange message had arrived again. He scrambled to his feet and rushed for his desk. He grabbed a pen and snatched a sticky note off his corkboard. He seethed his teeth for a second, grunting before a spindly tail erupted from just underneath the small of his back. The tail snaked over to the radio and flicked upward the volume knob as Drake pressed the tip of his pen to the paper.

"Mohammad. Montserrat. Ivanovich. Mohammad. Montserrat. Mulholland. Protocol Three. Protocol Three. Thirty Six."

Drake furrowed his brow. His hand skated along the paper with the words scribbled like a drunk chicken onto the note. He finished the final word and licked his lips as the beeping noise honked over the radio.

When the beep finished, the station continued to play Christmas music with the slight edge of garbled static.

"What was that?" Blake asked.

"None of your business," Drake said.

"But...it was some strange code on the radio. Was that message for you?"

"I just told you it's none of your business." Drake said. He dropped the pen and examined the words on the paper. The tail disappeared from behind him.

Blake cracked his knuckles and rose up to Drake. He sauntered over and peered on his tiptoes over Drake's muscles shoulders.

"What does any of this mean," Drake mumbled to himself. "Montserrat's a country. Mohammad? Like the prophet Mohammad? Is there a major muslim presence on Montserrat? And Ivanovich is the last name as that weird guy at Void Industries. Is it about him? But then why do they not repeat his name? Mulholland is a place, too. But it's here in L.A."

"Oh, that's where Fyodor lives now," Blake said. "In a house on Mulholland Drive."

Drake whips around and gazes at Blake. "What? That guy that worked with Edith Void? How do you even know that?"

Blake pulled out his phone. "Because, silly, I've been texting with him for like six months now. After he got arrested, I actually went over to the hospital that he was staying at. I lied and said I was a family visitor, so we basically got to talking, and there's a ton of stuff we have in common. We're practically best friends at this point."

Drake grabbed Blake's phone. Sure enough, Fyodor Ivanovich's number with a crawl of text littered on his screen dating back to September.

"So you've been in touch with that wanna-be villain for this long?" Drake asked. "And you didn't tell anybody?"

"He's a prospective villain!" Blake chirped. "Can you imagine knowing a villain before they become famous? And we ended up beating him sort-of? Its like coming across a sex-tape of a famous celebrity at a Blockbuster. And it was filmed in your house so you can see where they did everything! Or it's like saying you beat The Rock at an arm wrestling contest before he hit it big!"

"But you should've told some-wait. Who is that?"

"Who?"

"The Rock?"

Suddenly, a voice blared out from the radio. "How do those kids seriously not know my voice! I've been announcing for the last sixty or so chapters! I don't get paid enough to deal with you kids...What...oh, I'm live? Uh...nevermind, kids. Just the Announcer for KWRP Los Angeles. Here to celebrate Christmas Eve with all of you losers!"

Drake turned back to Blake. "Whatever. Anyway, can we visit him? I need to get to the bottom of this," he said. He turned away and stuffed his phone and keys into his pocket. He ripped off his white dress shirt and grabbed a red v-neck long sleeve that he shunted his head through. He snagged a bite of a hot dog that lay on his desk and wolfed it down before wiping away bits of bread crumbs off his jean legs.

"Bottom of what?" Blake asked.

"I don't know yet," Drake said. "But there's a puzzle that needs to be solved. And I have a feeling that this puzzle will be important for all of us, and Ivanovich is the only lead I have. Somebody...somebody out there is reaching out, and it's our duty to find them."

Blake nodded. "I have his address. I can ask if we can come over."

Drake opened the window. Two fiery wings exploded out of his back and emanated heat. "No, we need to surprise him. In case he has any reason to hide from this."

Blake hopped on his feet in excitement and clapped. "Hell, yes. It'll be just like back at Void Industries when you dropped my from like fifty feet in the air. Do you think I could ride on your back this time? I wanna put this on my social media."

Drake blinked. "You have s-. Nevermind. Let's just go."

Blake threw himself onto Drake's back. Just as he propped his leg up onto the ledge, he flashed the note back at his face. Sitting in his hands, he narrowed his gaze at the strange words.

Why, Drake thought, was there now a number on the end of the code?