Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Columbia Pictures and to the writers and producers and whoever else I may have forgotten to mention. The only things I claim to own are my own characters and the plot of this story.

P.S. For any fans of my Tales of a Not-So-Lone Wanderer, who get this alert, I apologize for taking the story down. I was getting tons of spam reviews and just got tired of deleting them every couple of days. It will probably go back up at some point in the near future. Now, onto the story!


"So, tell me again, what exactly happened during the mission when Cindy was injured?" The psychologist asked as he leaned over his desk to peer at Connor.

The teen sighed in frustration. The fight in Los Angeles had been three days before, and ever since Marsha had overheard his conversation with Summer, he'd been forced to recount the story several times. Marsha had obviously been the first person he'd talked to about it while in their post-mission debriefing. But she'd felt for some reason that they needed a second listen. And a third. And a fourth.

Connor knew they were worried when they called in a second psychologist. He'd already gotten a verbal lashing from Jack for letting their most vulnerable team member get hurt because he was distracted. Summer – and Dylan once he had recovered enough- had lectured him on the importance on watching everyone's back during a fight. Dr. Grant and Marsha talked in hushed tones whenever he was around for training, probably because they were worried he was losing his mind. None of his other teammates had seen the fifth member of the thieves' group, and they probably thought he was hallucinating. At least Cindy didn't hold it against him. But she had been fairly quiet and reserved since the fight.

"I saw someone I know from my school," he finally responded. "My story isn't going to change from what Dr. Holloway's notes say. One minute she was there, running between the servers, and the next, she was gone. During that time, one of the thieves got the upper hand over Cindy. I thought I saw another threat, so I didn't respond as quickly. I don't know what else to say."

The doctor leaned back into his chair and hmmed. He cast a thoughtful glance over Connor, probably wondering if the superhero teen in front of him was actually fit for duty. After a moment's thought, the man stood up and walked over to a bookshelf that ran across the back wall of his office. He causally glanced at the titles for a brief second before reaching up and pulling out a dusty volume on the top shelf.

"Mr. Shepard, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't know what to think about your case," the doctor began to speak as he opened the book and flipped through the pages. "All evidence points to there being only four thieves in the building that day. And none of them fit the description that you gave."

Finding whatever he was looking for, the man turned back to Connor. "This girl you saw, do you have contact with her at school?"

Connor nodded, but didn't say anything. The doctor continued. "Do you have any problems with her? Does she make snide remarks, try to copy your homework, push you around? What I suppose I'm asking is, is this girl bullying you?"

"Of course not!" Connor replied angrily. "She helped me on my first day of school and we're doing a project together for Physics class. She's my best-"

He broke off suddenly. Could he really have been about to say friend? He couldn't deny that it was true. When he'd first gone back to school a few months ago, he would never have thought he'd make a friend, let alone someone who understood him as much as Allie did.

"Interesting. It's possible that you have been under severe stress. Since you have quite a bit of contact with this girl, I believe your mind believed she was actually there during such a tense situation. It's not unheard of, Mr. Shepard. Your story has been consistent every time you've told it. There aren't any outrageous claims such as monsters or supernatural beings. It's my professional opinion that you are merely over stressed," the doctor set the book down on his desk and took up a pen and notebook. "I'm ordering you a week off from training. I can't get you out of any homework you have from school, but it's my suggestion that you take it easy this week. Go home. Play some video games or read a book. Be a normal teen for a week."

He finished writing on the paper and handed the slip across the desk to Connor. "Dr. Grant and Dr. Holloway will have my official report by this evening. You're free to go."

As soon as the words were out of the man's mouth, Connor was moving towards the door. Stress. Maybe it was stress. As he opened the door, his mind wandered back to the fight. It wasn't the first time he'd analyzed it in his mind. He was absolutely certain that Allie had been in that server room. He just couldn't figure out how she'd gotten there so quick. It wasn't like she could buy an alien spaceship on Amazon.

Connor shoved the excuse the psychologist had given him into his pocket. He'd give it to Marsha as soon as he reached the training center, which was on the other side of the base. At this time of day since there weren't any emergencies or missions being carried out, there were very few people still working. Connor didn't run into anyone else until he was nearly to the training center.

When he rounded the corner, he saw Marsha and Jack standing outside the door talking. Jack was leaned up against the metal wall facing Connor. When the older man caught sight of his brother, he immediately straightened. "Well, that didn't take long, bro," he said as Connor neared.

"There wasn't anything to talk about," Connor replied sullenly. "He said I'm just stressed and to take a week off."

He pulled the crumpled excuse from his pocket and handed it to Marsha. Her eyes quickly scanned the paper before folding it neatly and slipping into the pocket of her lab coat. "Well, that's good," she said, trying to keep the cheeriness in her voice. "It'll give you some time to focus on your schoolwork. Not that you aren't doing well in school, I mean-"

She trailed off when she noticed Connor's scowl. Jack stepped in front of her and put a hand on Connor's shoulder. "Look, I know it's not ideal, alright? But you'll be back here training with the rest of the team before you know it, and then you'll be looking back wishing for those days off. Trust me."


Two weeks later, Connor really wished he'd spent more time playing video games. His week off had not been filled with as much relaxation as the psychologist had been hoping for. It had been the week before winter break, and every night, he'd been loaded down with several hours of homework. Jack had been working with the team at the base, so most nights, he'd been alone. And to top it all off, during every break time they had, Allie had been up at the barn preparing for a cattle show, leaving him mostly by himself.

Winter break had been mostly uneventful. He'd slept in every day, but not having school meant that the team had some of their more tedious training. It started at noon every day and ended somewhere around eight in the evening. Connor knew it was training the team needed and he could see their improvement every day. But that still didn't mean he enjoyed it. And from the way the others acted, they weren't exactly fond of the rigorous training either.

When Monday finally rolled around again, Connor was actually glad to be going back to school. First period had gone by mostly uneventful, except that Allie had been absent. He was almost painfully aware of the fact that her seat next to him was empty. He'd taken good notes, though, since he knew she'd probably need them when she got back. Second period English, though, was dragging on and on. Five minutes before the bell rang, Mr. Franks was talking about some project that they were going to be doing on Shakespeare that week. Connor had already completely zoned out. He was staring out the window at a bird in a nearby tree when a paper was smacked down on the desk in front of him.

Startled, he jumped and looked up at the person. Dahlia stood over him, mouth twisting into a frown. "What?" he asked.

She huffed. "Did you not hear Mr. Franks give out the assignments?"

Connor could only shake his head. He hadn't realized the class was partnering up.

"Well, I'm your partner and we've been assigned a scene from Julius Caesar. Here's the instructions," she said, gesturing toward the paper. "We've got all week to work on it."

Connor picked up the paper and scanned over it. The assignment was to pick a scene from one of the playwright's more famous scripts and recreate it in some way. Glancing back up at his partner, he found her holding the bridge of her nose with her eyes closed. "Look, I've got a drama club performance tomorrow night that I am totally stressing over. I don't have time to work on it until Wednesday, so do you want to try and make up that lost time after school?"

She opened her eyes again as the bell finally rang, giving him an expectant look. Connor nodded after a couple seconds. He didn't have anything planned for Wednesday afternoon. "Here's my number. Just let me know if anything changes," Dahlia said as she handed him a piece of paper and immediately turned to leave.

He stood there for a moment, slightly confused. The whole interaction had happened so fast, he wasn't sure what to make of it.

The rest of the day passed relative quickly. He ate lunch with Summer and Dylan since Allie was still up at the barn. His teachers gave him the usual amount of homework, which really wasn't much. In Ag Science, there were only a few students missing. As he took his seat, it struck Connor just how few people were gone and that it felt more like they were merely absent and not on a school trip. The only difference was that Mr. Hayes was gone as well, leaving behind only a book assignment for the class to do. Connor finished it quickly and moved on to working on homework for other classes until the bell rang. And then another day of school was done.


Wednesday evening came rather quickly that week. Connor stepped off the bus in front of the familiar house. Dahlia was a few steps ahead of him, already climbing up the stairs to the walkway. She turned and frowned when she realized he wasn't following her. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Afraid of going into a stranger's house?"

Connor shook his head. "No, it's just… I dunno, weird, not seeing your cousin here."

The other teen rolled her eyes. "Ugh, I should have known. I'm glad she's been gone for a couple of days. It's been nice and quiet without her computer constantly dinging. Now, let's get inside. I want to be done with this assignment."

After a second more, Connor trudged up the steps after her, but her words replayed at the back of her mind, bugging him. Allie didn't seem like the type to be chatting with people on the internet. Hell, he hadn't ever even seen her text anyone except for family while she was at school. Dahlia's mom met them at the door, smiling as she welcomed Connor inside and offered him a plate of cheese and crackers. He took a couple and thanked her. Dahlia shouted something about working at the dining room table, so he followed her mother into a room to the right.

"Here you go," the older woman said as she gestured to a chair at the large table. "She'll be out in a minute. I must say, I'm glad to finally meet you. Allie talks about you quite a bit."

Connor felt his cheeks going red at her comment. "She talks about me a lot?" he asked carefully.

The woman smiled. "Of course. And I'm glad she's made a friend as good as you. It's been tough for her making friends with her being from so far out of town."

Before Connor could respond, Dahlia walked into the room carrying a tablet and her English textbook. Her mother gave Connor another smile before telling them she would be in the kitchen making dinner if they needed anything.

A few hours later, the two were already rehearsing the scene they'd chosen. Connor was portraying Marcus Brutus as he spoke to his wife Portia, who Dahlia was acting out. They'd written out a short script the modernized the original scene, blocked it out, and even discussed possible costumes.

"I'm not feeling that great, but it's nothing," Connor recited as he sat down heavily in one of the dining room chairs.

Dahlia frowned as she knelt in the floor beside him, hands drooping across his shoulders. "It can't be nothing," she quipped. "Or else you would have already done something about it. This isn't like you."

He turned, cupping her face with a hand. "Don't worry, my dear, I am-" Connor froze, struggling to remember the line they'd written out. When he couldn't find it, he shook his head. "Sorry, I guess I'll have to work on that."

"Definitely," Dahlia said, her concern melting away as she switched from acting to reality. She tapped the tablet sitting on the table and glanced at the time. "What time was your brother coming to pick you up again?"

"Soon. He just sent me a text telling me he was on his way," Connor replied as he began to pack up his notebook. "Speaking of texts, have you heard anything from Allie? I was just wondering how the cattle show was going. It feels like she's been gone for a while."

He heard a snort and turned to find Dahlia rolling her eyes. "She texted mom this morning to let her know she'd gotten some kind of award, top class or something. It was short, though. Typical. Her texts have just been getting short and shorter lately. Just one of several weird things she's been doing lately."

Immediately, Connor thought back to his partner's earlier comment on her dinging laptop. "What do you mean?"

Dahlia quirked and eyebrow. "What, haven't you noticed? Some things she tries to hide, but she's not very good at it. The random injuries, like cutting her hand or a black eye like she's been fighting someone, and skipping school a lot. One time she told my mom she had cattle showing practice after school, but I asked her teacher about it one day and he had no clue what she was talking about. Apparently, their practices didn't start until two months ago. And don't even get me started on her sneaking out late at night!"

"She's sneaking out? That doesn't sound like her," Connor blurted before he could stop himself. It just really didn't seem like the Allie he knew. But as he thought, he wondered if he really knew her that well at all. They were friends at school. He knew she only lived with her aunt and uncle for part of the year. She had horses and lived on a huge farm somewhere in the country. Her favorite lunch food was pizza and she deeply disliked the school principal. That was all he really knew about her.

"I guess you don't know her as well as you think you do," was the reply. "Listen, I don't know you that great and you really have no reason to believe me on this, but I know she's only being so nice and paying attention to you so that you'll stay in the Ag Society. Principal Paliento told them they needed more people to join or it wouldn't count as a club anymore. I've heard he's already got plans to turn the school farm into a fieldhouse for the football team."

He was dumbfounded. Dahlia was right, he had no reason to believe that what she was saying. But something about the way she said it made him think it was true. Allie had been nice since she learned he was in agricultural science with her his first day there. Almost too nice. She even risked getting a detention to help him that first day.

He glanced back up at the other teen, who was eyeing him carefully. Her eyes shone with fear. "You're not going to tell her about this, are you? If she thinks I told you anything, she would kill me. And I'm not joking. She is great at digging up dirt on people and using it to her advantage. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if she has something on you."

"She has information on me?" Connor frowned. The way Dahlia was looking at him and the worried look that covered her face slightly terrified him. Things were beginning to fall into place, little bits and pieces that he'd noticed about Allie's behavior since the day they'd first met.

Dahlia nodded, then glanced out the window to the street before looking back at Connor. "She's supposed to be coming home tonight… But come with me."

She turned and hurried out of the room, and Connor followed. Down the hall they went, until she stopped in front of a door with a 'Cattle Crosssing' sign. Again, Dahlia cast a glance toward the end of the hallway before opening the door and motioning Connor inside. He immediately recognized it as Allie's room. The bed sat against the wall to his right and the wall above it was covered in pictures of horses, rural landscapes, people he didn't recognize and the girl herself. The room was otherwise sparsely decorated, except for a few trophies and knickknacks on the dresser and nightstand. Her desk sat underneath a window on the wall opposite the door, and in the center of the desk was a silver MacBook laptop.

Dahlia moved across the room and opened the computer. It began to power up, and with every passing second, Dahlia seemed to be getting more and more jittery. Finally, the login screen appeared, and she carefully began to type on the keyboard. Connor coked an eyebrow as he watched. "How do you know her password?" he asked, suddenly suspicious.

"It's the name of her horse, the one that passed away recently, plus her parent's anniversary and her initials. I've seen her put it in several times," she responded.

A moment later, the screen changed to a picture of Allie standing beside a horse. She was holding it a with rope and smiling as the horse nuzzled her shoulder. Before he could take a closer look at the screen, Dahlia had already clicked the icon to bring up the files screen. The colorful wheel rotated briefly before the screen loaded. There were a ton of files, everything from pictures of people he didn't recognize to school reports. Dahlia scrolled down until she found what she was looking for, then clicked on a file named 'School Stuff.' When it loaded, Connor crossed the room and leaned down to get a better look.

The folder was full of documents labeled with names of people at school, people that they had class with plus several teachers. The one that caught his eye as Dahlia scrolled down, however, was one labeled 'Zenith.' "Hold up," Connor hissed, pointing to the file. "What's that?"

Barely a second later, the document loaded onto the screen in Pages. The names of the Zenith Team were listed in alphabetical order. Each name had a picture to accompany it along with a long paragraph of information about each person. Summer, Dylan, Cindy, Tucker and even Jack and Marsha were all there. All of their known powers, training schedules, addresses, class lists, and anything else important about them was laid bare in front of Connor. He stared at his own picture, second on the list under Cindy's smiling portrait. As he read through the document, he began to realize that the information wasn't just made from observations. Some of it was classified information, like the details about his return to the dimension. Involuntarily, he shuddered as the realization hit him. This was information taken from the base itself. That was what had been stolen from the server farms. Allie was one of the thieves.

It took everything he had not to smash the computer in front of him with a blast. He was seething. She had lied to him. She had made him believe she was his friend! Shaking, he turned to Dahlia. She took a step back when she saw the look in his eyes. "Don't let her know that you've seen this," he said, voice low. "She is very dangerous, and if she finds out you know, there's no telling what she might do. Do you understand me?"

Dahlia nodded her head, eyes wide in fear. He knew she probably had never meant to stumble onto this shitstorm. Connor's phone dinged, letting him know Jack had arrived. Turning, he closed out of every open window and shut down the computer. He jerked his head to let his companion know that they needed to leave. They made a hasty exit, and it wasn't until they had made it back to the living room that Connor felt he could breathe a sigh of relief. As he gathered up the rest of this things and began to say goodbye to Dahlia and her mom, he heard a car pulling up into the driveway.

The three of them stepped out onto the front porch. Connor waved to Jack before glancing over at the truck that had just pulled in. He recognized as the truck that had picked Allie up from his house the day they had worked on their project together. The thought made him tense up again. She had been to his house! That lying little-

His thoughts were interrupted by a second car door slamming shut. "- and when he bumped it, the bucket on the top came tumbling down and spilled all the dirty water all over Dean's freshly cleaned and fluffed heifer! He was so mad, but everyone else thought it was hilarious!" Allie laughed as she came around the front of the truck. She laughed again before looking up towards the porch. Her face scrunched up in confusion when she realized Connor was there.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" she asked as she approached. "Are you and Dahlia working on a project?"

"Yeah," he replied gruffly. She was the absolute last person he wanted to see. "I've got to go home."

With those final words, Connor stepped off the porch and walk to where Jack was waiting in his car. He didn't wave. He didn't even say hello to his brother as he slipped into the passenger seat and buckled up. All he wanted to do was to be left alone in his thoughts as they drove home in silence.


Author's Note: Hello dear readers! I know it's been a spell, but I am glad to finally have gotten this chapter published finally! And now we know the big secret: Allie is Charm. Or is she? Dun dun dun! But really, y'all, I hope you enjoy this chapter. I'm not fond of how it jumped around a lot, but I knew I wanted the bulk of the action to happen toward the end of the chapter and I just had to get through to it somehow (plus this one ended up really, really long at 3,800+ words). I may eventually come back and rewrite it to help it flow a little better, but I want to get the rest of the story out before I do that.

As of the publishing of this chapter, there are only about 6 to 7 chapters left. A couple of them are already written (I was so excited about them that they've been put together for awhile now.) An update from the previous author's note: my fiancé and I are currently rebuilding the house, so I'm having to write when I get free time, and honestly, there's not a lot of it going around right now. The next chapter should be somewhat shorter, so I am hoping to have it out within the next couple of weeks/months. We're gonna have some excitement in the next chapter, so stay tuned for the next installment of Hero: A Zoom story!

I love it when readers leave comments and favorites and alerts! Y'all, the readers, are what make me want to write and create. Every time I check the traffic stats on this story and see that people are actually clicking on it to read, I just get so excited. Thank you to everyone who has stuck it out on this (very) long journey and to everyone else who is just joining in!

If you like this story, even just a little bit, would you mind leaving a review? And as always, feel free to message me if you have any thoughts/ideas/concerns/etc. Thanks again to everyone who has read and reviewed and followed and favorited! Every email that I get saying the story has a new follower or review or favorite motivates me to finish another chapter! ~NightRider