Hello earthlings! Thank you to the people who reviewed and I hope you enjoy! I own nothing except a dysfunctional computer.

Fun fact: Invisibility is useful for sneaking around, but not so much for fighting.

Race was mostly trying to run around and stay out of the clashing hunter and mutant's way. There wasn't really anything else he could do. Sometimes he would yell warnings when a hunter was about to shoot a mutant, but that was about all his mutation made him capable of. He didn't know how to fight! He didn't have any weapons, and knew only the bare minimum of self-defense. What was he supposed to do?

Several times he saw Finch rise up into the air holding a hunter before dropping them, making sure that the fall didn't kill them before flying off. He also ran into Albert, who was punching hunters with his rock fists, and Elmer, who was freezing his enemies. All of that was far more useful than anything Race could do.

It was a weird kind of fight, the kind where you couldn't tell who would end up winning. The mutants outnumbered the hunters and (most of them) had more firepower, but many of them didn't really know how to fight. And none of them had guns. Both sides were reluctant to kill the others, so that would make the fight go even longer. Race just wanted it to be over and for all of his friends to be safe.

Somehow he ended up in the center of the chaotic fighting, near where Spot was shaking the earth. Oh yeah, that was another reason why this was a really difficult fight. The earthquakes affected everyone, not just the hunters. It might be better for the mutants if Spot just didn't use his power.

And then the police officers joined the fray. They came up in their cars, got out and started running through the crowd, hitting mutants with batons. The few normal people still watching the fight scattered as ambulances rolled to a stop in the grass. Race wondered who called them. Maybe the city workers, still inside the building they were fighting outside? Or maybe they had seen the news and used their best judgement? Either way, this wasn't good news.

Out of the screaming and yelling that was happening all around him, Race heard one voice rise up: Spot. The leader was screaming at Pulitzer, who was waving a gun around. It sounded like they were having an argument. In the middle of a battle. Wow. Race crept closer, determined to hear what they were saying. There honestly wasn't really anything else productive he could do in the battle, because of his stupid invisibility.

"-want to shut down the Refuges!" Spot was yelling. "They just hurt the kids shoved in them, kids who haven't done anything! We want to be treated as equals!"

"If you want to put mutants in jail for crimes, that's fine." Race stiffened as he heard the voice. Jack. The boy was standing with Spot, talking with Pulitzer. "But at least give 'em a fair trial! And if you want to help mutant kids get off the streets, that's fine too. But not if you shove them into prisons just because they were born! And there are lots of homeless normal kids on the streets, and you don't seem to be worried about them!" Jack seemed really angry. It made sense, honestly. Race had always kinda thought that Jack had been in a constant state of anger at the entire system since Crutchie was taken. This was just a useful outlet for all of that pent-up emotion. Or something.

"The difference is," Pulitzer barked with the tone of voice of a man who hates being questioned, "the human children are not dangerous. Mutant children, however, are a danger to themselves and everyone around them!"

"Pulitzer," Jack said. He seemed to be forcing calm. "I've seen little normie kids, only nine years old, walking around carrying guns because they need to protect themselves. How is that less dangerous than a teenager who can heal people?"

Pulitzer looked like he didn't know how to respond to that. "Well… I don't... " Jack nodded, as if he were saying see my point?

"The difference is, that the child can put the gun down," the older man said as he regained his composure. "A mutant's weapon, however, is always part of them. No one can take it from them, unless they happen to have Repressors. That in itself makes them a thousand times more dangerous." Race hated Repressors. They were expensive machines that were mainly used in places like the Refuge to take away mutant's powers. He'd had one used on him once. It felt… so very, very wrong. He was terrified of the day when every normal person would just walk around carrying Repressors with them.

Jack looked like he was about to continue talking, but Spot shoved past him, obviously done using his words. He yelled as he ran at Pulitzer, planning to punch him or something. It wasn't a smart plan. Pulitzer quickly aimed his gun and shot him in the leg.

Race's eyes widened in shock. For a second he wasn't sure what to do. Check on Spot? Go get another member of the gang? Run away? This had all gone so horribly, horribly wrong. Then his instincts took over as he saw Pulitzer point his gun at Jack. The invisible boy sprinted forward, grabbed the gun and made it disappear, the same way he did his clothes. Pulitzer blinked in surprise.

"Mutants! Let's go!" Jack screamed, trying to be heard over the sounds of the fight. Some of the surrounding mutants heard and instantly broke away, running through the crowd to tell the others. Race shoved Pulitzer backwards and helped Jack pick up Spot, the three stumbling away from the battle.

"Why'd you call it off?" Spot demanded angrily.

It was the day after the battle, and all of the mutants were gathered in the warehouse. Jack had (very vocally) not approved of it, but there wasn't really anything he could do. He'd taken Spot to the warehouse, and the gang had just sort of followed. The leader was healing fine with the help of Iz, who had a healing mutation, but at least twenty mutants had been captured. Two of them were warehouse kids- Mush and Albert. Tommy Boy, Finch, Jojo and Henry had all been injured, along with a lot of the other mutants. And Cobra had died. It had been a disaster.

On the news, it was revealed that not many hunters were hurt, and the ones who were hurt would recover fast. The mayor had labeled all mutants as "terrorists", and even the ones not involved in the fight were being watched or taken to "holding facilities". Some humans who had previously been sympathetic towards mutants started despising them, as they only heard the hunter's side of the story: that the mutant's had been attempting to murder the mayor. The only good thing to come out of this was that now the public knew that publishing giant Pulitzer was actually a mutant bounty hunter, a job that very few people approved of. Maybe he'd lose money over this. That would be amazing. But with the mutants' luck, probably not.

Jack sighed as he turned to Spot. "I told you already, you were down and we were losing. I used my best judgement."

"Your best judgement sucks!"

Race had never seen Jack so hopeless. It seemed like he'd lost all of his dreams of making the world a better place for mutants and wanted to just go hide somewhere. It was scary. Even though Jack was only a year older than Race, he'd always seemed so much more… in control. Confident. He was their leader and protector. Always had been, and always will be. But he seemed different.

Jack walked out of the room without answering the gang leader and Race followed him, still invisible. Right outside the door however, Jack was mobbed by several of Spot's younger gang members. All of them looked like they were in various degrees of fear.

"What are we going to do now, Jack?" one of them, a kid called Buttons, asked. "King's gone crazy, and everything's a mess! The grown-ups can't come up with a solution!"

"And what do you think I can do about it?"

"You're a leader! You can help us until Spot gets better! We need a place to hide and we need to-"

"I can't help you!" Jack was close to crying. His face was turning red with frustration. "For some reason you think I can, but I can't! There've got to be adults who can handle this!"

"Well, none of the adults can agree on a plan, and we're tired of just sitting around." Race recognized Dollhouse's voice. The girl was accompanied by her usual walking Barbie entourage, and the others kept their distance. "Adults always leave kids out of everything. They think we're not smart enough to understand what's happening or know what to do. Guess what? We do!"

"Oh yeah? So what do you suggest we do?"

"The state governor doesn't like the way mutants are treated, and he's practically a shoo-in for the election in a few months. We should reach out to him." That… was actually a decent plan.

"Actually, that may work," Race chimed in, realizing his mistake when Jack turned around to look in his general direction.

"Race! How long have you been following me?"

"Um…"

"We've talked about this! You agreed to not go invisible and stalk us!" The older boy narrowed his eyes. "Though you've agreed to a lot of things."

Race winced, popping back into view as he did. Jack hadn't said anything to him about him secretly being in a gang, but he knew that the leader wasn't too happy about it. And most of the other kids were still a bit mad at him. He couldn't blame him. All of this mess was at least partly his fault. If he hadn't ever joined the gang when he was a young kid, then maybe they wouldn't have been forced into this crap. Maybe Spot would have never realized that the kids in the factory were there. And then his friends wouldn't have been injured and Albert and Mush wouldn't have been taken. But he had left Spot's people the first time, and the second he'd only gone back to protect the kids in the factory. Was that so bad? He wished he knew the right answer. All he knew was, the boy he thought of as an older brother didn't trust him. And that hurt.

"The idea will work," Dollhouse said, getting everyone back on track. "But none of us are old enough to be listened to. You're practically a grown up! They'll listen if you talk."

Jack took a deep breath and held it for a second. "Alright. It's worth a try, anyway." The kids nodded as he led them through the factory to the room where several of the adult mutants were meeting.

He slammed in through the door, interrupting the adults mid-argument. One of them, a woman who could control water, was called Atlantis, and worked for Spot stepped forward. "What are you doing in here?" she growled. "This isn't kiddie business. Leave."

Jack was unfazed. Which was impressive, because Atlantis was built like a pro wrestler and was kinda scary. "I have an idea I need to tell you about," he said coolly.

Atlantis scoffed. "Oh please. You don't understand a thing about what we're dealing with."

"Yes, I do, and unless you have a genius idea you've come up with in the past five seconds, you should hear me out."

Atlantis looked like she wanted to say something before being cut off by a woman who Race didn't know. "Let him talk. Can't do any harm to listen." Most of the other people in the room nodded their agreement, and Atlantis just sighed.

"Alright, kid. Talk fast."

"Just sent the letter to the governor!" Buttons called as he scrambled in the window. He and a few others had gone down to the nearest mailbox to mail the governor a letter telling him about how bad conditions were for mutants here, apologizing for the violence during the fight, and asking for help. Davey had helped write it, and was pretty proud of his work.

"Good," Jack said from where he was sitting, talking with some of the adults. "Now we-" At that exact moment, Senser, who could sense when people came anywhere near him, sprinted from downstairs.

"Guys!" he yelled. "A group of strangers just-" And then Davey smelled the smoke and heard the shouting.

More people raced into the room. "There're normies down there!" one of them screamed. "They busted in the door and I think they set a fire and-"

"There's a bomb!" someone else yelled. Davey blinked. No. No way. This couldn't be happening. Where did these people even get a bomb? What should he do? He instinctively looked at Jack. So did everyone else.

"Alright, guys," Jack said smoothly. "We need to get out. Does anyone have a mutation that can help with that?"

A girl, maybe twelve or so, stepped out of the crowd. By this point, nearly everyone in the building had heard the noises and had run to the main room. "I can," the kid said shyly. "I can make tunnels leading down, and underground and then to wherever. They don't last longer than five minutes and I can only make one at a time…"

"Make one," Jack ordered. "And it can go wherever, as long as you're sure it's safe. You can do this." The kid nodded and raised her hands. A dark tunnel opened up in the floor, going straight down. That should not have been scientifically possible, but whatever.

"Get the injured out, then go as fast as you can down. Help each other out." Jack was good at this whole "bossing people around" thing. "Make sure everyone escapes! Keep the normies away for as long as you can! If you have a mutation that can help with the bomb problem, use it!" Many of the people rushed for the stairs, either to go to the bottom floor and deal with the bomb or to help the people who were still too injured to move. There weren't very many of those people left, but there were still a few.

Davey ran downstairs to help with the bomb. He was the only one here who could manipulate technology, so maybe he could mess with the bomb and try to stop it from exploding. He dodged around the normies crowding the staircases as he tried to reach the bottom. As other mutants fought around him, the boy ran for the bomb.

He knew almost instantly it was no use. Even if he was able to deactivate it, he suddenly noticed that there were at least ten more, all set to go off in four minutes and nineteen seconds. He wouldn't be able to deal with all of them, but he could try. Where did these normies get the bombs anyway? This wasn't fair.

In two minutes, he'd deactivated four bombs and was one of the only people left in the room. All of the normies and most of the mutants had left, which probably made them smarter than him. He wasn't going to be able to stop all of the bombs. They were just too difficult to manipulate. It was almost like they were intentionally not listening to him. "We need to just leave!' he shouted at the few stragglers, who all looked very disappointed. Davey was too. He'd wanted to save the place that was, by now, his home but the best he could hope for was that everyone got out alive. As he started running up the stairs, he saw Jack rush down towards him.

"Davey!" the boy yelled. "I can't find Les or Romeo! I don't think they left!" Davey felt a moment of pure panic.

"Where on earth-" He suddenly remembered. Les had said that the two young boys were going up to the roof to play because "there are too many loud people down here". If they were up there, then they probably wouldn't be able to hear the commotion from downstairs… Davey led the way up the staircase, all the way to the door saying "roof access". Why a factory would need roof access was unclear, but right now finding out why was not on Davey's list of priorities. He slammed the door open and ran over to where Les and Romeo were fiddling with old action figures.

"We need to go," Davey said, in as calm a voice as he could manage under the circumstances. He didn't want to freak out the boys, but at the same time he needed them to get moving. It was too late. The building started to collapse beneath their feet as Davey heard the loudest sound he'd ever heard. He flinched, waiting to fall or burst into flames, before realizing he wasn't. He was swinging through the air, along with Jack, Romeo and Les. Les looked deep in concentration, one hand posed like it was pushing off against the ground, and the other clutching at air. Slowly, the four boys bounced to safety.

When they landed on the ground, Davey instantly hugged his younger brother. He didn't completely understand how Les had done that- maybe by pushing against the ground with his telekinesis, which propelled him up?- but he didn't really care. They were safe. That was what mattered. He was about to suggest to Jack that they go find the others when he turned around and saw the factory.

It was completely destroyed. It had caved in on itself, and Davey silently hoped that no one had been inside because there was no way they could've survived. The place that had been his home, the place where he could use his powers however he wanted without being judged for it, was gone. All that was left was a pile of rubble. Davey felt like crying.

"They could've killed us," Jack whispered. It looked like he was in shock. "They could've killed all of us, and no one would care."

"Jack-"

"And they might have!" Jack yelled, breaking the quiet. "They might have killed all of us, and we just don't know! I don't know who's alive or… we are never going to win this." The boy shook his head angrily. "Spot should've just left it alone, and not dragged anyone into this fight. Everyone is going to die!" Before Davey could stop him, he ran down the street, alone. Davey stared after him, not sure what he could do.

I realize a bomb is a bit stereotypical, but whatever. That was my first ever major fight scene! Did you guys like it? If you have any criticism about it, leave a review. Later, potaters!