"Thank you so much for the invitation, Madeline," Cindy said. "This party is just exquisite."

The entire team was in the ballroom of the estate so large it might as well be a castle. Stage one of the mission: infiltrate the masquerade ball thrown by Madeline Pearce. It was so secure that getting in alone was an accomplishment. Cindy and Adam were able to enter because Madeline was a friend of Cindy's father. Chase, after downloading an app, was able to get in with the band who needed a new cellist after the original member quit because he thought he won the lottery, which wasn't just a happy coincidence. Bree, wearing a white dress and feathery mask that made her look like a swan, looked enough like an upcoming singer-Tiana Kightwood-to be able to get an invitation. And Graham and Taylor, who snuck in with the catering service, were milling around with plates of horderves. Cindy was in a long orange-red and white ballgown and matching mask that was designed after a fox's eyes and snout and Adam was wearing a gray and white tuxedo and mask that was fashioned to resemble a wolf. Thankfully he was letting her do the talking so as not to arouse suspicion, which would be easy since Cindy had been dodging questions about why she disappeared for a year. Now it was time to get out of this conversation so they could begin stage two.

"It's so nice to have you here." Madeline said. "Especially after all that time you were gone. You missed my Fourth of July auction. I even put my old necklace up for sale, the one you always loved. I'd hoped you-AH!"

Cindy "accidentally" spilled a glass of cider on Madeline's light gray dress. The color made the stain extremely evident. "Oh, I'm so sorry about that." Cindy said, feigning embarrassment.

"It's quite alright, I have a spare. As I always taught you: 'If at a party a spare dress you lack, you might as well sit alone in the back.'"

"You always were so profound."

"Well, I must go change. I'll see you later." Madeline said as she turned to leave.

"Bye, Madeline." Cindy fondly said with a smile.

When Madeline was out of earshot and had her back turned, Cindy turned to Adam and he said, "It's hard to believe she wants to use a chemical weapon to destroy a building with millions of people in it, isn't it? She's so old and nice-looking."

"Not really." Cindy said. "She used so mean to me I thought she was the inspiration for Cruella DeVil. And she's the greediest woman in the world. I don't have any doubt she's willing to kill millions of her employees and customers just to get all the insurance money after her buildings get destroyed, and she won't try to evacuate them because then it'd be obvious she knew it would happen."

"But look." Adam said, gesturing around the room. "She already has so much. Why would she need more?"

"I've been asking that question all my life."

"Well here's the answer." Taylor said through the communications device injected in their ears specifically for this mission, still walking around holding the silver tray in silent invitation to everyone. "People like this think they're better than everyone else just because they were born with billions of dollars. They think the rest of us are nothing more than worms who-"

"Not the time to be going on a tangent." Leo said through comms, still back at mission command. "Cindy and Adam are you ready to start phase two?"

"Yep." Adam said. "Group Repossession is ready."

"Then start to make your way to the basement." Leo said. "Group Evacuation get ready and Group Capture get in position and wait for my signal."

Chase's cello solo signaled the end of the set. After that he left the instrument and exited the stage with the rest of the members of the band. Unlike the rest of them, however, he briskly walked toward the stairs nearest to him, remaining as casual as possible to avoid attracting attention. Taylor, continuing to offer horderves, made his way to the same set of stairs, set down the tray on a table along with his apron, took a mask out of his pocket and ascended the stairs. Graham, like Taylor, went to a set of stairs, set down his tray and apron and put on a mask, but he descended the stairs on the opposite side of the room. Bree was enjoying the sensation of having everyone's eyes on her, even if it was only because they thought she was someone else, but as soon as she heard the command she went into the girls' bathroom outside the ballroom, entered a booth, removed her mask and dress and put her hair in a ponytail. Now she was clad in her gray mission suit, which she'd been wearing underneath her dress this whole time. Adam and Cindy locked arms and walked side by side down several flights of stairs and through the winding halls of the estate.


Group Reposession

When Adam and Cindy finally reached the end of a long elevator ride they found a room that seemed out of place when compared to the rest of the manor. It was extremely modern. The walls, floor and ceiling were metal. The only door was made of metal with no knob or window and right next to it was a screen where one would put in a code to open the door.

"Now, let's finally see what's on the other side of this thing." Cindy said, holding up a finger that began to crackle with blue electricity. She touched it to the screen and the numbers automatically inputted themselves in, unlocking the door. Cindy pressed a second finger to the screen, the electricity becoming a little more wild. The screen showed an all white room with hexagonal shapes embedded in the walls. There were six cameras with turrets attached to them along the walls, including the one they were seeing the room through. All around the room were canisters marked with a symbol that warned of the dangerous toxins inside. Inside were five armed men. "You ready to go inside?"

"Why aren't we going in together?" Adam asked.

"We've been over this, handsome. If I use a fireball in there I could blow this whole place up. I'm a lot more useful out here keeping the door unlocked and the alarms off."

"Okay. But I'll miss you every second I'm in there."

"I'll miss you more."

"Okay, I'm ready."

Cindy pressed a third finger to the screen and five of the turrets and cameras on the walls fell, deactivated. The door slid up into the ceiling and Adam entered. There were two guards stationed by the door and Adam knocked their heads together. One of the guards on the far side of the room raised their weapon so Adam shot his heat vision at the gun. It started glowing red hot and the man yelped as he let it go.

"We said no heat vision in the room full of highly volatile explosives." Cindy said.

Adam picked up the largest canister he saw and threw it at one of the two guards closest to him with their weapons still lowered-probably being to shocked that a random party guest came into the highly secure vault shooting lasers from his eyes to react-sending him to the ground unconscious. The other guard raised his weapon and put his finger on the trigger. The sole functioning turret on the wall shot a laser at the guard and he fell to the ground.

"Thanks, hotness." Adam said.

"You're so very welcome." Cindy said.

Adam charged at the last remaining guard, who was scrambling over to the panic button on the wall. Adam couldn't stop him before the guard pushed it, but when he got close enough Adam grabbed him by the neck and slammed his head into the wall. The walls of the room turned from glowing white to red and a low buzz sounded.

"I'm guessing this isn't good." Adam said.

"No, not at all." Cindy said. "Start bringing all those canisters into the corridor. I'll watch the elevator."

Adam did as he was told and in about a minute the elevator dinged as the doors started to open, revealing ten guards inside. Cindy shot a blast of electricity at the elevator button and the doors closed. The numbers displaying what floor the elevator was on changed so fast it was impossible to tell whether it was going up or down. When it finally finished the elevator returned to the bottom floor and opened it's doors to reveal ten guards unconscious inside.

"Hope you enjoyed the ride." Cindy said.

When Adam finished his task there was a banging on the metal floor underneath them.

"What's that?" Adam asked.

"A drill. We are so going to get busted."


Group Capture

Bree left the stall, pulled the pin out of her hair and aimed it at the lock on the door. She pressed a button and it fired a laser, obliterating the lock. She then aimed it at the grate in the wall. She fired four times and all the bolts holding it to the wall melted and the cover fell. She got down on her hands and knees and crawled inside, traveling up, down and around until she reached a grate inside a hallway several floors up. She looked through and saw two guards stationed outside of a door. As she watched she saw Graham run down one end of the hallway, then she saw him run down the other end, and then following himself down the other side and so on until there were ten of him laughing as they ran down, two of them holding a shiny orb in their hands.

"Stop!" one of the guards yelled, looking extremely perplexed.

"Why?" the clones asked in unison.

"You're not allowed up here and you can't run around unless you can afford to replace anything you break." the other guard said.

"I think you should learn to have some more fun." the two Grahams with the orbs said. They threw them at both of the guards, saying "Catch." When the guards caught them out of instinct the orbs glowed red, sensing an unfamiliar fingerprint and released purple gas. In a matter of seconds both of the guards were unconscious. Bree reached through the grate's bars and used her press-on nails-which were made of extremely powerful magnets-to remove the bolts. The vent cover fell to the ground with a thud and all ten Grahams shrieked. Nine of them vanished into smoke. Bree climbed out and fell to the ground, rolling to her feet.

"You ready to get in here?" Bree asked.

"Yes," Graham said. "I'm so sorry," he whispered to the guards.

Bree and Graham tried the door but it was locked so Bree used her hairpin to melt the knob and lock enough to be able to push the door open. Inside were two armed guards stationed by the balcony door. Bree pulled out two pairs of handcuffs and in the blink of an eye both of the men were cuffed to the bed, their weapons at their feet and gagged with curtains ripped of the walls. Madeline Pearce entered from a dressing room, wearing a navy blue gown and white mask with scales.

"What's going on here?" Madeline asked.

Bree sped to her and pushed her. Madeline fell backwards into an open trunk and Bree closed it before firing a laser from her hairpin to melt the latch enough for it to be impossible to be opened by conventional means. Graham separated himself into four copies which all gripped the trunk from the bottom and lifted it. Bree opened the door and they both stepped outside on the balcony to wait.


Group Evacuation

When Chase and Taylor finally got to the abandoned balcony on the side of the house opposite to the party, they immediately started to work. Taylor gathered the light he'd absorbed and released it from his hands as a blob of energy floating in the air. He held his hands on either side of it like he was molding clay and it solidified. He twirled his index and middle finger over the top of it and it turned into a cone-like shape. It formed into a drill and dug through the floor in the room down. Chase and Taylor began to create platforms leading from the balcony to the garden underneath it and through the hole in the floor, Chase using his forcefields and Taylor using solid light.


Group Reposession

"What do you mean we'll get caught." Adam asked.

"The floor is made of durabillium." Cindy said. "It's too strong for Taylor's drill to pierce. If we can't get out through here we'll have to lug all these hundred pound containers out of the front door. We'd be revealed in a second."

"Is there another way?."

"Uhmmm." Cindy hummed, reaching for her necklace and twirling it in her fingers.

"Whatcha doin?" Adam asked.

"Thinking."

"Well I personally think you look hot when you think."

"Well, I might be able to say the same if you ever used your brain for-" Cindy snapped. But then her eyes widened. "You...you're a genius, Adam."

"Thank you. I knew Chase wasn't the only genius in the family."

With a thought the communication device in Cindy's ear turned on. "Chase, pop quiz. Answer right and I'll give you a thousand dollars. What is Durabillium."

Speaking with the speed of someone who spent hours memorizing that fact Chase said, "Element number 206 on the Periodic Table, solid Durabilium can withstand a blow from a plane flying into it and has a melting point of one thousand degrees Celsius-"

"You win." Cindy said, turning off the device. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"That Chase is a dork?" Adam guessed.

"Well, that obviously. And that we can get through the floor with our abilities. When I start burning the ground concentrate all your heat vision where I fire."

"Yeah, he is a dork."

"Focus." Cindy extended her hands and a weak orange fire engulfed both of them. As she stared the fire got more wild and intense, beginning to glow blue and then white hot. The fire streamed from her hands to the floor in an intense flash of white, beginning to make the floor glow red. Adam focused on the small circle of ground being burned and fired his heat vision, which got hotter and hotter over time. Eventually the floor melted away and after they stopped their abilities two platforms of glowing yellow light flew through the hole in the floor and three large forcefields followed. Adam picked up each canister one by one and dropped them inside the forcefield which didn't let anything fall out once it was inside. When Adam was done he and Cindy stepped onto the platforms and with the forcefields they were lifted into the air and down through the hole in the floor until they appeared on the balcony Bree, Chase, four Grahams and Taylor were standing on.

With all of them accounted for they finally ran down the platforms suspended in the air and into the garden. They ran through a maze of hedges and fountains followed by the forcefields holding containers full of explosives until they got to the limo outside waiting for them with Mr. Davenport at the steering wheel. Before they entered Chase nodded to Adam and Cindy. They fired lightning and lasers at two of the three forcefields floating behind them, causing the chemicals to explode inside. The last forcefield floated into the trunk and the Grahams put the trunk containing Madeline right beside it. Everyone got inside and Donald drove them to get ice cream to celebrate a completed mission, almost forgetting the criminal inside the back that would be delivered to the authorities with proof of her plans to commit mass murder and insurance fraud.