So this is more of a filler than anything, next chapter will be far longer!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

When Rachel sat up in the morning, she somehow knew it would be a good day. She didn't know exactly how, she just knew.

That was when the plan hit her.

Kori Anders, their mark from yesterday, was incredibly wealthy. Run a scam on her and...well...Shadows would be set for life. There was only one problem: Gizmo couldn't hack into her bank accounts. He didn't know which were hers, as she had created them under an alias, but if Shadows could figure it out...

Rachel pulled her communicator and pressed the button before putting in her earpiece.

"What the fuck, Raven!" Jenny screeched after a few minutes. Rachel snickered. Her teammates had similar reactions.

&$! !? $&

Read Kyd Wykkyd's text.

"I have our next mark," Rachel said severely. "Kori Anders, from yesterday's scam. She's incredibly wealthy: one of her currency actually translates to twelve of ours. If we get close then bingo, we've got our last big score in the bag. We can all retire before we're thirty."

"No shit?" Red X asked disbelievingly.

"No shit," Rachel replied.

"So how do we play this?" Angel asked.

"We get close to her friends. SeeMore, tail her and figure out to whom she's closest. Then we'll play it by ear."

"Awesome!" Angel cheered.

"Angel, it's like seven in the morning," Cheshire groaned. "Stop being so happy!"

"Never!" Angel hissed in a demonic voice before giggling wildly.

"SeeMore, I meant now!" Rachel snapped.

"On it!" he disconnected.

SeeMore is offline, read Rachel's screen.

"Angel, you're on refill duty."

"Aw, again?" she whined.

"You're the only one who likes being up this early."

"Touché. I'll be in touch!" she also disconnected. One by one, the others signed off. Rachel removed her own earbud and turned off her communicator as Jenny emerged.

"You could have waited," Jenny said grumpily. Rachel shrugged.

"But I didn't," the other woman shot her a glare. "You ready for today?"

"What's today?"

"The day we take down the rival gang," when Jenny apparently kept blanking, Rachel sighed. "Five-man job: you and Cheshire keep lookout and I'm on shot. Rancid drives and Gizmo monitors the frequencies."

"Oh! That one!" Jenny nodded. "So ready."

"So preppy," Jenny made a face. "Rancid set everything up last night."

"When do we move in?" was Jenny's eager inquiry. Rachel shrugged.

"Meh, couple hours. Let the cops wake up so the odds are even."

"Right. I can't wait," they exchanged an evil grin.

"I can't wait!" Dick shouted into the phone. "I need those results now!" Vic took the phone.

"He's been a little stressed," he put a hand over his partner's face and shoved him away as Dick made a wild grab for the phone. "How soon can you have them in? ...That's great, thanks," he hung up and looked severely at his friend. "Look man, you gotta get it together or we'll never find who did this to Kori," he said simply. Dick ran his hand along his jaw and stood.

"Okay. What do we know?"

"We know they're good. We know they've been doing this for at least seven years. We know they have a team. We know their hacker has a signature and we know they like to burn stuff and blow evidence up, that's all we got. I'm sorry, man, but that's it."

"Detective Grayson? There's an anonymous CI for you on line two," Dick picked up the phone and pressed the appropriate button.

"Detective Grayson."

"Man, they're after me! They got me into a meet and I can't get out!" Dick frowned.

"Who is this?"

"They're crazy man, they're crazy, always with the bombs and the fire!" Dick's eyes widened.

"Where's your meet?" he signaled for Vic to trace the call.

"The alley behind the apartment buildings on twenty-fifth."

"With who?"

"They're everywhere, everywhere! Nowhere's safe...I didn't want to meet with them but I had to keep my cover...but my cover's blown..."

"Listen, you just need to calm down. When's the meet?"

"In a few hours! They're gonna get me, man!"

"I got him. He's calling from a cell on Grieger."

"Stay where you are, we'll come pick you up."

"Can't stay anywhere, they're everywhere..." the CI whimpered.

"What's your name?" then the CI hung up. Dick swore. "Let's move!" but by the time they reached the location, all that was left of the CI was the cell phone.

"Suit up," Rachel said lazily, throwing on a hoodie. Jinx followed suit. Rachel pulled out her device, held down the button, and looked at the screen.

Whom would you like to contact?

Rachel selected the names Cheshire, Gizmo, Rancid, and Jinx. It wasn't long before they answered, Jinx walking into another room to do so.

"I was getting bored," Cheshire said.

"Suit up and head out on foot. Rancid, meet us at the park."

"On it."

"Stay on com," Jenny was swift to order. "This is an important job: these guys have seen us. They could go to the cops at any time."

"You got it, boss," Cheshire replied.

Eventually, they converged at the alley. Cheshire scaled one apartment and Jenny and Rachel a second. Rachel was carrying a guitar case that contained a sniper rifle. Slight overkill, but better safe than sorry. Eventually, a gang appeared. The plan was to send in a dealer as bait. The dealer's street record had been altered to make it seem as though he had been encroaching upon the gang's territory. The gang in its entirety had assembled. All according to plan. Finally, Shadows' bait appeared.

"Don't worry, we'll keep you safe," Jenny promised the dealer over the earpiece he had been given at a drop. The dealer, known by Shadows to be a CI, nodded and began nervously walking down the alley. Rachel smirked, raised her hood, and nonchalantly readied her rifle. Below her, the gang had shot the dealer, but that was the whole plan. Rachel fired at the seemingly harmless pile of junk, aiming for the cell phone entangled in wires

"Everybody get down!" she yelled, throwing her arms around Jenny's neck and pulling her friend to the roof as an explosion rocked the street. After a moment, Jenny put her head up after raising her hood.

"Uh-oh," she ducked back down.

"Uh-oh? Jinx, I don't like uh-ohs."

"We got a witness. Kid, 'bout seven, eight years old," Jenny said. Rachel looked over the rooftop and saw a little boy staring back from the street.

"I can't kill a kid. That's a line I won't cross," she said firmly.

"He saw you."

"With my hood. There's no way he could ID me. Now come on, let's go before the cops show up. Shadows, move out."

When Dick arrived, the fire department was putting out the fires from the explosion.

"We just sent in the call a few minutes ago," said one of the men, seeming surprised.

"I got a tip. What happened?"

"A bomb happened. Not big enough to take out the apartments but it incinerated the trash in the alley."

"And the evidence," Dick growled.

"There was a witness," Dick was pointed to where a small child was sitting, wrapped in a blanket. Dick headed over.

"Hey there, buddy. I'm Detective Grayson," Dick found his notepad and pen. "You wanna tell me what you saw?"

"Two women," he said. "I couldn't see one real well, just for a second, but I saw the other, just a little bit."

"Vic, get me a sketch artist!" Dick called. "Okay, kid, it's all gonna be okay. I promise. I promise."

"Kori Anders is a professor of chemistry at Jump City College. She has many friends, but these two seem to be her closest from what we observed today," SeeMore pushed forward two photographs. "Gar Logan volunteered with her. They went out for milkshakes after and shopped around in the mall with this woman, Karen Beecher. These three spent almost all day together. She's a cop."

"So we work Logan," Rachel decided.

"I figured as much. He works as a biology teacher at Jump City High, and their sophomore English teacher just won a six month trip to Hawaii," SeeMore replied. "Giz and I took the liberty of filling the position with your alias' name."

"This will be easy," Rachel grinned. "Retirement, here I come."

"Alright everyone, my name is Ms. Crowe," Rachel wrote her alias' name on the board and turned. Half of the class was already asleep. Rachel frowned, then smirked. She had been given access to the school's computers. "Pop quiz," she said, "worth fifty points. What are the eight parts of speech?" Half of the class slept away fifty points and most of the other half stared at her blankly. Three students turned in their papers to Rachel. She looked over them and raised an eyebrow. "A word is not a part of speech," she said, then sat back against her desk and drew in a deep breath. "CLASS!" she said sharply. Everyone was suddenly awake. "You think school is a joke? Whatever, maybe it is to you, but however you preform in here directly affects how you preform oh there. Once you're done here, nobody's going to catch you when you fall. You'll skip through society's cracks and end up living on the street. Is that the life you want?" everyone's heads shook no. "Good. Now pay attention..."

"Knock knock?" came a voice. Rachel looked up and quirked an eyebrow. "Some of my students were raving about the new English teacher. I had to come see for myself."

"And you are?"

"Garfield Logan. My friends call me Gar," he said.

"Are you calling me your friend?" Rachel asked. His eyes widened.

"N-no! Not yet!"

"I'm flattered," she said drily. "How come you're here?"

"It's my free period."

"Hm. Mine too," Rachel could tell that he was admiring her.

"How about dinner?" Gar suddenly blurted. Rachel blinked in shock.

Hm. I guess I was right to let Jenny dress me...

"I'm sorry, that was kinda forward..."

"Don't be," Rachel waved him off. "Eight o'clock, Chez Remonzelle. Don't be late," she smirked.

"Will do!" he walked out of the room.

"So there's this totally hot new long-term sub, right?" Gar began to speak. Dick was zoned out, staring at the partial sketch in his hand, which was carefully turned away from Gar. "Turns out, she so likes me, even though we just met! We're having dinner tonight at Chez Remonzelle."

"What? Gar, you know you can't afford that," Dick said.

"Which is why I'm asking you for help. Please, Dick, she's just my type!" Gar whined.

"Fine. I'll give you some cash, but," he interrupted Gar's joy with the dreaded word, "you have to let me meet her."

"Deal!"

Jenny was running point on figuring out more about Kori. She, Cheshire, and Angel were strolling through the mall together, searching for the foreigner, who had somehow slipped away. Gizmo had hacked the cameras and was running the whole mall and SeeMore was around...somewhere.

"Hey, Kori!" Jenny turned to see a young man hurrying through the crowd.

"Split up," she hissed. Cheshire and Angel each took off to one side: Jenny walked right past the pair.

"...glad I found you! Man, it's been forever since I was here! I'm only in for a week, though, so..." Jenny kept walking.

"My location, Gizmo."

"Got the crud-munchers!" his voice said. "His name's Wallace West, and he's got no job on file. Lives in Steele."

"Any connection to Karen Beecher?" Cheshire asked.

"Hm...nope."

"Angel, Cheshire, fall out. I'm going back in," Jenny said, turning around and walking with her head down, scouring the ground as though she had dropped something. She purposefully ran into the pair. "Oh I'm so sorry!" she was anything but.

"That's okay, sweetheart," he winked. "I'm Wally West. Wanna go have a drink?" Jenny forced a giggle, disgusted at the sound and at him.

"Wouldn't your girlfriend mind?"

"Don't have one! he grinned cheekily. Now how about those drinks...?"

"How about tomorrow night at nine, O'Hawk's," Jenny smirked. She had enjoyed some wonderful times at that bar.

"Sure thing," Wally winked again and Jenny headed off.

"Okay, we've managed to engage two of our mark's friends with us," Rachel summarized as she and her team sat on the ground in the park. "Now how do we get to her?"

"Get close, close until you can't breathe without thinking of your stepping stone...then get closer," Jenny suggested. Rachel nodded.

"Sounds good to me. We'll all have to be on our guard whenever these dates happen: this is going to be our final score, she stated. Everyone nodded severely.

"Are we ready?" Angel asked quietly.

"I don't think we could be more ready if we tried," Jenny replied with an impish grin. "Not even if we tried," she repeated softly as gentle rain began to fall and Shadows dispersed.