BOOM.

The monstrous sound of a car engine blowing up from the shot of a gun rang in everyone's ears as the fighters of the 2nd Mass. continued to do what they do best- kick some alien ass. They had already taken down a Mech with the Mech bullets that were loaded in each fighter's assault rifle, and all they had left were skitters. It seemed like a piece of cake. They were all dropping like flies while the humans were left untouched.

"This almost feels too easy!" Anna laughed as she shot alongside of Hal and Ben, who had quickly become her two best companions.

"It's like one of those shooting games that you used to play at Carnivals that would win you a big teddy bear for your lucky lady." Ben rolled his eyes at Hal's cocky comment.

"You were just quite the ladies man, weren't you?"

"Were? I still am, what are you talking about?" Hal retorted with ease, and Anna couldn't help but laugh at the immaturity between the brothers. She never bickered with her sister like this.

She regretted thinking about her sister right away, because along with the thought came that horrible gut-wrenching feeling. Even though she quickly felt right at home in the 2nd Mass., it was only human to grieve and miss her family dearly.

She shook her head and returned to reality, occasionally looking around the car that she was using as her barrier.

"Well, back to the game idea, the only difference from this and a mere Carnival game is that the prize is different. In this situation, the prize for taking the winning shot…" She stopped and turned briskly on her heels as she jumped to her feet, yanking her rifle in position in front of her and taking a shot, all of which she did in a matter of seconds.

"…is keeping your life."

As she said this, all the fighters observed the last standing skitter clumsily fall to the ground from the fatal shot. Pope swaggered over to the trio and gave Anna a good, hard pat on the back.

"Not bad kid, not bad at all."

The rest of the fighters made sounds of agreement as they began their walk back to their home base for the night. Ben ran up beside Anna, pulling her away from her conversation with Hal and Maggie.

"It's too bad your little boyfriend wasn't put on this mission tonight. He could've seen that wicked shot of yours." He joked.

"Come on Ben, he's not my boyfriend."

"We both know he doesn't think that's the case." He continued to smirk. Anna was well aware that Ben didn't exactly care for Austin, especially after the awkward first impression he left on him.

"Well I consider him to only be a very good friend of mine. Besides, I think he's just jealous."

"Well, is there anything that he should be jealous of?"

The conversation that started out as a joke instantly became uneasy and nervous. Anna hesitated before answering and bit down on her bottom lip, a classic a habit of hers. She opened her mouth to reply when a blinding white light suddenly engulfed the whole group of fighters, knocking each person out in an instant. Nobody saw it coming, nobody was expecting it. But the sender of the effective weapon was obvious.

An unusual silence loomed over the unconscious bodies. The silence was soon replaced by hoarse groans and the shifting of pebbles beneath their feet. One-by-one, each person got up and dusted themselves off.

"Now what the hell was that." Pope growled as he hastily yanked his rifle up from the ground, his bitter attitude rolling right off of his tongue.

"Obviously a new tactic by the aliens, and a damn good one. We better head back to base, we're moving to a new location tomorrow." Weaver commanded, and all the fighters began walking in agreement. They were willing to do whatever they had to do to avoid another attack like that.

"Wait, where's Anna?" Ben stopped dead in his tracks and looked all around him- Anna was nowhere to be found. "She was with me before the attack."

"I'm sure she woke up before us and headed back home, Ben. She wouldn't have just run off." Tom came up behind his son, placing his hand on his shoulder, but Ben quickly turned to face him.

"You know that's not what I'm afraid of, dad."

Ben's comment created a standstill between him and his father. Tom knew that he would never be able to forgive himself for his son's harnessing a long time ago. He didn't really know what to say to this because this would have been a great plan to kidnap one of the kids, and in this case it might've been Anna. And he was completely aware of how Ben would react if the aliens really did take her.

"Well, we're just going to have to head back to camp and see for ourselves if she's there." Tom sighed, before slinging an arm around Ben's shoulder.

The walk home was long and silent. Some of the fighters were really just generally exhausted, while all the others could think about was the attack and Anna.

Anna. That's all Ben especially could think about. What if she really was harnessed? She's a strong girl, probably one of the strongest he's ever met next to Maggie, but living in a life where none of your thoughts or actions are yours is like nothing a person should ever experience. It's torture, it's abuse, it's inhumane. But they're not human, so why would he expect anything different from them?

In the distance, he could see the light and smoke from a burning camp fire back at home, signaling that they were just minutes away from returning back from their mission.

Minutes away from finding out the truth of Anna's disappearance.