Bug felt a little guilty. But not really. He didn't care about any of his fellow FAYZians that much. And he assumed that the man in charge of this powerful organization would be able to offer Bug a lot for the location of the HQ. So Bug stole the tracking device off of Caine before Brianna found it and could hide it a few miles away.
Finally, he saw three SUVs heading towards the barn. Bug planned to stay invisible and sneak inside the trucks so he could talk to the General himself, and prove how he could be useful. The SUVs came to a screeching halt and 20 soldiers with tranquilizers came out. Bug sneaked into the trunk of a car before anyone noticed him.
Orc's job was to stay guard in the barn. He couldn't fit into the HQ anyways. Howard stayed with him to keep him company.
"Do you hear that?" Howard said. Orc grunted.
"It sounds like cars," Howard continued. He got up and walked to the door of the barn. Dahra was watching Lily pick flowers and Toto was sitting Indian style in the grass while talking to himself.
"Orc, there's cars coming. Like, FBI agent cars," Howard said. Orc stood up and lumbered over to the door. He grunted again.
Dahra noticed the cars coming too. She quickly got up and yelled for Lily and Toto to go inside. Orc saw Albert come up out of the HQ.
"Albert, man, cars are coming!" Howard said. Albert ran over to look, and saw the cars come to a stop. 20 soldiers came out with what looked like tranquilizers. Albert cursed.
"Orc, go out there and don't let them come near the barn," Albert ordered. "Dahra! Get Lily inside quickly!"
Dahra rushed Lily into the barn, but then disappeared and appeared next to one of the soldiers. Lily stopped running and started crying when she heard Dahra scream and get shot in the neck with a tranquilizer. Dahra crumpled to the floor.
Toto stopped talking to his imaginary friend and started running towards the barn, but disappeared and reappeared right in front of a tranquilizer gun. He didn't have time to scream before he was knocked out cold.
"Oh crap man, they have powers!" Howard yelled. He started to run back inside the HQ, but Albert stopped him.
"If you go inside, they'll notice and know there's more of us. Stay outside," Albert hissed. Howard didn't have time to argue, because he too disappeared and appeared right next to another soldier. Orc decided he better help Howard. Howard always gave him beer and kept him company.
Orc picked up one of the boxes and threw it at the man about to shoot Howard. It hit the soldier in the legs with a crash, causing him to fall over, but he still managed to shoot Howard in the arm. Orc ran out, grabbed Lily, and brought her back into the barn with Albert, who was hiding behind some boxes.
Orc was about to through another box at the soldiers when everything around him started to swirl, and he appeared next to a man pointing a tranquilizer at his face. He didn't have enough time to react before he was shot in the little patch of skin left.
"Whatever," Orc said as his head hit the ground.
Sam started to climb up the ladder as soon as he heard the scream, but Astrid grabbed his leg.
"What are you doing?" Sam yelled at her, furious. He needed to get up there.
"Don't be an idiot, if you go up there, whoever is attacking our friends will notice you came out of a secret flap in the ground and we will all be taken," Astrid said. She had tears in her eyes. "And don't you dare say that I don't care about them."
"Lily is up there," Diana said.
"And so is Albert and Howard and Dahra and Toto and Orc but we can't do anything about it right now," Astrid snapped.
"Just let me go up there and I can stop them!" Brianna said. "I can handle anything!"
"No, you don't even know who or what or how many are up there. For all we know, the General could have used the Extractor on a moof we didn't get a chance to save," Dekka said sternly.
Sam sighed and sat back down.
"I wish I had set up surveillance cameras," Jack mumbled. "Then we could see if it was safe to go up and fight or if we would have been caught."
"It probably wouldn't have been safe anyways. I have a feeling the General wouldn't have sent his guys to capture us unless he was sure they wouldn't fail," Edilio said.
"Wait, I think I hear cars getting quieter. I think they're driving away," Quinn said.
Sam leaped up and was out into the barn before Astrid could stop him again. There was no sign of Dahra, Toto, Albert, Howard, Orc, or Lily.
"Lily!" Diana screamed. Sam turned around and saw everyone else was outside.
"Wait, I hear banging," Caine said. He ran over to one of the only boxes left and opened it. Inside, with rotting food, was Lily.
"Albert or someone must have stuffed her inside so no one would find her," Diana said. Caine picked Lily up, who was crying.
"Lily, what happened?" he asked. Lily just shook her head and continued crying. He set her down and he ran over to Diana, who was carrying Leo, and hug her leg.
Sam looked around and took stock of who was here. There were 15 of them: Jack, Dekka, Brianna, Astrid, Quinn, Edilio, Diana, Lana, Caine, Katie, Lily, Sanjit, John, Baby Leo, and himself. Taylor had ditched them long ago and never came back, and he assumed Bug left or stayed invisible most of the time. There were too many to go unnoticed while travelling and too little to have a real chance in taking on the General.
"Well, I guess we have to leave the HQ," Quinn said.
"They didn't find the secret entrance though, just the barn," Sanjit said.
"And we'll probably never find a safer place to hide out," Lana said.
Sam noticed Brianna was vibrating very quickly in place, like she couldn't stay still.
"Let me go chase them down and slash their tires or something," Brianna said. "I can't just let them get away. I can handle them, anyways. They don't know what's coming for them."
"No," Sam said sternly. "Breeze, listen to me. Do not go after them."
"Brianna looked like she was going to argue, or take off anyways, but Jack grabbed her arm. Sam noticed Dekka scowl.
"I wouldn't go if I were you, Brianna," Jack said. "Look at the tire tracks, that's three SUVs. There could have been 20 people, 21 max since one SUV sits seven people. And I don't know about you, but I don't think only 20 people would be able to bring down Orc, so that means they had to of had powers or very scary guns."
"Pffft, guns got nothing on me," Brianna said confidently, but she sagged her shoulders and stopped vibrating.
"We need to save them though," Sam said. "We need to organize a rescue mission."
"Why?" Caine asked. He was standing with his arms crossed next to Diana. "They were no use to us. Except maybe Orc, but even he was pretty much worthless without being able to bribe him with beer. Albert was pretty good at organizing, but I think Astrid can handle that. Howard and Toto were useless, and we don't need Dahra if we have Lana."
"Because, Caine, we can't just abandon people," Sam said angrily at his twin.
"We would be risking our lives, the important people, to rescue a couple of kids we don't even need," Caine argued back.
Sam was about to say something, but Astrid cut him off.
"I'm sorry Sam, but I think Caine is right. We wouldn't survive a rescue mission either," she said. Sam stared at her. He couldn't believe she was siding with Caine.
"Fine, less have a vote since you love democracy so much, Astrid," Sam said, while staring daggers at Astrid. "Raise your hand if you want to abandoned our friends, who rescued us, and stay here hiding waiting to die."
Everyone except Sam and Brianna raised their hands. Sam took one last furious glance at Astrid and stalked out of the barn.
"I'm just going to get some air," he yelled back, before Astrid could ask where he was going.
"Well, that was awkward," Katie said and laughed nervously. Edilio sighed.
"I better go talk to him," he said. Edilio followed Sam out of the barn.
Leo started to squirm in Diana's arms.
"What is it?" she said in a soothing voice.
"Mama," Leo said. Before Diana could respond to the fact that Leo said his first word, her vision went black then back to normal, like a computer restarting itself.
"What the-" she started, and then noticed three bars were floating above Brianna's head, like Diana was reading her power level without touching Brianna. She turned to Caine, and four bars were floating above his head. She quickly spun to Dekka, who had three bars above her head.
"What's going on?" she yelled nervously. "I'm reading your power levels without touching you!"
Diana's vision went black then back to normal again, and the bars went away. She read Leo's power. He was a four bar.
"What happened, Diana?" Astrid said. Her eyes flicked down to Leo then back up to Diana.
"My vision when black, like it was restarting, then back to normal, and I could read your power levels without touching you!" Diana explained. "And Leo's a four bar now."
Astrid and Jack shared a glance. Diana noticed it was almost like they subconsciously agreed that they were the smartest and would work together to figure things out.
"I think Leo can make powers stronger," Astrid said. "But we will just have to wait until he gets older. There may be more to his power that he hasn't shown yet."
"What would happen if he made my powers stronger?" Brianna wondered out loud. "Would I be able to run even faster?" Jack frowned.
"I don't think you even would want to go faster," he said. "You would be very tired after you ran."
Brianna looked like she didn't hear Jack, and was imagining herself going the speed of light. Diana rolled her eyes.
"Well, we will just have to wait until Leo is older to see what his powers are," she said while smiling at him. Her smile waivered as she felt him getting heavier. He was already growing more.