"I can't believe you guys were faking!"

"Ow, sorry!" Jack cried, dodging the blows Entropy was trying to give him as she chased him around the basement. "We were going to tell you-"

He jumped onto the back of the couch and held his arms out in front of her as she growled at him.

"But we didn't want to take the chance of anyone hearing!"

"Then how did you come up with it anyway?" Cinder asked as Jack teetered and fell onto the floor.

"Uh, duh," Stryker scoffed, pulling his Mind Reader Conch out of his ear. "We just thought it out."

The others groaned; of course they were communicating using the Wu. Why hadn't they considered that?

"I don't know what you guys are mad at us for," Stryker continued, wiping the Wu on his shirt before sticking it back in his ear. "You're the ones who didn't catch on. I mean, c'mon, when in my life have I ever said noob?"

"You were shouting words all over the place!" Entropy reasoned, waving her arms up and down with exaggeration. "We thought you'd run out of insults!"

"Yeah, 'cause that's happened, like, never."

"Point proven," Zephyr said, helping Jack off the ground. "But still. Next time let us in on the plan!"

He glared directly at Jack, and the redhead scratched the back of his head nervously.

"Yeah, we should have," he said. "Sorry about that guys."

The girls simply whipped around and marched upstairs. Stryker shook his head at them.

"Honestly, they're taking it so personal," he said. "We didn't mean anything by it."

"Oh, they know," Zephyr said, sitting down on the couch. "They're mad 'cause they didn't catch on."

Stryker rolled his eyes as Jack brushed off his coat. Zephyr twiddled his thumbs for a moment, then squinted at Jack as a thought crossed his mind.

"So, there's one question I gotta ask," he said.

"Shoot," Jack told him.

"Okay...you guys planned everything? Like everything, everything?"

"Yeah," Jack said as Stryker sat on the couch arm. "Why?"

"So then...what happened with Cinder...that was part of the plan?"

Jack's face slowly turned red, and Stryker coughed into his fist.

"Uh, well," he started, fixing his Mohawk as a smirk came to his face. "That was...that was improff. I wasn't supposed to do that."

"Oh really?" Zeph asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, see," Jack started, crossing his arms. "I was supposed to grab Cinder, and Stryker was supposed to grab you. You guys would figure out then that it was an act 'cause we were going to shout random stuff that didn't make sense. Unfortunately...you and Cinder were on the wrong sides, and we didn't realize it till after we'd grabbed you."

"Oh..." Zephyr said, smirking at Stryker. "Which led to you and Cinder-"

"Ah, I just did it to fill time," Stryker said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "When Jack tackled me it was to tell me I'd went too far."

"Right...you know she's really ticked about that."

Stryker turned pink and looked away.

"Yeah, well, Jack was mad too..." he muttered.

"Irrelevant," Zephyr said, mocking him by waving his hand as well. "Anyway, if you guys are all buddy buddy again, then we can move on to something else."

He turned to Jack again, and his friends were surprised by the familiar, dark look in his eyes.

"What's with this prophecy everyone's thinking about?" he started. "And what's it got to do with us?"