Brittney looked up from her chipped manicure with a grimace. She soo needed to get her nails done. "Lenny, why are we here?"

"Because, as I told you the last twelve or so times, we can't stay at the lab building any longer. Those idiots will come back looking for us, especially since A'Cadia skipped happily over to their side! We need a new place to hide until I can finish my plans." Again, he realized he was surrounded by morons. He was also in desperate need of a new crown, the other one had been disastrously ruined by the water in his hasty getaway from the lab building.

"But this place is so," she paused and gazed around the deserted building. "Beneath me."

"Just shut the heck up! This is where we are staying, so deal with it!" He stalked across the room, as far away from her as possible. Honestly, you'd think he'd brought her to an abandoned roach motel for God's sake! His gaze roamed the room, it was a close second, he supposed. A few critters were skittering about he couldn't exactly identify. It was, however, not a roach motel. It was a former PEZ factory. He hummed and picked up the pieces of a PEZ dispenser before tossing them aside. Pfft, PEZ, stupid. Lamest candy ever made. Great idea, horrible candy. Force kids to buy a cute little dispenser that's refillable, add in cheap candy. Mom and dad are suitably impressed by said price. Then mass produce millions of dispensers in all the little brat's favorite cartoon characters so mummy and daddy must buy them all. Brilliant.

No one was going to think to look for him here. It was the perfect hideout.

He rubbed his hands together and turned to look at his people scattered around the production area of the abandoned factory. "All right people, we need to get moving and put this plan together. I need action here. Movement! No more sitting about like losers!"

A hand rose and he rolled his eyes. "What is it, Buck?"

"What exactly is the plan?"

Always a wise guy in the bunch, Lenny thought. "We need the Compound 13, moron. I also need A'Cadia back, as well as Ziva on our side. Is that clear enough for you?"

Buck nodded slowly and dumbly. "Uh, boss?"

"Now what?" Lenny grumped.

"How do we find this 13 stuff? I thought it didn't exist no more?"

"Come on, scientists are egomaniacs, do you honestly think they destroyed all the formula? All their brilliant work? No, it's out there somewhere, trust me. We simply have to be the first to find it." Before goody-two-shoes Craig and his idiot team did. Craig would want to protect his daddy's good name. He would want to find the formula first and destroy it.

Lenny wasn't about to let Craig win, not this time. Craig won everything. It was time he came in first. A teeny little smile lifted the corners of his lips. Oh yes, he was gonna win everything. A little cackle escaped.

"Boss, you okay?" Buck asked.

He waved a hand at Buck. "Fine, I'm fine. Let's go, we've got work to do. I need Ziva and A'Cadia."

***

"Oooh, guys!"

Ziva was starting to hate when the curtain climbers entered the room. It usually meant trouble. For them. "Mellissa, can you shut down the theme music, it's kind of annoying."

Mellissa slid a finger across her throat, an indication to Stevie to kill the music. "Happy?"

"Dying of happiness," Ziva told her dryly.

"Good. We can move on then. We have a new and worrying problem."

"Great, what is it," Craig asked.

"Lenny on the front lawn with an army. Well, not so much an army as a bunch of losers that loosely resemble an army." She shrugged as if this were an announcement she made daily.

Craig scrambled up off the floor and ran for the door. Screaming back at Skylar and Ziva. "Get Logan!"

Mellissa was skipping after him. "Oh, he and Storm aren't here, they went out. Something about Washington and an emergency they had to handle right away."

Craig swore as he crushed his face against the glass of a window. "Damn. She's right he's out there."

Ziva skidded to a halt beside him. "What do we do?"

Stevie hit a button on his iPad and the theme music from the opening of Star Wars began. "We fight!" he declared.

"Really? That is the music you pick?" Ziva asked him.

He shrugged. "Best I could do on short notice."

"And you are not fighting; the three of you stay in here and behave!" Craig bellowed at him as he took off down the hallway.

Ziva sent the three a warning glare as she took off after him. Skylar gave them a slightly nervous look before she followed.

Ziva caught up to Craig. "What are we going to do? We can't fight an entire army alone!"

Craig looked back at them. "Skylar go find A'Cadia."

She nodded and took off. Craig slowed and turned into Storm's office. He picked up the phone on her desk, punched one of the buttons, waited, and spoke when someone answered on the other end. "Storm, Lenny is here at the school and he brought his people with. The building is surrounded."

He hung up and turned to Ziva. "I don't know when she'll get that message or if she'll even get it, we've got no choice but to try and get out of here."

"Get out? How?" she asked him.

"There are tunnels that lead out of the building. Escape tunnels," he told her.

She grimaced at him. "Does Lenny know about the tunnels?"

Craig paled at her words. "Yes."

"Then we're trapped. He'll have people waiting wherever the tunnels let out. He isn't that stupid."

Craig hung his head. "You're probably right. We'd be walking into a trap."

A'Cadia and Skylar came running into the room. "That loser is out front? What is his deal, why would he come here?" A'Cadia yelled.

"He must have thought it gave him some sort of advantage or he wouldn't have come," Ziva said waving her arms in the air wildly as she spoke. Suddenly she froze and turned to A'Cadia with narrowed eyes. "Or maybe someone called and let him know that Logan and Storm weren't around and we were mostly alone."

A'Cadia gave a low growl. "I told you I'm on your side! I didn't call anyone!"

A low crackle of electricity issued from the vicinity of Ziva's left hand. "We don't know that now do we?"

A'Cadia released the claws and took a step toward Ziva. "You wanna go, Sparky? Let's go!"

A shrill whistle sounded from the doorway and they turned to look at the curtain climbers where the three stood ranged out across the entry to Storm's office. Angela lowered her fingers from her lips and grinned at them before she waved a hand at Mellissa. "Go for it, Fearless Leader."

Mellissa gave her a nod. "Lenny ain't gonna wait for you two to finish this disagreement, he's got himself a bullhorn, and he's issuing orders. You guys might want to haul heiny out front and listen to Starkist Tuna before he storms the building."

A'Cadia retracted the claws and stepped away from Ziva. "Fine, I can wait to shred you until we take care of Lenny."

Ziva snorted. "Right like you're going to win." She shoved past A'Cadia and led the way out the front door.

They stood, spread out, about eight feet from the entry, staring at Lenny's little army. It was about fifty mutants strong. They wondered how many more he really had, either hidden away nearby or back wherever his new hiding spot was.

Lenny raised the bullhorn; even from where they stood, they saw the little smirk on his face, as he got ready to speak. The blare of the bullhorn's siren made them all wince. A startled Lenny dropped the thing when the siren went off.

Skylar giggled, slapped a hand over her mouth, and looked at the others. "Sorry. But seriously, it was funny."

A'Cadia grinned over at her. "He never could find the right button."

Ziva rolled her eyes at them and turned away as Lenny raised the bullhorn once more. He found the correct button this time around.

"Surrender now or we will destroy the school and everyone inside will suffer!" Lenny yelled into the bullhorn.

A'Cadia snorted. "Does he seriously think we're going to throw our hands in the air and yell 'we surrender'? Maybe wave a white flag while we're at it."

Behind her, Stevie slapped at his iPad and Taio Cruz's Dynamite began playing. A'Cadia shot him a death glare.

He grinned back at her. "What? It worked! You know the whole throw your hands in the air thing? Get it!"

"Shut it off!" Ziva snapped at him.

His lips dropped into a pout. "I haven't even gotten to play anyone's theme song yet! We even have a theme song for that Buck guy now, you know the moron dude you guys had to deal with at the high school!" He punched the button on the iPad, I'm a Loser Baby by Beck started up, and Stevie grinned at them like the little lunatic he was.

Across the lawn, Lenny tapped an impatient foot and glared at them as if he were waiting for them to get on with the surrendering.

Ziva sighed. "I don't think now is the time to regale Lenny with your musical choices, Stevie. He doesn't look to be in the mood. All he cares about is our surrender."

Craig shifted slightly. "Right, we have no backup. We have no idea when any might possibly show up. It's just us."

Skylar groaned. "Why did the others have to choose now to go on a field trip?"

"Because that is our luck," Ziva ground out.

"So, what have we got on our side?" A'Cadia asked.

Craig looked around at the group. "You and Ziva are our strengths."

"Hey, come on exploding boogers in the house!" Stevie complained.

"That would be a strength if you had better aim," Craig told him. "Same for Angela and her plasma bursts."

"Okay, so we lead with Kitty girl and me. Skylar can crush people if she possesses something large and heavy," Ziva said, looking over at Skylar.

Skylar grinned at her. "Oh, I'm on it sister." She vanished.

Mellissa raised her hand. "Hello, invisi-girl here, I can get Craig close to people and he can sleep-ify them!"

"You can't even control when you turn invisible! You only go invisible when you're scared or upset!" Craig cried out.

She shuffled her feet. "Yeah, well okay so that's a tiny problem."

A'Cadia smirked at Craig over Mellissa's head. "No, problem."

Mellissa shrieked as A'Cadia came at her with the claws and she immediately disappeared. "So not fair, A'Cadia," the invisible Mellissa grumbled.

Craig chuckled. "Not like we had much of a choice."

Angela bounced up and down where she stood. "What can I do?"

A'Cadia smiled widely. "I think I have an idea."

Ziva looked at her warily. "If you have an idea, I hate it already."

"Look, we don't have time to contemplate anything too deeply. Let's go." Craig looked them over. "Ready?"

They nodded. A'Cadia hoisted Angela up onto her back with a smile. "Ready, ballet girl?" Angela smiled happily and nodded.

Craig held out his hand and the invisible Mellissa grabbed it, Craig vanished.

Ziva took a deep breath and look at a manically grinning Stevie. This was great, she thought to herself. Deeply outnumbered, going into battle with a kid who flung exploding boogers. A tiny ballet dancer in a camo tutu riding the back of a girl with metal claws. A gorgeous boy who could put people to sleep was holding the hand of a tiny invisible whipped cream swilling lunatic.

A loud crashing noise snapped her head to the opposite side of the house and she spotted a large statue of Professor Xavier as it came stomping around from the back gardens. Right, and we couldn't forget the abhorrently cheerful girl who could stomp you to death with statuary. This was going to be an epic battle. She could just see it coming. So why did she want to run and hide in the azalea bushes?

She shrugged off thefeeling, gave Stevie a smile and a thumbs-up, and took a step toward the armyacross the lawn. She didn't have any other plans today, might as well get thedying part over with early in the day.