"This is booooring!" Stevie complained as he tapped at the screen of his iPad, playing fruit ninja.

"Well, no one said that you guys had to come with, now did they?" A'Cadia replied.

"If we didn't then who would have brought the snacks?" Mellissa told her as she stuffed a chocolate Zinger in her mouth, eating the pastry in one bite.

Ziva gave her a disgusted look as she chewed the Zinger. "I think we would have survived."

Craig snatched a Zinger from the package Mellissa held. "Speak for yourself." He held his hand out for a juice box.

Skylar sighed and shook her head. "This is kinda boring, I mean no one has even come out of the building and we've been here for like six hours!"

"Someone is here, there are a few cars in the lot," Ziva pointed out. "Maybe they aren't totally moved in yet."

Angela sucked the last remnants of juice out of the bottom of her juice box with noisy abandon and then looked up at everyone. "Skylar is right, this is super boring. We should just walk into the lobby and check the stupid listie thing that says who's in the building." They all stared at her stupidly. Angela smoothed her tutu uncomfortably. "Um, you know the thing they post in the lobby that tells you what people work in the building," she said while waving a hand around.

"The directory," Ziva told her.

"Yeah, that thing!" she said with a smile. "And we should do it soon 'cause my tutu is getting all wrinkly in here."

"You think Lenny would be dumb enough to list himself on the directory?" Ziva asked the others.

Craig shrugged. "Worth a look isn't it?"

Stevie grinned and lifted his iPad from his lap, his figner poised over the screen. "Let's go!"

They all glared at him. "We do it quietly!" A'Cadia told him in a stern voice.

He looked disappointed but holstered the iPad at his waist as they made their way out of the car and across the street to the office building. The few cars in the lot looked as if they were abandoned there after being stolen from a junkyard. No one sat at the reception desk in the lobby. Though potted plants dotted the lobby, giving a nice ambiance and lived-in quality to the place so it didn't look as deserted as the rest of Lenny's lairs.

They found the directory and scanned it.

"Well I'll be damned," A'Cadia said as they stared at the glaringly blank directory. The name of Lenny's 'organization' was the only one on the list.

Skylar snickered. "Lenny's Evil Mutant Army of Destruction? Really, that's what he's calling himself?"

Mellissa giggle. "L.E.M.A.D.! Sounds like an angry mime."

Ziva shrugged. "Who cares, he's here. Fifth floor, let's go."

The piled in the elevator and listened to the awful muzak version of What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction, not that the original version was better by any stretch of the imagination. Ziva made gagging noises the entire way up to the fifth floor and staggered out of the elevator when the doors opened.

"If we have to listen to that crap on the way back down, I'm zapping the speaker!" she complained.

A'Cadia smirked at her. "Right, go ahead and try to beat me to it, I'm planning on stabbing the thing."

Craig sighed and shook his head at the two of them. "Lenny probably has the corner office, knowing his ego."

They started down the hallway, stopping before rounding the last corner that would put them right at the door to the corner office. No one else seemed to be around. Lenny might have commandeered most of the floor for himself.

Stevie pulled out his iPad. "We should sneak up on them ... Gangnam style!"

"That doesn't even make sense!" Mellissa snapped out at him. "We should sneak up on them Ranger style!" She pulled up the hood of the cloak she was wearing. Mellissa was obsessed with the Ranger's Apprentice book series and she'd begun wearing a heavy, gray-green mottled cloak everywhere. She insisted it made her invisible without using her powers. The issue with that was that the books were set mostly in a forested area, thus the gray-green coloring of the cloaks. It didn't quite work in their urban setting.

Ziva slapped a hand to her forehead. "Will you two shut up before someone hears you?"

"Gangnam style," Stevie repeated.

"Ranger style!" Mellissa yelled back at him.

Back and forth they went for a couple of minutes before Stevie finally hit the play button on his iPad, the song Gangnam style started up, playing at full volume, and he went dancing around the corner. The rest of them had no choice but to follow him.

Annnnd they found Lenny waiting for them as they rounded the corner, who was backed up by the Barbie triplets. Brittany was holding up a compact mirror fixing her lip-gloss, Tiffany was fluffing, and plastering her hair with industrial-strength hairspray, and Barbie was fixing her nails with what appeared to be a power sander.

"I heard the lot of you coming from inside my office!" Lenny told them, sending a glare in their direction.

A'Cadia eyed his crown. "What happened to your little Burger King crown?"

"He covered it in gold Duct tape," Brittany told her, while still applying a good thick coat of gloss.

"Wow, nice. Epic even," A'Cadia commented.

Lenny tapped at the crown so that it sat at what he probably considered a rakish angle atop his head. "Why thank you. Now, what do you losers want?"

Skylar snorted. "You're the one wearing a paper crown covered in Duct tape and we're the losers?"

Lenny shot her a look that told her any more cracks about his crown would be met with serious force. "Yes, you are. Now, what do you want?"

"Oh, not much we just wanted a look at your new office space. Maybe a tour." Ziva waved a hand around aimlessly and grinned at him.

"Too bad. Bark off."

"Bark off? What does that even mean?" Stevie scratched his head in confusion.

"It means, get the hell out of here, midget." He glared at Stevie, who in turn, stuck his tongue out at Lenny.

"That is a derogatory term and I take great offense. I should report your organization for discrimination against little people," Stevie told him.

"Right, okay then, moving on. Listen, Lenny, I don't know why things have gotten to this point, but can we take a step back here and talk about this?" Craig asked him.

"No. Or rather, how about hell no. I don't like you, how's that? Never did, buddy. Mr. football star, all American douche. It's time the rest of us got a chance in the spotlight."

Craig took a step back from him in shock. "Spotlight? What are you talking about?"

Lenny snorted and looked at him with what could only be described as contempt. "You are disgusting, you know that? You don't even know how people look at you. You've got your perfect little life with your perfect parents who accept you even though you're a mutant, and above all that, you're friggin' rich. Despite the fact your daddy screwed up with his little lab experiment, you're still the little rich boy. Oh wait, and there's more, let's not forget the good looks and that you're an athlete. That girls swoon all over you. And finally, you don't give a crap about any of it! You are the nicest guy anyone could ever know. Not one bit egotistically about any of that crapola."

Ziva scowled at Lenny. "And you hate him because he's not an ass about it? So what, he should be a class-A jerk? Oh, like you! See, now I got it!"

Lenny shot a high-powered stream of water at her, she deflected it with a shot of electrical current that vaporized the water, turning it to steam.

Craig stood there, stunned, staring at Lenny. He'd never known that Lenny had been this jealous of him. It hurt that Lenny felt this way and never said a word because he'd thought of him as his best friend. Lenny had been the closest thing to a brother he'd had.

"That all you got, Dew-Drop?" Ziva said with a smirk.

His lip curled before a smile replaced it. Ziva arched a brow at him. For someone backed only by three superficial cheerleaders who seemed to only be interested in their beauty routine, he was awfully casual.

"You know, I've been waiting for this moment. Having you all here is, well, it's kind of like a celebration for me. A culmination of events." His smile grew as he drew a small canister from inside his pastel blazer. It was hideous and it appeared as if he was trying to resurrect Don Johnson's Miami Vice look from the '80s. The blazer with the sleeves rolled up over an equally pastel t-shirt. Not to mention the sockless loafers. Wowzer!

"What the heck is that?" Skylar asked him, pointing to the canister he held.

"Oh, this?" he asked, giving the canister a little shake in her direction. "You see, I've been working on a lot of things in our lab. The PEZ was only one little experiment. This, my friends, is something very special." With his finger, he depressed a button on one end of the canister before lobbing it in their direction.

It hit the ground, rolled, and began smoking immediately. It was like the worst smelling canister of tear gas ever, they started choking and backing away, attempting to get clear of whatever was in the clinging, misty cloud. It cleared away seconds after it poured from the canister. They looked around, blinking tears from their eyes, staring at a smirking Lenny, still standing in the same spot down the hallway.

"In case you're wondering, that was a concentrated mist of Compound 13. I hope you enjoyed it. Oh, and in case you were worried about us, we've already had the antidote. Thanks for your concern!"

"You jerk!" Ziva raised a hand and attempted to zap him. Nothing. Not even a small spray of static electricity.

Lenny threw his head back and laughed loudly. "Oh, beautiful! Love it. Do it again! Go on!"

Ziva gave a low growl but didn't attempt to zap him again. She knew it would be useless to try. Her powers were gone. Beside her, A'Cadia shifted, flexing her hands as if she were trying to unsheath her claws. Skylar's eyes darted around the room and Ziva knew she was either trying to possess things or transport. Angela gave a wail and clung to Ziva's leg. She patted the little girl on the shoulder. Stevie grumbled something about useless boogers and having no excuse to pick his nose now. Mellissa threw back the hood of her cloak and called Lenny a rather rude name, none of them had any intention of letting Storm know about. After all, Lenny deserved it, why make Mellissa put a dollar in the swear jar?

Craig gave a small cry of frustration.

"Aww, what's the matter, golden boy, did I upset you by using your daddy's creation against you and your wittle friends? Too. Damn. Bad! Now you know what it feels like to take a back seat to awesomeness! Get out of here before I smash you!"

Craig took a step forward. He wanted to hurt Lenny, to make him suffer for what he was doing. This wasn't fair! He'd never done anything to Lenny, all he'd done was be his friend!

Ziva laid a hand on his shoulder. He looked at her and she shook her head at him, now was not the time to try and take on Lenny. They had no powers. He could crush them easily. He backed off, leaving with the others. Outside, he stopped and stood beside the car, staring back at the building in silence.

"Hey, you okay?"

He gave his head a quick shake at Ziva's question. "No, not really."

She linked her fingers with his. "We'll find some way to get our powers back. A'Cadia managed to pilfer that package of PEZ from the warehouse when no one was looking. I'm sure the lab will be able to come up with an antidote."

"I don't care about my powers, Ziva."

"You don't?" she asked in confusion.

"No."

"Then what's bothering you?" she asked with a frown.

"Lenny."

"Oh, I see." And she did. She remained quiet, standing beside him, staring at the building across the street.

"I never knew he felt the way he did. If I had ..." he let the thought trail away.

She gave his hand a small reassuring squeeze. "I'm not sure it would have done any good, Craig. Lenny wants to believe what he believes. He needs to believe it to make his plans work in his mind. If you had changed the way you acted toward him, tried to talk to him about any of it, he would have found another excuse to use. In a way, I understand how he feels. His parents hated what he was, just like mine did." She shrugged. "Lenny has chosen to fight for recognition in his own way. I'm not saying he's right, but I do understand why he's doing it."

He gave a small nod of understanding. While he could see her point, understand what she meant, he still couldn't let it go. Couldn't escape that he had some blame in the way things had turned out. If he'd paid more attention, learned more about Lenny, maybe this could have been avoided. He turned away and let her pull him over to the car.

They had to find a way to defeat him, with or without their powers.

There was no way theycould allow Lenny to go forward with his plans. The results would be disastrousnot only for mutants but for non-mutants as well. They had a responsibility toeveryone to stop him, no matter how they were involved in this.