"Hey Lucas? What do you think I would be best at, weapons-wise?" Damon asked when Lucas picked up the phone after two rings. Lucas Young has his own phone because he has a lot of money. His father works at CNN as a producer for the daily news. "Why do you ask?" Lucas responded confusingly.

"Just curious."

"I don't know. Umm ... You were always good at darts."

He was right. Damon used to have a dart board as a kid and had a set of darts. Every few weeks, Lucas would sleep over for the weekend and they would have dart competitions. "Near-perfect accuracy," Lucas had said. Damon put the phone on speaker and set it on his bed.

He headed to his closet and sifted through his things and eventually found a ziplock bag full of darts. "You know what, Lucas? I'm gonna tell you why I need to know. Are you ready?" "I guess ..." he responded awkwardly. Damon took the phone off speaker and whispered,"I'm gonna find out what happened to my parents. I have some leads, and I think I can find out what happened to the other missing people, as well."

"Oh, hell, no! You do realize you might die, right? Or you might be discovered by the authorities and arrested. There are several negative possibilities that have a huge chance of happening." Lucas exclaimed. "I know, I know, but ... Don't you wanna find out what happened to your mom?" Something Lucas and Damon had in common: no mother. His mom was never found by anyone. Ever. She just disappeared off the face of the earth. "Well, yeah, but not like that. I'd rather have the cops come and say what happened. Not on a note beside your dead body." Lucas explained. "You know what, Lucas? I don't need your permission. This is what I want to do. If I die, so be it. I'd rather die in my youth finding out what happened instead of never knowing at an elderly age. Just make sure not to tell anyone about this, ok? Thank you." Before his friend could respond, Damon hung up and put the phone on its stand.

   After heading back in his room, Damon figured that if he was gonna find out how to find his parents and the other missing people, he should probably find out where some of them were last seen. He picked one at random: Derek Richardson. A single man in his early thirties who worked at AT&T. He was last seen driving his company-issued car near an abandoned lot near the building that used to be a Wal-Mart. Damon remembered when his mom would take him shopping there ... No. He must focus on his mission.

Damon decided to go to the lot. He didn't have to worry about witnesses, as the lot is near a field that used to be a trailer lot. It's sort of a really depressing area, really.

Damon needed a suit since he knew he was gonna be in close combat. He grabbed a Nerf vest he had from when he was little and cut out the slots that hold the bullets and inserted his darts into them. He also cut out the Velcro and attached the darts to it. He had enough straps to put two of them on each arm and leg. He sure did have enough darts for them, too. He asked his older brother once he got back from work if they could go thrift shopping for clothes. An hour later, he was back home with a leather jacket, ski mask with no mouth hole, sunglasses, small flashlight, and black jeans. "Jeez, man, why so much black?" Zach questioned as he handed him the bag. "You goin' goth or something?" His reply was simple: "Nope; just a phase."

Damon went straight to his room and and dumped all his stuff on the bed. After making sure he had everything he needed, he strapped the darts to his arms and legs. Oh, wait! he thought. He can't fight with darts in hand-to-hand combat. He grabbed some Nerf holsters and stuck kitchen knives he stole from the kitchen in them. He figured they would fall out, so he took black tape, put the holster on his legs, and taped the knives down. Now, all he needed to do is get to the spot.

  Damon grabbed his black backpack that had six pockets that all had a lot of space. He grabbed his darts and stuck them in the pocket that holds earbuds. After putting his clothes in the second-largest pocket, he turned on his iPad and opened Notes so he could type up all the places where the victims were last seen. Then, he put the iPad in the largest pocket. Since the kitchen knives were in different slots, he stuck them in two different slots that are on the sides of the backpack. Finally, binoculars. They went on the outside pocket. He figured he needed an excuse for leaving the house, so he came up with one.

   As soon as Zach got back from work the next day, he went over to him in a rush.
"Can I go over to Lucas's place so we can catch up? We haven't seen each other in a while. Also, he got the new Call of Duty game and X-Men: Apocalypse!"
"Alright, alright, you can go. Just be back tomorrow by, say, three?"
"Yes, definitely!"

  Damon ran out of the apartment, hopped on his bike, and flew up the roads. Lucas lives nearby, but he wasn't heading there. He was going to the lot. As he passed the mailboxes, he saw where you enter and exit Dunwoody. A car was already leaving when he got there, so he just piggybacked his way out.

   The lot was about six miles away, so Damon had no trouble getting there before sunset. Once he got there, he saw three black cars parked outside the building. What in the world? he thought. He found some tall grass and let the bike fall to its side there. He pulled out the binoculars he packed and held them to his eyes. The tire tracks indicate they swerved and ran in different directions after getting out of their car. Another thing he noticed was that one of the tracks from one of the vehicles kept going after two went around the building in opposite directions.

Derek.

   As Damon hurriedly changed into his vigilante suit, he witnessed a helicopter fly over the building and hover over it. Two ropes went down along with a grenade to blow the ceiling off. Men went down those ropes and dropped into the building. Damon heard gunfire in the building after that. But why would Derek have a gun? He needed to find out.

  Damon finished changing and ran to one of the side entrances. Since Damon did not own a gun, he strapped two darts to the top of each wrist, so he could flick his wrist at the right momentum so darts would replace guns. He opened the door ever so slightly so he could see. Every few seconds, a man would dart from aisle to aisle. None of them had food since it was closed down.

He decided to watch more to see who was on the heroic and villainous side. Then again, he was sort of in-between, so he went on in.
   To avoid detection, he stuck close to the walls. He could hear bullets flying through the air, puncturing bodies, and grunts as they fell to the floor. Since the shooting never really stopped, he figured Derek was kicking ass and taking names. But why would he be shooting them? He was supposed to be the victim here.
   Damon's heart skipped a beat as a he saw a man crouching while going down an aisle. Damon stood slowly and walked as silent as he could towards him. As he neared him, he gripped his chin with his right hand, and forehead in his left, and snapped his neck. Damon grimaced. Sorry, sir. It was you or me. He could tell that he wasn't Derek because this man looked like the government agents coming in.

A few people must've heard the snap, so he could hear footsteps and voices coming his way. He wiped away a tear and sprinted as fast as he could, zig-zagging between the bare aisles. He found the family bathroom and locked the door behind him. As he hid, thinking about what he was just forced to do, he could hear blows landing outside. After the fighting stopped, the door was slammed down and one man was standing there: Derek.

Then, he pointed a gun at him.

"Freeze!"

"Already frozen!"

"Hands up!"

"Wait, wait, wait! Derek? Derek Richardson?"

"How do you know my name?"

"Missing persons case. Six years ago."
Derek sighed and lowered his weapon. "Get up, I'm not gonna hurt ya." Damon relaxed and stood up. "Who are you? Why did you come looking for me?" Damon took a deep breath and said,"I'm looking for the truth behind Peter and Jessica Cro." He took off his ski mask and continued, "My name is Damon Cro, and I want do discover the truth behind my parents' disappearances and several others'. You are one of them."

"Seeing as how you know this much already and you look like you're the kind of person who can keep secrets, I'll tell you." Derek leaned against the wall, preparing to tell someone he met not more than a minute ago what happened to him six years ago. Damon was ready to listen. "Kid, I've read that newspaper. I've never worked for AT&T. I was recruited by the CIA right out of college. That was my cover. I've been doing the same thing you're doing; trying to find the truth. My real name is Finn Franklin, and I knew your parents."

"What?! How? They both worked security for BroadSpire!" Damon questioned. "No, they didn't. That was their cover. They met each other through the CIA. They disappeared on an assignment. George Tucker. He was a biologist who wanted to improve the human race. He kidnapped innocent children to experiment on. Like the nerdy version of Slender Man. Anyway, the experiments weren't working, so he destroyed the test subjects," Finn explained grimly.

"Wait, you're saying he--" Damon was cut off mid-sentence when Finn interrupted,"He incinerated them. So, he decided to experiment on himself. We were sent to stop him, since the FBI didn't have the firepower. Us and a few others were put on this assignment. Only I made it out alive. George had turned himself into an old witch of a creature that could deform his molecules and place them in order somewhere else. Or, in other words, he could teleport."

"Finn, we share a common goal. We might be able to help each other. I have the brains, you have the brawn. Tell me, how about we find these people together?" Finn thought hard for a long time. Finally, he came to a conclusion:

"Yes."