The Marvin Mansion was tightly leathered with grief and anguish. Mornings and evenings passed relentlessly, inquiries made right and left, but search for the truth remained a mission impossible. Detectives and cops made their way through the demented house like it was some public property. Echoes of gaiety and glee dampened as the trouncing despondency planted it's flag firmly.

Priscita Marvin did not know what she was supposed to cry for — her lost child or the murder she committed. But her plaintive mien kept weeping and wailing to all the probation dodged, highlighting her oblivion.

"She is not a killer!" Priscita wailed in agony as Izra extended her bony hands to form a comforting clutch. The Alteiners had arrived at their neighbours house only after the police had left the crime scene, to avoid some rude remarks like "You have no rights" and the like. 

The siblings peeped through the ligneous windows and clinker fences vigorously for the past two days as curiosity cornered their powers. It was the very first time — the town and them — had witnessed an actual investigation. The mundane way of solving crime cases awed their magical bloods.

Arabella stroked the weeping mother's shoulder helplessly. A silent motion of comfort was the only thing that was required. Sympathetic words were only shrubs and herbs in the large land of solace, less enough to suffice the misery the mother racked. Despite that, the harrowing truth lingered within the bereaved house, inked in transparency and sidled through the perturbed vehemence, veiling from the ignorant humans.

The remaining superhumans snuggled themselves in the sapphire stained linen couch, daubed in guises of empathy and struggled to hide their vivid nonchalance. Arthur even yawned wantonly, encountering the habitual glower from his gentle mother.

"She — she — ," Priscita stuttered, suffocating in plain air, "She isn't capable of even cutting vegetables!"

The superhumans scrunched their features to a blank emoiji, as bridled titters made it's way out. Avril's subdued smirk gaily spread through his remorseless face, as he was also confused about what to laugh for — whether Priscita's lamenting irony or the gullible murderer undercover.

This time, the sniggering horde received a double espresso of glares from the mother-daughter duo. Izra and Arabella, ensconced on either side of Priscita, flinged stones of scowls before the wailing mother could notice.

As Priscita's unsettled melancholy elevated in wafts, Alan's surmise paced heavily. After spending five years of manipulation, his nimble brain dexterously ruled out the suspicion on the accused. The comprehensive psychology spawned in his veins manifested a deep forage behind the compact mantle concealed within the bleak house.

He kept glancing through the pastel-walled living room, scrutinizing for any possible clues to succour his inkling.

"Stop worrying, Priscita," Izra's airy benign deflected the swamped pine.

"Pain and misery are merely tests to our credence. Passing them with bravery and courage is what faith expects from the afflicted. Its you who should remain steadfast in your beliefs and stop snivelling all day! Take some action to find what actually happened!"

Her augmenting advice remained aphonic to the distressed mother. Priscita chose to remain silent, as none of her compassionate visitors had answers to her daughter's whereabouts. Her bereavement faded through the fibres of ignorance, falling into the deep pit of sorcery.

***

"Why are you being so stupid, Alan?" Arabella reviled, her lean arms folded across her svelte torso.

Departure from the depressed resulted in even more scepticism, as conflict ensued it's invidious track in the Alteiners' abode.

"What is even stupid in this?" Alan infuriated plainly. His tender features grimaced, tired of arguing with people who were illiterate of his hunch.

The rufous wooden staircase leading to the basement was temporarily barred as the siblings accumulated it's ingress in chaos.

Arabella stood with her arms opened, fencing her brother from entering her sentimental territory.

Izra arrived right on time to resolve an upcoming tussle. The jaded mother was done catering six enormously energized children; deep lines of wrinkles forming in her soft skin that sunk into the hollows of her malar bones.

"What is going on?" her stormy behest was ample to abate the ongoing feud.

"Alan wants to take a look at the control room," Abigail chimed, " the one in our basement."

"And I am proving his foolishness. That's it!" Arabella argued in vexation.

"What's wrong in that?" Alan battled amid the turmoil.

"Everything!" Adrius allied his twin, fueling Arabella's astonishment.

"Why bother to look at her control room when we have a whole headquarter to monitor the town?"

"Isn't this control room connected to all the others established in our town?"

"Even Abigail stopped talking gibberish, Alan," Arthur grumbled.

"Why did our cri-sors not sense and report Andrei's death?" Alan clamored his sardonic family, zipping their disdainful talks and casually spurning Arthur's sarcasm.

Cri-sors were the abbreviation for 'crime sensors' — a digital sensory chip invented by Arabella, which was implanted in the carotid arteries on either sides of their necks. It constantly reported any kind of crime occurring in the town, so that the superheroes could reach on time and save the day.

Washed in spumes of mutism, the caustic siblings contemplated the sanity raised. For the first time in the past three days, Alan made some sort of plausible sense.

Izra watched her children slowly merging as a single force, breaking the barriers of schism and uniting for the sake of goodness. She decided to boost their harmony.

"Alan has a valid point," she supported, her eyes dwindling in certitude.

The manipulating hero stood in temerity, his bare feet fixated at the precipice of victory. If there was anyone he believed would support his theory, it was his mother alone.

"If our cri-sors had been collectively switched off, then someone must have broken into Arabella's control room," his voice sounded braver.

"Why so?" a fervid Abigail inquired.

"The control to all our cri-sors is situated only in this room, not at the headquarters," Arabella conceded with compliance, her gutsy voice draining all the head weight it had held, superseded by a defeated tone.

The leaden sky seemed to part way for the truth-bearing sun to gleam tendrils of guidance. As the tepid shafts diffused a new sense of rationality in their abode, Avril fidgeted within the swarms of trepidation and terrible ire.

Avril never reckoned his hypnotizing brother to become his rival. His narrow-mindedness contemplated the brainy sister's suspicion, upon which he even devised various plans to divert her attention, as Arabella heavily doted on him. Watching Alan unfurl the mystery card by card, a lump of fear moulded it's way through his dainty heart.

He began manifesting silent engines of reticence— the only way to shun a potential suspicion that may arise against his feeble-looking figure.

"Get the keys, Ara," Izra's gentle adjure resonated as Avril's edgy physique steeled spunk and support to tackle any accusation charged.

Arabella steered the passage to the first laboratory her father had constructed for her powers to thrive and explore its intensity in a suitable atmosphere. Turning on the right switches, the small white cellar constructed with gigantic yet battered LED screens, currently displaying live recordings, and a mini-mechanical lab with barely any equipments, evolved with a faint soul.

It was Arabella's original abode, where the wonders of her power ebbed and flowed a clairvoyant odyssey of intelligence, her primary invention being the core reason for all crimes to be identified at it's beginning stage — the cri-sor.

Even though the name sounded archaic, it was this 1.5 cm lengthed chip, that marked her career as the senior surveillance officer and the deputy head of security under the Ministry of Defense.

Emotions were threads, dipped in dyes of memories and woven as flimsy fabrics in the heart. Only the heart wearing it can follow it's rhythm and ache along it's strings.

As the younger siblings, literally everyone born after the twins, gaped at the shabby shack-like-lab, Avril steadily trailed episodes of the methodical murder his hire had committed, pausing at his precocity.

Even though a part of his puny soul trembled upon creeps of confrontation, the evil aura within him extolled his mettle and nerve to break into this super-secretive room with deftness. He smirked subtly, while glimpsing the extensive panel of fluorescent-tinged control buttons, as the snobbish memory of identifying the right link to their cri-sors played in his brain.

The pensive siblings finally made way to the control panel, perceiving Izra and Alan, as they stood in dismay.

The cri-sor handle had been sleekly pushed towards the OFF sign, causing more tumult to mix into the over-cooked chaos.

"Who turned it off?" Adrius questioned foolishly, as if the culprit was standing right in front of him. Well, maybe.

Arabella's hand traced it's way to her aching forehead, as her confused brain took a shower in nervousness. Guilt is a chronic condition which is hard to be medicated once infected, and Arabella suffered from this fatal malady.

Fumes of resentment glowed in carmine, but Alan smiled inwardly. Catching the right train to verity, his ego coveted for remarks like 'Alan was right all the time.'

Izra stood appalled, her uncertain feet seeded in the soiled floor. The thought of an intruder breaking into the Alteiners was something much worser than shame. It meant the loss of safety.

Who would believe that the superhumans who shielded the town's safety and security were themselves in danger? And if the superhumans were in need of safety and security, who would tend to them?

Every nerve of the Alteiners erupted with flowing ire, as their ultimate reason for being created came under the limelight of futility. In an attempt to behave pragmatic, Adrius noticed something.

"CCTV!" he beckoned the starkly dangling tubular structure, heavily contrasting it's hawk sight notion.

With more than 102°F of guilt, Arabella hurtled to the cctv control unit and began tapping it's brittle buttons furiously.

In accordance to her activity, the large screen displayed the current visual —the five koalas  huddled closely to their mother.

"Check the footage for 4th March!" a sibling's signal echoed through the stilled room. It wasn't Adrius or Arthur. It wasn't even Alan, who's eyes were glued to the monitor.

It was Avril.

His anxious voice smoothly blended with the anticipating atmosphere as his brain flooded with conceit. Avril, you should try acting, his haughty mind joked.

Avril's signal encountered Arabella's nimble fingers, as the woman began frantically scanning the recorded footage.

Opening the long list in the screen, the Alteiners drowned in despondency.

"What happened?" Abigail questioned after analyzing their reactions. Her striving attempt to blend in as an elder and help them solve the mystery remained unnoticed as the family, except Mateo, stood in pure horror.

Fourth March was non-existent in the long list of dates.

The boy to blame cleverly recollected how  he had tampered the cctv footage. He invisibly patted himself for committing the first crime with little to almost no evidence.

"Who dares to break into our house and vandalize the control unit?" Arthur bawled uselessly. Pathetic pride filled the void within his teleporting torso and kept over-flowing at the most unsuitable moments.

"This has been cleverly planned," a coarse voice stated. Alan couldn't face his family anymore as a strong recipe of suspicion fed his burning rage. Someone who hated his friend had deliberately murdered through Pristine. Or someone who hated him.

As his sapphire eyes unconsciously met with his eldest brother, his reflexes began executing a familiar paradigm.

"Alan!" Adrius roared as he pressed his temple fiercely in pain. He crouched on his knees as the unbearable pain crumbled him to the ground.

Arabella rushed in concern, her siblings mimicking her deed. Izra watched the scene, eyes flooding in pure horror and disgust. She turned her torso to face her suspecting son.

"Alan! How dare you use your powers against Adrius? Do you suspect us now?" Izra hollered the remaining soul left in Alan. When worms of mistrust blighted her nurtured garden, no mother would tolerate a chance more. And Izra was no different.

"Mom! I didn't do it purposely! I —" Alan's plea faded as Izra paid no heed to him. The siblings assisted to make their elder brother stand, Avril sympathetically supporting his arms and followed their mother's commands to leave the room immediately.

Alan stood in guilt, fresh tears flowed through his stiff face. He kept glancing his mother — one chance to prove his innocence. Izra and Arabella turned the switches off, disregarding Alan's existence.

Reaching the trampled staircase, Izra clearly wanted to put one stop for all this havoc.

"I forbid anyone in this house to look upon this case until our ban has been lifted."

***

The winds chimed playing a melancholic tune, filling the abyss of condolences with more sorrow. Leaves danced in dismal grace to the nature's orchestra, their way of paying respect to the innocent dead.

Alan placed the freshly picked white chrysanthemums on the grave in front of him, nostalgia slashing his pitiful conscience. It felt like a minute ago, when he fought with Andrei for completing the thesis before him. He still wanted to fight with him, for leaving the world before life could begin.

"I am sorry, Andrei," the words hanging in the cliff of dejection fell into a greater abyss of remorse.

"I am sorry for being the celebrated superhero who was unable to save his best friend."

Alan stared intently at the flowers placed. He half-expected Andrei to come out of his grave and slap him for his stupidity. Fight with him. Tease him. Annoy him.

Things that appeared trivial were now dreams that had no possible path to reality.

The guilt and grief blazed his morality, his lips shut tight to ventilate the emitting heat.

The breeze blew past his impaired soul and ruffled hair, surprisingly carrying a familiar voice that whimpered in vicinity, averting his mourning.

Though his mind slapped him for being distracted, his prying ears shifted his face in the direction of the muffle.

Leaving the chrysanthemums safely with Andrei, Alan searched for the mundane presence.

Sprinting through the silent graveyard, Alan spotted a cowered figure, sheltering in the shade and garbling all the tears.

He stealthily walked closer and closer because he knew the person.

"Pristine?"