"I can't believe I left for a few hours and you guys go all anime with a giant crocodile." Dylan exasperated. "Which is very unbelievable, by the way."

    Justin clicked his tongue. "Last summer you were literally a vampire furry."

    Dylan blushed and his mouth gaped open. "Um excuse me-"

    "I watched my girlfriend punch it's face. It was super majestic." He added. "You were great babe."

    Sabine rolled her eyes as she leaned against the wall, sharpening a small knife. "You were great too boo."

    We were back in California. A few days had passed and so far everything in our little mutant-schooled community was calm. The world outside however was pretty much going up in flames. Will's outburst with the police had been photographed by a few bystanders and I had been informed by Azmus that we we had gone viral. Not viral enough for big news companies to notice, but viral enough so that the first wave of theorist that were sparked by Will were now basking in the glory of being right. It was also a pretty split issue, nobody knew who we were. We just kinda popped out of nowhere occasionally to fight people. Some people were with us, others were against, as long as we lived at Gifted we were safe though.

I gave the punching bag in front of me a swift kick, imagining it to be the police woman's shoulder or back. It made me feel a bit better. Besides hitting stuff always felt great. My spine prickled and and I was aware of Icie watching me from next to Sabine as the two girls exchanged knives.

"You know if you really wanna see some sick biceps you should see Dylan's." She suggested, smirking at me.

Dylan made a noise that sounded like he had chocked on his own saliva. He blushed and stuttered an incoherent sentence and furiously tugged his sleeves down. Justin, having the advantage of height and confidence, pulled them back up.

"Dude you're ripped!" He commented, and I mean, he wasn't wrong.

Dylan slapped Justin's hands away. "I am not! I just...use my arms a lot, to get around."

Justin waggled his eye brows at the blonde, even though there was no immediate determinable innuendo I could pick up. The cherry-faced Dylan however let out a shrill screech.

"I hang out with idiots." He muttered under he breath, rolling away from Justin.

Agreed. I gave the hanging sandbag a few more swift punches before a loud flapping and bursting through the doorway startled us all.

"You guys!" Will announced. "Mr. Wales want you, table now."

I would like to mention in the days the Hula Hoku kids have joined us, there have been a lot more indents in the table made by knives. Take from that what you will. Mr. Wales was holding a stapled together pack of paper with some swanky half-moon glasses on looking like he was about to give a science fair presentation. He had cooled off a bit now that we were back in the safety of his school, and no longer tore out his hair over Justin's (and others) antics.

I noticed it was just me, Will, Dylan, Sabine, Hayami, Genny, and Ryan, which was a weird mix. I mean I thought it was just us until I noticed Wi was in the background (we were in the kitchen again) carefully making lemonade and obviously NotEavesDropping™.

    "I bet you're wondering why I called you specifically and no one else. It's about information that Tyler and Tui retrieved for us. You can tell the others later but I figured you would want to hear if firsthand, first."

    "What?" Will asked cautiously.

    "The Lab get's most of it's money from Wellsfund, because of Mr. Damien. We've just found out that it's not enough however, so apparently a great deal comes from the families of the Modified Humans themselves." He explained, giving his stack of papers to pass around the table.

    "Wait what?" Genny laughed nervously. "How does that work? Who pays more money than they have to to have their kid opened up and dissected?"

    Mr. Wales inhaled. "See that's the thing. We know the Lab is tied to two major companies, Wellsfund and Gilligan Industries. I think it's safe to assume those bonds were probably made over Dylan and Will, sorry boys. Gilligan Industries handles vaccines and medicines. They have the parents sign a contract that, at first glance, merely makes it okay for them to use their products on the parent/or child. What is really is, is a contract signing over your child to the Lab. The family is billed monthly, but it's a lower price then the second option, which is how it happens half the time."

    "Well what about the other half?" Genny demanded, her voice had risen to a shaky level.

    Mr. Wales expression darkened. "It's a sick world out there, and some people are willing to do anything for cash. The other option, the parents are willing to give up their kid, in return they receive benefits like free insurance, healthcare, a lowered mortgage, etc. but they're billed by the Lab monthly for a much higher price."

    Genny, who was the current possessor of the mysterious pamphlet Mr. Wales had been holding, suddenly turned pale. "This list has my name on it, or at least my last name. My parents names."

    "It's a list of families that the Lab is leeching money from." Was Mr. Wales' final explanation. "I'm glad to say of all the kids I watch over here, yours are the only ones I could find."

    The packet was passed to me and I stared at the long list of names that went on for pages, and pages, and pages. A cold feeling settled in the pit of my stomach as I took in the sheer amount of them.

    "Are my parents in here?" I asked.

    Mr. Wales gave me a distressed look. "I'm afraid I don't know, I just figured you wanted to be here because you're the one who helped get it."

    "Then where's Tui?" I demanded. "She helped."

    "Sleeping, she's still feeling bad about Alex." Genny said numbly, grey eyes glazed over, Will put a wing over her shoulder comfortably.

    Alex. His name made my heartstrings twist. I felt guilty, but I knew I had to turn that guilt into something useful.

    "Okay, so this is pretty depressing." I began, thumbing the corner of the packet as I passed it along, "but what are we gonna do about it?"

    "What?" Ryan blinked.

"How are gonna use this to take down the Lab?" I asked again, making eye contact with Mr. Wales.

    "I'm glad your feeling up to it Tyler because the next part's harder than it sounds." He continued, "The parents or guardians whose went for the second option have the ability to back out of the deal, all we have to do is convince them to."

    "How do we know what option they chose?" Sabine inquired. "I'd rather avoid going back my guardians, thank you."

    "We don't, so we have to find your families and ask them. It's a good thing the sheet had addresses." Mr. Wales finished.

    I glanced around the table to see a mix of fear, mostly from Ryan and Genny, disgust from Sabine, and a quiet nervous look from Hiyami, who had been quiet this whole time. Dylan and Will both adopted the same cold and uncomfortable expression they usually got when parents were brought up. Wi, though in the background, appeared to be sending a number of protective and concerned glances Ryan's way as he stirred the lemonade slowly. I didn't care who were my parents were, they never bothered to show up and didn't appear to be coming anytime soon. I obviously didn't need them, and I was ready to kick butt.

    "We can do this guys." "I encouraged. "Think about it the long run, think about the stories we'll be able to tell our kids."

    Genny frowned. "I'm not sure if this story is PG enough for my kids."

    "You know what I mean." I sighed. "We're so close, the Lab's already past it's peak and we're so close to bringing it down. No more pain and suffering. No more hiding. I can feel it."

    There's was a few moments of silence where I cinematically heard a cricket chirping.

    "I'm down." Dylan announced. "Sign me up."

    He was honestly the last person I was expecting to side with me first.

    "Come on guys, Tyler actually has a point this time." He added, not even breaking face as he metaphorically jabbed my ribs.

    "Dylan I not exactly sure if you should-" Mr. Wales started.

    "If I should go with you guys? I'm coming, I'm involved in this as much as you guys are. I still have...a little bit of cool powers, I'm useful. Don't you dare say I can't come because I'm disabled," he stopped to do a wheelie for emphasis, "because I'm not fragile."

    Despite probably being super worried, for him, super worried for all of us, Mr. Wales grinned softly. "That's the spirit."

    "Me too." Hayami joined.

    After that, one by one everyone agreed to go hunt down our parents. Genny and Ryan being the last ones, and the most hesitant. I'm not sure why but whatever it was, facing it is better than not.

    I had a slight epiphany in that moment, that out of all the people I could have possibly ended up spending time and making friends with, these guys weren't really that bad.