Elijah hummed as he played his violin. It had been a while since he'd picked it up to play and he didn't want his skills to slip. Reid walked to the door, looking in the room to watch Elijah. Elijah sighed as he lowered the bow, shaking his head.

"You can do it." Reid smiled.

"Holy- How long have you been stood there?" Elijah questioned.

"Four minutes and thirty-two seconds." Reid nodded.

"Why am I not surprised?" He sighed.

"What?" Reid chuckled.

"You always stand and watch me."

"I take you by suprise." Reid shrugged.

"All the time." Elijah nodded.

"I'm just silent, like a mouse." Reid walked in.

"Better not be a mouse." Elijah chuckled,"The boys would catch you."

"I'm smarter than them." He waved him off,"Play me a song."

"You want a song?" Elijah raised a brow.

"Get you back into it, just play a simple song."

Elijah nodded slowly, raising his violin and he began to play. Reid sat down, looking at Elijah as he listened. Elijah kept his eyes focused on Reid as he contiued to play, all he really wanted was to make him happy.

"I love it." Reid smiled.

"You do?" Elijah asked slowly.

"Yeah, it sounds great."

Elijah smiled, sitting down beside Reid.

"You're like a magician."

Elijah chuckled,"Seriously?"

"Well, definitely not better than me." He shrugged.

"Oh, of course not."

"I'll do a trick on you later with my cards." Reid pointed.

"You better." Elijah laid back onto Reid's lap.

"We can practice violin later, I'll help." Reid assured him.

"Thank you."

"But from what I did hear? It sounded great." Reid kissed his head.

Elijah smiled,"Thank you, baby."

*********************************

"I'm not learning baseball." Fleur shook her head.

"Come on, it'll be fun." Morgan told her.

"No way." Fleur chuckled.

"It will, trust me." He hummed.

"I want to stick to my baking and crafts, please." Fleur pointed,"Teach Elijah."

"Teach Eli?" Morgan blinked.

"Teach him."

"The kid is scared of baseball bats."

"And I'm scared of flying balls at my face."

Morgan sighed,"But you're decent enough at sports."

"Fine. Try me." Fleur hummed.

"You'll enjoy yourself, babygirl." Morgan assured her.

"Fine." Fleur stepped back,"Throw it."

Morgan smiled before he threw the baseball towards Fleur.

Fleur lifted the bat, swinging the bat but she missed,"If you bruise me, I swear to God."

"I won't bruise you doing this." Morgan shook his head,"Remember, you've just gotta feel it."

"Okay.. Go again." Fleur held up her bat.

Morgan nodded, picking up the spare ball and throwing it.

Fleur then swung the bat, hitting the ball,"Yes!"

"That's it, mama!" Morgan grinned.

"Go again!" Fleur laughed.

"Toss me the ball then." He chuckled

Fleur grabbed the spare ball, throwing it to him.

"You ready?" Morgan asked as he caught it.

"Ready."

"That's what I like to hear." Morgan smirked before once again throwing the ball.

"And..Hit!" Fleur hit the ball.

"That's my girl!" Morgan cheered.

"Y'know. Maybe sports is a new thing for me." Fleur shrugged.

"Hey, I'm always here if you want someone to practice with."

"I said maybe." Fleur chuckled.

"I know." He hummed as he walked over to her.

"You know what I am good at?"

"What are you good at?"

"Running." Fleur smirked and ran off.

"Hey!" Morgan laughed, running after her.

*********************************

"What we have is a school bus abduction which occurred at approximately one pm this afternoon." Morgan sighed as they spoke to the officers.

There had been an abduction of a bunch of middle school kids on a school bus.

"What we do know is that there were twenty-four students on board, along with the driver and a monitor." Rossi continued.

"GPS appears to have been disabled. Last known ping was a little over two hours ago." Morgan added.

"Highway patrol has traced the route it was last traveling but found no signs of any accidents." Rossi shook his head.

"We have helicopters and group units in the DC area working local search and rescue." Fleur crossed her arms.

"Which likely means we're dealing with more than one Unsub." JJ nodded.

"We've attempted to contact everyone on the bus but so far all calls have gone unanswered." Reid added.

"But we can confirm that the students dropped off at the first two stops have been accounted for." JJ assured them.

"The average school bus holds approximately eighty gallons of diesel fuel, making it possible for them to travel up to 550 miles on a single tank." Reid explained.

"Which is why we believe they're still within a two hundred mile radius." Elijah nodded.

"It could be a kidnapping, but we can't rule out anything from a terrorist act to a child trafficking ring." Blake explained as she walked with the higher ups.

"How does a bus full of kids just vanish into thin air?" One of them asked.

"It doesn't. Whoever got them has a two hour head start. We're treating this as a mass abduction. The SUV are outside and we'll set up our command post at Central High." Hotch ordered.

*********************************

"Okay, thanks." Garcia put her phone down,"Local PD says they just found a backpack full of the kids' cellphones half a mile from the second bus stop."

"Disarming the GPS, disposing of cell phones feels less random and more premeditated." JJ looked back.

"There were seven other buses from different schools on their route. Why targte this particular bus?" Reid raised a brow.

"Maybe a group of kids got tougher to pull it off?" JJ suggested.

"Waited for their friends to get off at an earlier stop, then made their move." Elijah sighed.

"Okay, I'm checking school disciplinary records, seeing if I can find any recent suspensions." Garcia looked up.

"It could be about a specific target and the other kids just got in the way." Hotch nodded.

That's when JJ got a call from the other car, "Alex, you're on speaker."

"Uh, I've been looking over the personnel files of the bus driver, Roy Webster. Something isn't adding up." She told them.

"What did you find?" Reid asked.

"Over the past three years, Webster had several altercations with students but was never formally reprimanded." Blake sighed.

"It sounds like the school hasn't told us the whole story." Fleur shook her head.

"We know how disrespectful some teenagers can be. Maybe he snapped." Morgan suggested.

"It could be payback for years of abuse." JJ added.

"What about the woman who was on the bus?" Reid asked.

"That would be Carol Roberts, retired teacher, assigned to monitor Websters bus six months ago." Kevin nodded.

"What's that about?" Rossi questioned.

"I took a bus all through high school. We never had a monitor." Kevin mentioned.

"Makes you wonder who she was there to keep an eye on, the kids or Webster?" Morgan shook his head.

*********************************

Garcia had found the signal for the bus, it was never disabled, just masked. It was less than a mile away from where they were so they headed to a barn where the ping was. SWAT busted open the door to the barn where they found the bus. They looked around for anyone but there was nobody in the barn or on the bus.

"Barn was registered to a Violet Burgin. She died a few months back. It's been abandoned ever since." An Agent walked over.

"Making this a perfect transfer point." Blake nodded.

That's when they heard a dog barking in the distance.

"They found something." Reid ran off.

When the group reached the shack that the dogs had barked at and entered they found.. A group of kids.

"Please don't hurt us." One of them leaned back, hyperventilating.

"It's okay, you guys are safe now." Elijah assured them before turning to the others,"There's only fourteen, we need to find the other ten."

*********************************

Fleur had sat down with one of the kids, Debbie, with Alex at the ambulance.

"Well, whenever I'm trying to remember important details, I find it really helps if I close my eyes and try to relax." Fleur suggested.

She looked down and closed her eyes, letting out a shaky breath.

"That's great." Fleur smiled,"You guys were on your way home from school. Can you tell me what happened next?"

"The bus had stopped.. He shot Mr Webster in the..." She shook her head.

"Okay, it's okay. Slow down..Let's go back." Fleur nodded,"Did you get a look at the man who shot Mr Webster?"

"No. He wore a mask."

"What type of mask?"

"Like a gas mask."

"Mhm.." Fleur nodded,"What happened next?"

"Thry both had guns. One walked up and down the aisle while the other one just stood there." She sniffled.

"So there were two of them?" Fleur asked,"Then what happened when you got to the barn?"

"They lined us up.. Our hands were tied, I was so scared.." She cried,"I wanted to run, but they had guns. They put collars around their necks.. That's when they started taking turns."

"Taking turns doing what?"

"Picking." She sobbed.

*********************************

"These guys are replicating a video game?" Morgan asked.

"In the game, you take over a form of public transportation. Subway, train, bus. That's how you get your players." Rossi explained.

"Wait a minute, you've played this game before?" Alex blinked.

"Well, I may have played it once or twice." He shrugged, "As I remember, the game consists of five players. Captain, lieutenant, a pair of soldiers and a pawn."

"Maybe the UnSubs picked them based on their personality type." Fleur suggested.

"Well, Sage and Trent are both athletic. So they would've been considered lieutenants." Morgan pointed.

"Wendy would most likely have been considered rhe pawn. They preselected these kids." Rossi realised.

"Probably got details about their lives from their social media sites. Most teens don't use privacy settings. Anyone can gain access." JJ nodded.

"They planned their attacks and struck the bus when it was most vulnerable." Alex sighed.

"That explains why the Unsubs only needed ten of these kids and left the rest behind." Morgan shook his head.

"So how do the collars fit into this?" JJ asked.

"They're used to keep your players from straying from their mission. The object of the game is to destroy as mamy of your opponents as possible. The one with the highest body count wins." Rossi explained.

*********************************

"My captain wants an update. He wants to release a statement." The officer sighed.

"We're just concerned if we release certain details that we'll have copycats." Hotch told him.

"Can you give me something? What kind of people are we dealing with?"

"Well, based on the Unsubs' behavior at this point, we believe they suffer from an extreme gaming addiction." Elijah began.

"They're avid gamers, involved in the multi user online first person shooter game, Gods of Combat." Rossi handed over a copy of the game.

"And like any addiction, this took over their lives and became an obsession." Hotch sighed.

"We think that this video game aggravated a pre-existing affinity for violence." Morgan continued.

"Then something blurred the lines between fantasy violence and real violence." Elijah nodded.

"They've managed to depersonalise these kids as a way of rationalising the body count." Rossi pointed.

"And playing this game taught them to be methodical and dangerously sadistic." Hotch crossed his arms.

"The fact that they're mimicking specific and unique elements of this particular game will help us predict their behaviour." Morgan added.

"They probably met online." Elijah leaned against the desk.

"We think that these UnSubs chose these paticular kids because they displayed certain traits that matched the characters from the game." Rossi explained.

"These kids are motivated and positive when the game goes the way they want it to." Morgan told him.

"On the other hand, if the game doesn't go as well, they will be the opposite..Blinded with utter rage." Rossi finished.

*********************************

JJ sighed as she looked at the board,"It just doesn't make any sense. If they are siblings, how do you explain the gaps in time when they weren't logged in at the same location?"

"Yeah, it looks like it happened several times a year, sometimes from different states." Garcia typed.

"Maybe their parents got divorced." Reid suggested.

"Maybe their parents got divorced." Garcia gasped,"Leave it with the genius to come up with the obvious.. Here we go! Joshua and Matthew Moore. They both went to Central High. Their parents worked two jobs each to make ends meet. Led to a messy divorce. Joshua went to live with his dad in Arizona. Matthew stayed with his mom in DC."

"That's how they knew when to strike. They probably rode the same bus route." JJ sighed.

"Long hours, different schedules. They were latchkey kids. Video games became their sitters." Morgan nodded.

"As they got older, they became more competitive and it became all about bragging rights." Reid continued.

"This game became the core of their sibling rivalry." Fleur sighed.

"Only it wasn't just a game." Morgan shook his head,"Gods of Combat was their one comstant connection to one another."

*********************************

Kevin walked into the room where Reid, Alex, Fleur and Elijah were.

"Picked up a ping on the ELF. It's emanating from somewhere in this twenty five mile radius, west of Bolivar." He pointed at the map.

"What fits?" Blake asked him.

"Well, there's a few old factories and a couple of bunkers from the 70s." Kevin answered.

"What's this?" Fleur pointed to a place on the map.

"The old paper mill." Kevin told her.

"You know, given the size and location, that could be the perfect spot." Reid looked up.

"I'll go pull the schematics." Kevin hurried off.

"Yeah, you do that." Elijah mumbled.

"Hey." Fleur mumbled, nudging him,"Remember, we need to be nice."

*********************************

They had caught the two boys, although.. One of them was shot dead by Morgan, the other being arrested. They had saved most of the kids.. Although not Trent. Elijah and Rossi had made it a sort of mini tradition where every now and again, Elijah would spend the night at Rossi's with tonight being no different. Elijah had walked upstairs to find Rossi, although he wasn't in his room.

"Weird." Elijah muttered to himself as he contiued looking for him,"Papà?"

That's when he heard Rossi in the game room where the pool table was.

"Don't tell me you're playing pool by yourself." Elijah shook his head as he opened the door.

"You fucking- Argh!" Rossi groaned.

"Woah, language." Elijah chuckled.

"Figilo." Rossi sighed,"You scared me."

"What the hell are you doing?" Elijah raised a brow.

"I'm playing Gods of Combat." He pointed.

"I won't lie to you.. That time you hung out with Seaver to play video games, I really didn't believe you." Elijah blinked,"Guess I was wrong."

"I'm a pro."

"Are you now?"

"Honestly, you should see my skills." Rossi nodded,"Join me."

"Rossi, I don't even know how to play." Elijah shook his head.

"Literally- Imagine it's someone you really hate and you shoot them." He told him.

"Right. Kevin." Elijah nodded as he sat beside Rossi.

"Kevin?"

"Kevin Lynch."

"Y'know what? Kevin will do."

"Now... How the hell does this work?" Elijah picked up a controller.

"It explains it for you." Rossi assured him,"Don't worry."

"Right.. Right." Elijah nodded slowly.

"Let's kill Kevin Lynch." Rossi hummed.

"I've been waiting for this day a long tine." Elijah grinned.