It was difficult to truly tell anything about the room. But that might have been for the best, for even if you could've seen the room, there wasn't much to tell. It was big, it was dark, with thirty or so people sitting around one giant table. Arguing.

And, from the sounds of it, this was far from the first time.

"We move NOW!" Cried a large man with horns protruding from his cheeks.

Only one spot at the table was vacated. But, for some reason, everyone kept glancing at it anxiously, as if at any second, it would be filled. And they did not want whoever it was, to intrude on this conversation.

"You forget one thing, Clift," said an overweight man in a large chair. "We don't have Dare,"

"We don't need Dare," scoffed a teenage boy with a sleeve of tattoos. "My father would just as well take his place, Boss,"

Boss glared at him "Your input is duly noted Jake, but it's not Dare's presence that is required. It is his knowledge. After three years of fighting by Skelitin's side, he knows the boy better than any of us,"

"Dare had his chance," a teenager at the other end of the table announced. "Eighty years ago! And we've been stuck here waiting for him ever since. We had Scary and him on the run since the beginning. We don't need the extra wait,"

It was Ty, the merciless bodyguard, and go-to hitman for the ruthless killer in the seat before him: a nine year old with dead eyes, and dark pigtails. Katherine Black.

"What about Match, and Stitches?" Insisted a wizard at the far end. A frail dame by the name of Ava. "They were fantastic at tracking and neutralizing Da-"

"What is this?" A whisper cut through every voice in the room, followed by an intense silence. The voice was so quiet that he barely produced an echo, but bloodthirst and death were etched in every corner of it.

Nobody had noticed a large figure appear beside the largest chair at the head of the table.

Even Boss averted his gaze. He glanced at the red haired girl to his right, and motioned that she do the same.

Everything froze as the newcomer surveyed the scene. Even the clock seemed to tick softer than usual. He pulled his chair back with a deafening scrape, and sat down. But his form was intimidating all the same.

He scanned the table. "Go ahead. Tell me," he hissed quietly.

"We were just thinking-" Clift began.

"We?" Boss coughed.

"Some of us were thinking," Clift corrected himself, shooting a glare at Boss. "That it might be for the best if we moved forward without Dare,"

"Is that so?" The man asked. He seemed to debate this idea, tracing the rim of his glass with his finger. "Stand up if you agree with this... adjustment of our plans,"

Clift rose out of his seat. But when nobody followed his lead, a panicked look entered his eye. "I-It was mostly Red's idea,"

Boss put his hand protectively across the girl's chest. "My daughter had nothing to do with this, you cowardly bucket of scum!"

"I'm running out of patience," their leader hummed, tapping his foot under the table.

"Well, do we really need to wait another thirty or forty years for the Child of Stone the set Skelitin free, just so that we can hunt him down again?" Clift demanded. "Or can we just find Skelitin and put an end to him while he's immobile?"

"What's my name?" The man asked.

"S-sir?"

"What... is my name?" He repeated. "I won't ask you again,"

"Life," Clift answered.

"Correct," Life rose from his seat. For a few hour-long seconds, he stared down Clift with eyes that were permanently filled with hate. "Why do they call me that, Clift?"

"Because you are what you eat?" Clift guessed, nervously.

"Close enough," Life replied. "But not exactly. You are what you control," he reached under the table and retrieved a lethal looking staff with two prongs on the end, shaped like the letter U.

Life made his way swiftly over to Clift. Then he quickly fit Clift's neck between the two prongs on the end of his staff, bent him backwards over the table, and stabbed the prongs into the tabletop.

Life's gazed into his minion's terrified eyes, with burning hate. "You seem to have lost your place, Mr. Elingway. Because only my superiors change my plans,"

Most of the faces around the table showed confusion. Jake looked at Red, but she only made a face and shrugged. Boss elbowed her and motioned her eyes back to the table.

"You don't seem to recall my superiors Mr. Elingway," Life noticed. "You shouldn't. I killed them all," he forced the staff further down, squeezing Clift's neck tighter. "Would you like to be my superior, Mr. Elingway? Would you like to meet them?"

"No... Si...Sir" Clift squeaked, his neck turning purple.

"Very well," he leaned down and whispered in Clift's ear. "Than we shall go with my plan?"

Clift nodded the best that he could, clawing at the staff in panic. Life freed him, and Clift collapsed in a heep on the ground, choking and gasping.

SLAM!

The door at the opposite end of the room flew open, wind and leaves came rushing in, and a stranger stepped inside. With a flick of his wand, the door shut behind Dare. And he smiled evilly at the crowd. "Well you all haven't aged a day,"

Dare wiped his soaked, honey blonde hair out of his face and glanced around the table. His wiry frame was pronounced by his height and the way his wet clothes stuck to his body.

With a flick of his wrist, Dare sent Jake stumbling out of his seat.

"Watch it," Jake snapped. He glared at Dare with a look so full of hate, that he'd have melted this man into a puddle if hate had that ability.

Dare pointed at the jacket hanging on the back of the chair. "This spot has been claimed for longer than you've been alive, shrimp," he cocked his head and looked Jake over. "Who even is this?"

"A lot can change in eighty years," Boss replied, gazing Dare, as if he was ghost that would disappear any second. Most of the room was still shocked to see him. "That's Rivet's son,"

Dare stepped over Clift, and stared at him curiously for a second, before donning the coat and having a seat. "Looks like I've missed a lot. Someone catch me up,"

"Well," An unusually large man by the name of Trevor, scrunched up his forehead as he recalled the last eighty years. "After you left, Monica and Rivet disappeared for a long time. Rivet returned with a new son, Jake. But Monica was lost at the hands of some of Skelitin's followers. Boss had a couple daughters as well,"

"Hold on..." Dare looked at Red and Jake. "I'm guessing there's some kind of spell in place to keep you all from aging while I was gone. So why aren't they still babies?"

"The spell was put in place to protect those who matter," replied a dark wizard at the far side of the table. "In other words: adults. So when they came of age, they stopped aging,"

"You didn't ask about Katherine though," Ava reminded him, gesturing at the unnervingly deadpan girl at the far end. "She's been nine years old since the day we met her,"

"Ty?" Dare addressed the bodyguard.

"It's a curse. She'll always look like a child," Ty responded evenly.

"Eventually, we hunted and disposed of most of Skelitin's followers," Boss continued, ignoring the interruption. "A few escaped our grasp and disappeared though. Oscar, Simon, Luft, Aid, Blaze and his nutcase father, to name a few. Most importantly: Nico and Marcus,"

"We've been waiting on your ass for the past eighty years, for the most part," Jake seethed, staring daggers into Dare's back.

Dare stood up and turned to face Jake. "Do you have a problem with me?" Dare asked him, with a quirky grin. "Because if you want to fight, I'll cut the tongue right out of your mouth and hang it above your bed to dry. Then I'll cut your lips off and send them to you for Valentine's Day with a little card that says 'KISSED MY ASS',"

Jake dove forward and caught Dare's neck. Dare took Jake by the shirt and slammed him against the wall, several times.

"Hey!" The Trevor jumped up, and Clift crawled to the side, in an attempt to avoid being stampeded. But nobody intervened.

Jake pressed his thumb against Dare's windpipe, and Dare pinned Jake's head to the wall and punched the side of his face until his ear began to bleed.

"Enough," Life snapped, he swung his staff down between the two, and they backed away from each other, panting.

Jake wiped the blood off with a shrug of his shoulder, wincing, as the action brought tears to his eyes. All the while, glaring bloody murder at the ground. Dare cleared his throat several times, then sat back down with a smile, as if nothing had just taken place behind him. Life also returned to his seat.

"Jake, back up against the wall," Life informed him. "You have no place at this table,"

Jake growled, but said nothing, and backed up. Clift got up, off of the floor, and returned to his seat.

"So where is that robot, and his useless first born?" Dare asked casually, with a slight gravel to his voice.

"Rivet-"

The door swung open again, and Rivet entered, with a slightly dazed Snakeye following in his wake. Rivet spotted Jake standing against the wall and gestured Snakeye to join his brother.

"Scary Skelitin has returned," Rivet announced, then he gestured at Dare "As you have no doubt heard by this point,"

"We assumed," Life hissed in reply. "Did you dispose of him?"

"No," Rivet replied. "Endangering Figure #27 showed up at the last moment, and caught me by surprise,"

Everyone glanced at a group of photographs, pinned to the wall above the door. Most of them had large burn marks covering their images, but a few were unscathed. And one of which was Endangering Figure #27:

Name: Simon McWerter
Age: 19
Hair: Red
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Talents: Electricity, super speed, persuasive
Weakness: Often a moron

The other posters were mostly distanced pictures of enemies while they were sneaking around, but Simon was merely staring at the camera and posing as if he was in a school photo shoot.

His cheeky smile made most of them cringe. Except Dare. The longer Dare looked at the image, the more he began to focus. He blinked several times, and the maniacal grin on his face began to fade. What am I doing? Why am I even here? Isn't Simon my friend? Why am I hunting him down?

Suddenly, a beam of light struck the picture that had brought Dare out of his daze, leaving a scorch mark where the smile had been.

Life lowered his staff and looked at Rivet. "Make it so,"

Rivet nodded and stood back against the wall to Life's right side. The look in Dare's eyes returned to their normal sanity level, of little to none.

"Rivet, Jake, and Snakeye will follow Endangering Figure #27. Hunt him down and kill him. But watch him first. See if he leads us to anyone else who might be hiding," Life announced. "How is he traveling?"

"On foot, Life," Rivet replied. "With the Child of Stone, and Skelitin's unconscious body,"

Life smiled. "Excellent work. EF #27 can't run too fast with those two in tow. Dare?"

"We need to go see Oscar. If Scary is injured, that's no doubt where they'll be heading,"

Life pointed to Dare, the dark wizard, and the female beside him. "Dare, Lutherious, and Ava, will go for a visit to our old friend Oscar. Dare will be in charge. And take Red with you,"

Boss sat up in alarm. "Uh, sir, I don't think that's such a good idea,"

Life rose an eyebrow, and clutched his staff with white knuckles. "Oh? How so?"

Boss fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair. "She, uh, she's not good enough to be on a mission yet. She'll probably do more harm than good, you know? She's tiny and thin. Way too weak. She'll probably hold back the whole team. And she's very inexperienced,"

Red stared at her father, affronted. "Dad!"

"It sounds to me like she's eager to please," Dare chuckled, leaning over to wipe Jake's blood off of his fist, onto Jake's shirt.

Jake looked at Red in alarm, and silently mouthed NO.

Boss leaned over and whispered to Red. "That man is crazy, Red," he eyed Dare. "You can't go on a mission with him. Who knows what he'll do to you!"

"I can handle myself," she hissed in return. "He can't be all bad anyway. Everybody has a conscience, somewhere,"

"No, Red, not this one-" Boss insisted.

Red stood up and turned to Life "I'll be there,"

Boss and Jake exchanged a look of alarm, and Dare smiled at them each individually. But it was far from a reassuring smile.

"Excellent. One last thing," Life rose his staff and Clift shot up against the ceiling, then he slammed back down onto the table. With a swing of his arm, Life broke a large hole in the ground.

"No!" Clift screamed. "No! I'm sorry! I'll do better, I swear! You are Life, you know best! Always!"

He slammed Clift down into the hole. And Life's expression showed no remorse as he turned to face the rest of them. "My word... is final,"

"No, please! I'm sorry-"

Life swung the staff, and buried his follower alive.

Then he turned to Jake. "There. You can have his seat,"