I don't know how long this chapter will take, considering it took a long time to finish the last chapter and I wrote all day every day for the last week (I had a holiday, it's fine, I'm not sick or ditching school). Anyway, time is tight with school and I've got a test tomorrow that I don't really know how to study for, but I did anyway, and I just needed to write something. Also, Madison and Tyler are not flirting, they are teasing each other as friends. I realized as I wrote that part that they looked like they were flirting. If anyone ever flirts, I'll be a bit more obvious about it. Live long, everyone! From, EV :) EDIT: I'm back on vacation with tons of time planned for writing, although very little of it will be productive...but I'll still get another chapter out after this! Hopefully... Also, the song Madison sings in this chapter is from Top Gun Maverick, because that movie is awesome, and I've left a link up ^^^ there.

Soon after Madison agreed, Director Asher had ushered her to an elevator, although not before Madison had grabbed her latte, conveniently already in a to-go cup. 

Inside the elevator, the director had pressed a button for floor 58 and then settled into a statue-like position, standing straight and looking ahead at the dull elevator door.

Ah well. Madison thought. It's not like she wanted to talk to him anyway. Instead she focused on the music, she had always loved music, especially pop. The song that was playing was OneRepublic's "I Ain't Worried". She whispered the lyrics under her breath to calm herself down before she met "the team".

I'm at my best when I got something I'm willing to steal. Way too busy for them problems and problems to feel. No stressing, just obsessing with sealing the deal. I take it in, then let it go.

She stopped after this, when the director turned towards her with a curious look on his face. 

"Sorry," she said, curtly.

"No, no, it's fine. You're nervous. It's good to know the training you went through at such a young age hasn't brainwashed you into a soldier without feeling." Asher told her before turning forward once again. The song then changed to Rawhide, and Madison didn't think Asher would still enjoy her nervous singing to that one. 

To her surprise, she found she was wrong when the director began to mumble the lyrics himself, before noticing her staring and stopping.

Whatever misgivings Madison had about the director, the silence in the elevator was not nearly as stiff after this.

They exited the elevator into a room with no windows, but with corridors extending to the left and right, and a desk with a female figure, who appeared humanoid, excepting her shamrock green skin. She stood up as they enter, scanning their faces. Her mouth opened, and without moving, her cool business voice concluded, "Asher, Elijah. Clearance granted. Clark, Madison. Clearance granted."

Asher then spoke to her, quickly in an alien language. Thank you, Aizza.

She smiled, not having yet closed her mouth, and replied, just as quickly in the same language. I thank you for your thank you, but I do believe you should go forth before your agents set fire to anything. 

It was Zahemian they had spoken in, the language of the Zathinen race. Madison had taught herself through books and listening to Zathinens talk. She had done this with all of the most used alien languages, as well as a few more Earthly languages, such as French, Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish and others. 

She smiled at Aizza and addressed her. It's nice to meet you, Ms Aizza. I hope I don't prove to be too much of a bother, although I don't think I can make a promise in that regard.

The Zathinen seemed pleasantly surprised by the remark spoken in her own language. The director, on the other hand, wore the same curious look on his face that he had worn in the elevator. 

They were ushered down a red-brick corridor to a bronze-coloured door, with Aizza and Madison talking back and forth in Zahemian all the way. As soon as they reached the door, Aizza unlocked the door using the facial recognition tablet that Aizza popped out of the wall, scanned her face with, and replaced back into the indent, before bidding farewell and leaving. 

Asher gestured for her to open the door and Madison took a single breath before calmly pulling open the door to the faces of 6 people, around the same age as her, and one older man with short brown hair in curls and smiling blue eyes, whom she had met before. Jake Wiles. He had just finished folding a paper airplane, which he then proceeded to throw down the metal table to be caught by the boy with messy brown hair and heterochromia. From the depths of Madison's mind, his name was offered up. Tyler Holloway, alias Metamorph. 

Tyler unfolded the airplane and smiled at the message written inside, before the other two boys, Kieran and Leo, grabbed it and laughed as they inspected the inside of the airplane.

Ivy and Luna sat across from Jake and Jordan, and next to Kieran and Leo, who sat across from Tyler and the three empty seats next to him. There was a gap between Ivy and Leo, an empty seat. 

It was either sit next to Jake and join in the conversation with the girls, who were as girly as you could be growing up in PHETAS, or sit next to Tyler and join the boys. Madison loved her sister, and Ivy by extension, but she could never take too much of the conversation that happened between the two, so she chose the one next to Tyler. 

Leo and Kieran stopped laughing for a moment to greet her before going back to their teasing of each other. She noted how the teasing was cautious not to offend the other, but it still amused them both. Tyler's smile, on the other hand, had since faded, although he had a twinkle in his eye that suggested that he still found their banter amusing. 

"Hi." Tyler addressed Madison, keeping his voice even and relatively low. "I'm Tyler."

"Madison." She smiled slightly at him, something she didn't usually do with people she just met. 

"Nice to meet you, Maddie." 

"Madison." 

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, jokingly. 

"Nice to meet you too, Ty." 

His eyes widened ever so slightly in amusement, before returning. "Tyler."

"Yes, sir." Madison didn't really know what she was doing. She never joked with anyone like this. But Tyler seemed almost like a kindred spirit, someone who reserved himself, but wasn't completely without emotion. 

Asher then called the meeting to order. "Hello, everyone. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Elijah Asher, director of PHETAS. I realize some of you may not be acquainted with one another so we shall start with quick introductions around the table, just your first and last names, your alias and your powers."

Luna was first. "Luna Clark, alias Hydro, power Hydrokinetics, meaning I control water." 

"Ivy Sloan, alias Malware, power...there isn't a word for it, I can access any computer through my mind, although I still have to get through whatever firewalls there are in the computer. I override whatever is happening on the physical computer. Also, there's a certain range. I have to be within a 0.25km radius, so if the computer in question is on the 50th floor of a building, I'll have to be in the building to reach it. Also, the computer needs access to the internet." Ivy flicked her purple and blue hair over her shoulder and continued smiling, in that brilliant, white-toothed smile she always had.

The boys across from Madison and Tyler had composed themselves immediately after the director had started the meeting and the red-hair boy was the first of two to introduce himself. "Leo Herring, alias Voltage. power Electrokinesis, the ability to control electricity. All people of my race have electrokinesis, but only in an extremely small capacity. I am the first of my race to develop electrokinesis in a larger capacity." Leo's dark red hair was even more startling in person as it hung over his right eye. But his eyes were far, far, more startling. They were bright, bright blue, almost glowingly so.

Leo then nudged the boy next to him, Kieran. "Kieran Fox, alias Nightshade, power Chlorokinesis, the ability to manipulate and grow plants."

Without prompting, Tyler then introduced himself. "Tyler Holloway, alias Metamorph. My power is I can "create" any material out of thin air. I can only do two materials at a time, and I can only form it if it isn't too intricate or too large, so I can't make a building or anything. And I can only create materials that I know the chemical composition of. Rest assured, while I have limitations, I will still be helpful."

Tyler looked to Madison, who took her turn, swiftly, getting her information out quickly. "Madison Clark. I'm Luna's older twin sister, hence the shared surname. My alias is Midnight, and my power is the ability to manipulate darkness." She held up her hand and coiled a single ring of darkness around her arm. She knew the sight extremely well, not like black smoke, but like an endless pit or a black blanket smothering you. She then let it go, not wishing to scare anyone with it. Jordan had flinched slightly when she saw the darkness and inched a little bit away, until it was gone, and she was back to normal. 

Luna had to whisper to Jordan across the table, to tell her it was her turn. Her voice was quiet, but it had a certain quality to it, as if she was a predator stalking her prey with honey-sweet words. "Jordan Quinn, alias Griffin. I can turn into any animal, as long as it exists or existed at some point of time in the universe."

"Jacob Wiles, you can call me Jake. My alias is Flame, because I have fire manipulation powers! I kinda counter Luna's ability, I suppose." He actually stood up for this one, demonstrated his ability with a quick little flame on the top of his right pinkie finger, before sitting down. 

Jake was the last one to speak before the director clasped his hands together and declared, "Now that that's over with, we can get on to more pressing matter. Your mission objective and how this is to work."