Mark got out of bed to his annoying alarm clock.
“It’s already seven?” he whined as he threw his pillow at the alarm clock.
His alarm clock was still beeping though so he had to get out of bed and turn it off.
Mark was a sixth grader in Denver. He lived only about a mile and a half away from Denver City.
As he got ready he hurried through everything, until he got to combing his dirty blond hair. He needed to get it perfect, as usual.
“Mark!” yelled his mom. “You need to leave for school. The bus will be here any second.”
“Ok!” Mark ran down the stairs to grab his stuff as he headed out the door.
The bus stop wasn’t very far away, and after a little bit of walking, Mark could see it. The bus had just arrived. Mark sprinted toward it as fast as he could. But the bus started moving to the second stop.
“No!” yelled Mark.
But luckily the bus driver saw him then and stopped the bus. Mark barely made it.
When he got on he went to his usual seat, row four right side. It was right over the heater, so he and his best friends always sat there.
Mark, Johnny, Jake, and Sam were all best friends. But Johnny always ran to school. He was very fast. Every day he’d leave for school not much earlier than the bus would arrive at the bus stop, and he would beat the bus to school.
It was lucky for the other three that Johnny ran to school because people in their bus were only allowed to go three to a seat.
“What took you so long?” asked Jake.
“Probably took to long doing his hair,” Sam joked.
“Very funny Sam,” said Mark. “But yeah that is what made me late.”
“Knew it!” said Sam.
“I can’t believe your luck!” said Jake. “The bus is never this late.”
“I know it’s crazy I made it on time. I get it!” Mark finally said.

When the three of them got to school they saw Johnny waiting for them by the doors, as usual.
“That bus is so slow,” Johnny complained.
“How’s track going for you?” asked Jake.
“Great!” said Johnny excitedly. “I made districts for all four of my events, 200, 400, 800, and 1,600.”
“Wow,” said Mark. “That it way too much running.”
All four of the friends played different sports and were amazing at them. Mark was on the A team for basketball and won every game, Jake played soccer and was the best Mark knew of, Sam was the quarter back for their school’s football team, and of coarse Johnny was a great runner.
The four of them also all had their own codenames. Mark was Dust Storm, Johnny was Blizzard, Jake was Hurricane, and Sam was Tornado. Together they were the disasters. People called them the disasters before they even came up with their codenames. In fact that was how they met.

It was the first day of middle school, Mark remembered. He got up at 6:30, an hour before he had to leave for school. As usual he spent a ton of time on his hair. He wanted to get it perfect for his first day of sixth grade.
He didn’t know many people when he got to school, and the people he did know weren’t like him at all. They were just normal students, who didn’t like school and wanted to go home. They were boring. Mark wanted to make friends who wanted to have fun, like him.
Then he saw some people who were climbing up to the top of the school during lunch break. They invited Mark to join them. At first Mark thought he definitely wouldn’t do it, but he noticed the people doing it actually looked quite fun and he figured he could make friends with them. There must have been about fifteen of them hanging out up there.
When the bell to go inside rang, Mark said, “We should probably go in now.”
But a guy who seemed to be the leader of their group, named Thomas said, “No we’ll be fine. We do this all the time and never get in trouble.”
“Ok…” Mark said nervously.
Suddenly Mark noticed one of the staff members walking around the school, who stopped when she noticed Mark and the others. She called for more staff members.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Mark told the others.
“Don’t worry we know a spot,” said Thomas, smiling.
They all ran across the roof to the other side of the building. There was an open window right below them. Thomas hung off the edge of the roof and swung into the storage room. The others did the same.
When Mark was hanging off the roof about to swing in, they could hear staff members running around the school towards where Mark was. Right before Mark swung in, Thomas came over and closed the window.
“Sorry,” Thomas said. “There’s not enough room for you in here.”
“No!” yelled Mark, right as the staff saw him hanging off the roof. “You can’t just leave me hanging! Literally!”
“Wow!” some of the staff members said, looking up at Mark.
Mark was able to pull himself back onto the roof and take a look at everyone who was watching him.
One lady stepped forward and said, “I can’t believe it Mark Roberts. First day of middle school and you’re already getting detention.”
What Mark couldn’t believe even more than the fact that he was getting detention, was that she knew his last name. And even that she knew his first name.
Mark walked with some councilors to the detention room after school was over. He couldn’t believe Thomas and his friends would just betray him like that.
Right before Mark walked into the detention room he saw Thomas again walking outside with his friends. Thomas noticed that Mark was looking at him, so he decided to come up to Mark. For a second Mark thought that Thomas would actually apologize to him. Of coarse, he was wrong.
“Hey Mark, how was your first day of school?”
“Best day of my life,” Mark sarcastically said back.
“So anyways, I just want you to know that if you get me in trouble you will regret it for the rest of your life!”
“Sure, I’d do anything for such a great friend like you!” Mark again said sarcastically.
Thomas glared at Mark as he walked out of the building.
When Mark was in the detention room he saw three other sixth grade boys. He recognized them from some of his classes.
“Well would you look at that!” a councilor said. “Four disasters on their first day of middle school.”
After away of getting to know each other, Mark, Johnny, Jake, and Sam all became best friends. And after they’d been given the name The Disasters, the four of them actually liked it and decided they wanted to make codenames for each other. Mark was Dust Storm, Johnny was Blizzard, Jake was Hurricane, and Sam was Tornado.
“We all have different abilities too!” said Mark excitedly. “Sam’s the strong one, Jake’s the smart one, Johnny’s the fast one, and I’ve got the good looks.”
They all laughed.
“I don’t know,” said Sam. “I think I’ve got the strength and the looks.”
The other three laughed again.
Sam’s hair was kind of like Mark’s, only a little longer and pure brown.
That day in detention was one of their best days of their life. Other than having the teacher there yell at them, saying things like, “Stop having fun! This is detention!”
Mark, Johnny, Jake, and Sam all knew they’d be best friends after that day.

Mark had one minute left until school was out. He couldn’t stop looking up at the clock.
Just five more minutes, he thought. The last few minutes of school always seemed to be the longest.
Suddenly Mark felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Hey aren’t you one of the disasters or something?” the kid asked.
“Yeah, that’s me,” Mark replied.
Everyone was supposed to be working on their math assignment, but the teacher left the room for a few seconds, and everything was complete chaos. Some people started throwing paper airplanes, pencils, and even books at each other across the classroom.
“Well anyways,” the kid continued, “Thomas told me he wants to meet you right outside after school.”
Mark was used to hearing this just about every day. And he replied with his usual response.
“Well you can tell him that I don’t care what he has to say.”
The kid raised an eyebrow at him. It was almost always someone different who told Mark. If this kid was surprised by what Mark said, then he must’ve not told Mark before.
“You know Thomas doesn’t like it when he doesn’t get what he wants, when he wants it,” the kid reminded him.
“Then you can also tell him that you don’t always get everything in life that you want. Especially not with grades like his.”
Mark knew this kid wouldn’t actually tell Thomas anything Mark told him, but Mark just didn’t understand why all these people would just let themselves be slaves to Thomas.
When the teacher entered back into the room she did not look happy. Everyone tried to run back to their seats and act like they weren’t doing anything, but that didn’t change anything.
“Fine!” said the teacher. “You can all stay in five more minutes after the bell.”
“What!” a bunch of kids groaned.
Mark could not believe this. Normally he was always on the bus by the time Thomas was outside, but if Thomas had a five-minute head start there’d be no way Mark could avoid him.
The bell rang.
Disappointed students all stared at the teacher, waiting for the second she released them. 
When she finally did let them all go, the students flooded out the door. Mark tried to stay with the crowd as he exited the building. It was actually working for awhile, until he heard a familiar voice.
“Mark! There you are!” yelled Sam.
Mark completely stopped. He was doing nothing on the outside, but screaming at Sam on the inside.
Then he felt a push and landed on the cement. His hands barely stopped him from breaking his nose. As he looked up, squinting because of the sun, he saw Thomas.
“You can’t get mad at me,” Thomas said, “I warned you that if you got me in trouble you’d regret it for the rest of your life.”
“For the millionth time I didn’t tell on you!” shouted Mark getting back on his feet. “And you left me hanging on the roof!”
“How else would they know I was there if you didn’t tell them?”
“Well, maybe if you didn’t do things like climb up to the roof, then they would’ve thought I was with someone else.”
Thomas looked like he was about to punch Mark, until Sam showed up. Sam and Thomas both started doing their own handshake.
“What!” said Mark. “What! What!”
“Oh yeah,” Sam remembered. “Thomas and I met in football. We’ve been great friends ever since.”
Mark glared at Sam.
“So…” Sam continued. “What’re you two up to?”
“Mark, here, wanted to fight me but he got to scared.”
Sam looked over at Mark, confused.
Mark was about to push Thomas over, but realized he was smarter than that. He simply walked over with Jake to the bus. It sounded like Thomas was yelling something to him, but Mark didn’t care.

Before Mark went to bed he was texting on a group chat, named the disasters.
“I had no idea you and Thomas even knew each other,” Sam was texting.
Mark looked up into the sky.
“Some day I’ll show Thomas who I really am,” he said to himself. “He’ll never want to mess with me again.
As Mark was looking at the sky he saw a black jet. It looked like it was going to land on one of the Rocky Mountains. Only it wasn’t slowing down. Mark quickly pulled out the camera on his phone to record what he was seeing.
The jet was about to hit the mountain. Mark was expecting a big explosion, but nothing happened. The plane disappeared behind the mountains.
“Wow!” said Mark.
“Are you there?” Sam texted.
“Yeah,” Mark replied. “Remind me that I have something to show you guys tomorrow.”
 

Johnny woke up at 7:15, fifteen minutes before the bus comes for Mark, Jake, and Sam. It was nice not having to be at the bus stop at a certain time. But it was even better to be fast.
Johnny went through everything quickly. He didn’t spend much time on his hair. His dark brown hair looked decent to him, and that was good enough.
As Johnny ran out the door he could see the bus stop. The bus still wasn’t there. Johnny had never got to school after the bus showed up and he didn’t want to ruin his perfect record.
Many people said hello to Johnny as he ran past them. “Hey!” Johnny would yell back. Lots of people knew Johnny sense he always ran to school and was so kind.
After Johnny got to school he did what he’d do every day. Johnny pulled out his iPod and played mini games.
“Hey Johnny!” yelled Mark.
“Oh, hi!” Johnny said, putting his iPod back into his pocket.
“So now that we’re all here,” said Sam, “What was it you were going to show us, Mark?”
“Right!” said Mark pulling out his phone. “Check this out!”
Mark showed them a video of a jet disappearing behind a mountain range.
“And then it’s gone,” Mark continued. “Just like that!”
“That’s strange,” said Jake. “It looked like it was heading right into that mountain.”
“No explosion or anything?” asked Sam.
“Nothing!” said Mark.
“Well I’ve got to go to my locker now,” Johnny said, walking away.

Johnny first met the other disasters on the first day of middle school. They all met in detention with interesting and strange stories about how they ended up there. Johnny was sent to detention for helping someone.
Johnny moved from Meridian, Idaho to Denver over the summer. He didn’t know anyone at this new school. He just remembered he needed to be kind to everyone.
When he got to his locker for the first time he saw someone at his right, who had fearful eyes.
“Anything wrong?” Johnny asked.
“Someone’s after me,” the boy said.
“Do you go here for school?” Johnny asked, noticing the boy was a little tall for an eighth grader.
“No,” the boy answered. “I’m in high school. I’m just here right now to hide.”
“Well then, can I help you with anything?”
The boy looked around, making sure no one else was watching.
“Come with me,” he then said.
They both walked a bit down the hallway, when Johnny heard the one-minute bell ring.
“I’ve got to get to class,” Johnny said.
But before Johnny could go anywhere, the boy gripped Johnny’s arm as hard as he could.
“Not yet.”
Johnny opened his eyes. He and the boy were in some sort of base.
“Get behind here,” the boy said, crouching behind some barrels.
“What’s going on?” asked Johnny, coming towards him.
“I don’t have time to explain. You see those big guns over there?”
“Yeah, but I—“
“We need to destroy them.”
They both went over to a rack of weapons, mostly large guns that Johnny had never seen before. As they were taking the guns off the racks they heard, “Who’s over there?”
Johnny jumped back behind the barrels. He saw the boy holding two guns, facing a man with a gun bigger than any of the weapons Johnny had seen on the rack.
“You’ve caused way too much trouble Sean!” the man said pointing his gun up at Sean.
“Destroy the weapons!” Sean yelled to Johnny.
Johnny saw a giant laser blast hit Sean and destroy everything around him.
“No!” yelled Johnny, until he realized he was in the school building again.
Some kids looked confused at him and then ran in fear after seeing what Johnny was holding in his two hands. A teacher screamed behind Johnny.
“Oh no,” Johnny said after realizing he still was holding the two guns.
“Take him down!” He heard a man yell.

“Where am I now?”
Johnny woke up in the detention room. His shoulder was killing him. At first he thought it was broken.
In front of Johnny were two boys; Jake and Sam. After Johnny realized what was going on, another boy walking into the room.
“This kid was found on the edge of the roof!” The staff member said, taking Mark inside. “What a bunch of disasters!”
Johnny never forgot that day. And every day he tried to think of what was actually happening on that day. What happened to Sean?

After school Johnny was running back to his house, as usual. He always had a head start because it took awhile for everyone to load the buses. But today he saw Mark right behind him.
“What’re you up to?” Johnny asked.
“Thomas is coming on our bus today because he has a friend on our bus he’s going with. I thought I’d run home with you if that’s alright,” answered Mark.
“Ok, if you can keep up with me.”
“Of coarse I can keep up with you.”
Two minutes later Johnny had to stop and wait for Mark.
“Wait!” Mark complained. “You’re too fast, I can’t keep up.”
“I told you.”
“Whatever, I’ll just walk, you go ahead.”
“Alright. I’ll look for a shortcut incase you want to run again some other day.”
Johnny noticed some apartment buildings that were blocking a faster route to his house. He, Mark, Jake, and Sam all lived pretty close to each other. Jake lived only two doors away from Johnny. Johnny figured he and Mark could possibly cut through the apartments.
Johnny was about to yell to Mark to come over for a possible shortcut. But Mark was now so far behind that Johnny couldn’t even see him any more. He figured he still might as well cut through.
After about a minute, Johnny was in between many apartment buildings.
Ok, Johnny thought, I’m pretty sure my house is down that way.
As Johnny began running toward his house, someone bumped into him.
“So sorry!” The man said. He was carrying something in his pocket that must’ve been of great value, sense he kept his hand pressed against it, making sure it had no chance of falling out.
“You’re totally fine,” said Johnny. “That was probably my—“
“Quiet! And run! Run for your life!”
“Running is my thing. I’ve got this.”
And then the man was out of sight.
Johnny figured he should listen to the man, but he also wanted to see what was going on here. So he hid behind a wall, but made sure he could peek over to see anything interesting happen.
“Where’d he go!” a man yelled. It was definitely a different person, Johnny was sure.
“Come out, come out wherever you are!” another man said.
Johnny was hoping they weren’t talking about him.
“The diamond belongs to the Dark Force!” the first man yelled.
“The Dark Force?” Johnny whispered to himself.
“Hand it over or we’ll take down all of your spy team!” the other man yelled.
“Spy team?” Johnny whispered again.
“Alright, we’re bringing out our weapons,” the first man said. “This is going to get real dangerous!”
“Dangerous?” now Johnny was completely interested. All four of the disasters loved danger.
He heard a trigger and then saw a huge laser beam destroy one of the apartment buildings. It was the same laser he saw kill Sean.
“Not there?” the second man said. “Time to move on to the next building.”
As the laser destroyed the next apartment, Johnny could see the building he was hiding behind was coming up soon. And he couldn’t move or else they’d notice him and probably think he’s the spy with this mysterious diamond.
“Next building!”
Johnny’s building was next. He had to get out here. Johnny started running away, as fast as he could.
“You’re not getting away!” the second man yelled, as he pulled out his gun.
Johnny ducked, but when he looked back he saw that the two men saw the actual spy and didn’t notice him.
The second man was shooting extremely large flames up the last building.
“This is your last chance!” he yelled to the spy.
Johnny wished now that he could make a real blizzard.
Then Johnny noticed the spy jump out the backside of the building. Once he hit the ground he started running. But it wasn’t long before a giant laser beam hit him. After the laser beam was off, all that remained of the spy was the diamond.
Johnny was wondering if he should take the diamond, and possibly save the spies. But by the time he thought of that, the two men came up to the diamond and took it.
“He should’ve taken our deal,” the first man said. “Now the rest of the spies will go down with him.”

After running all the way home, Johnny almost couldn’t breathe. Not because of running, but because of what he had just seen. Those were the weapons he saw on the first day of middle school. They could only lead to danger. This time Johnny wasn’t so sure he wanted part of this danger.
Johnny typically didn’t text much, but he took out his iPod and texted the Four Disasters.
“There’s something big I have to tell you guys tomorrow,” he texted.
“Looks like Jake and Sam need to have something big to tell us the next two days,” Mark joked.

Jake woke up at 6:45 and then got out of bed at 6:50.
He got ready pretty quick and was done at 7:10. The rest of the time he had before he had to go, he used studying for his English test.
Jake had bright blond hair. It was the shortest of all four of the disasters. He was also the only one out of them who had blue eyes. Mark was often jealous of that.
By the time it was 7:25, Jake put all his stuff away, grabbed his iPod and ear buds, and left for the bus.
Jake loved music more than almost anything. He listened to it just about whenever he could. He could also play the piano, violin, and guitar. His favorite song was called A Hurricane, and he could play it on all of his instruments. It was the main reason Jake wanted Hurricane to be his codename. He was always the first to the bus stop from the Disasters.
After waiting for a couple minutes, Sam showed up.
“Hey Jake!” Sam called out.
Jake took out his ear buds.
“Hey Sam!” he said. “Check out this new song I got!”
Sam put an ear bud in his right ear. He listened for about a minute.
“That’s pretty good.”
“Yeah,” said Jake. “I think it’s in my top five favorite songs.”
“That must be really good. I don’t know anyone who has as many favorite songs as you do.”
After the bus came, Mark barley made it on time.
“Mark, you’ve got to start coming earlier,” said Sam.
“I know.”
They sat in row four, as usual.
Jake always kept one ear bud in, but left the other out so that he could talk to Mark and Sam.
When they got to the school, Mark ran to Johnny as fast as he could.
“So what happened?” asked Mark.
Johnny told them all about how he barley made it out alive, after two men with dangerous weapons killed a spy with a mysterious diamond.
“You aren’t making any of this up?” asked Jake.
“It’s all one hundred percent true!” Johnny said.
Johnny then told them about the first day of school when he some how ended up in that weapons room and then back to the school.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you guys about that before,” said Johnny. “I just didn’t think you’d believe me.”
“Seriously?” said Mark.
“Probably true,” admitted Jake.
“This could become extremely dangerous,” Johnny warned them.
Mark, Jake, and Sam all smiled at each other.
Then Johnny continued, “So how do we get involved?”

Jake remembered the day he met the disasters on the first day of middle school. Jake had signed up for orchestra and every honors class he could join.
After orchestra, which he had seventh period, he put his violin in his case and put it in a room with the other violins.
When he left for his last class he remembered that he left some homework in his case on accident. No one was in the orchestra room. Jake figured he could just run in and out.
He opened up his case, but couldn’t find the papers. He lifted up the violin and looked underneath but didn’t see anything.
Suddenly the orchestra teacher burst in, scaring Jake, making him drop the violin.
“What are you doing in here?” the teacher yelled, walking towards Jake.
“I was just looking for something.”
“So you think it’s ok to just break my violin?”
“This is my—“
The teacher held up the broken violin. It definitely wasn’t Jake’s.
Jake was sent to detention right away. No one else was there. Jake wished he could’ve at least got his homework to work on while he was in there.
Soon after that, Sam came in. Then they saw someone carry in Johnny. He was knocked out after someone punched him because they were afraid of the weapons he had.
“You don’t understand!” Johnny kept saying after he woke up. “These weapons are dangerous. They need to be destroyed!”
“Relax kid!” the teacher said. “We’ve got them locked in the office.”
Johnny obviously still wasn’t satisfied.
Then Mark came in.
“What a bunch of disasters!” the man said who brought Mark in.

Jake’s last class was science. He was a smart kid and had straight A’s. All of his teachers loved him except Mr. Wright, his orchestra teacher. That was the only class Jake struggled to keep an A in, even though he was one of the best students in that class.
Jake brought his iPod and ear buds with him to every class, incase they’d let him listen to music. He used to ask the teachers at the start of every period, but after doing it so much his teachers started to just tell him right when he walked in if he could listen to music or not. Jake’s science teacher always let him listen to music.
When the bell rang everyone rushed out of class. Jake didn’t even notice class was over until he saw everyone rush out the door. So he quickly put everything in his binder and left.
After stopping at his locker to get his backpack, Jake ran over to Mark’s locker. The four Disasters always met there because Mark always took the longest time at his locker. One reason was because of Mark’s locker mirror. He looked in it for a long time whenever Mark stopped at his locker.
One day Johnny, Jake, and Sam stole Mark’s mirror as a joke to see how he’d react. Sam had taken a video of what happened and sent it to all of them. Mark totally freaked out and started asking people around him if they’d seen a small mirror. Mark knew it was all a joke when he heard Johnny, Jake, and Sam all laughing behind him.
“Why do you always take so long at your locker?” asked Jake.
“How do you guys all get back from your locker so quickly?” Mark asked back.
“It’s pretty obvious,” said Sam. “We don’t have a mirror to get distracted with.”
“So are y’all going to Carl’s today?” asked Jake.
“Of coarse,” they all replied back.
Every Wednesday the four Disasters walked home from school to their friend, Carl’s house. Carl was a freshman in high school and was always hanging out with his friend, Calvin who was a sophomore. Together, the six of them would play a board game called, Treasure Quest.
Carl would also always tell the Disasters about adventures he’d have. Most of them didn’t sound real, but they still loved hearing the stories.
When they got to Carl’s house, Sam knocked on the door.
Carl opened up the door and said, “No one’s here,” as he closed it.
Sam opened the door, and the four of them walked right in. They were used to Carl joking around.
Jake noticed that Calvin was already here.
“So are you guys ready to play?” asked Carl, as he brought out the Treasure Quest box.
“Let’s do this!” Jake said, confidently.
Treasure Quest was a really long game that would take about eight hours to play straight. So the six of them would always finish a whole game about every four times they met up to play.
Carl opened up the large board and set up everyone’s pieces. They always used to same colors. Carl was red, Calvin was purple, Mark was orange, Johnny was black, Jake was green, and Sam was blue.
Carl always brought everyone some juice and cookies while they were playing.
By the time they had about fifteen minutes left to play, Jake was out in front thinking that he may be able to win it in the time they had left. The winner was usually him or Carl. Carl was still close behind.
The first player to the end of the huge board won, but there were many different paths that you could chose to take and different challenges on the way.
Jake rolled his two dice when it was his turn. It was a double three.
“Sweet!” said Jake. “I get to go again.”
Carl was getting nervous because Jake only needed ten more to win. But Jake landed on a quicksand space. He could only move on if he used three gems, but he only had two left. He had to skip his next turn.
“Alright. My turn!” said Carl, happily.
He rolled an eleven and now only needed three space to win. But on Sam’s turn he landed on a space where he was able to pick a card. The card let him bring someone back five spaces. Sam chose to move Carl.
On Carl’s next turn he rolled a seven. Barley not enough to win. And when Jake went, he rolled exactly enough to win the game.
“Dang!” said Carl. “That was a close game.”
Carl and Jake both gave each other a high-five.
“Now I’m going to get more juice,” said Calvin.
“Me too!” a bunch of the others said.
But Jake still had some juice left, so he sat down and drank it. When he put his cup back down, he saw someone was sitting next to him who wasn’t there before.
“Who are you?” Jake asked.
“Keep it quiet and I’ll tell you everything,” the boy said.
The boy looked like he was about Calvin’s age. He had huge red scratches covering himself and purple eyes.
“You’re in a lot of trouble right now, kid.”
“What do you mean?” asked Jake.
The boy looked over Jake, seeing some of the boys in the kitchen.
“Are you one of Carl’s friends?” Jake asked. “Or one of Calvin’s friends?”
“I’ve never heard either of those names.”
Jake was wondering when the boy would tell him why he was in trouble. Jake looked over at him, about to ask why, until he saw how frightened the boy was.
Jake looked in the kitchen, where the boy was looking and asked, “What is it?”
But when he looked back the boy was gone.
“How’s your juice?” asked Sam, walking back towards Jake.
“Good, I guess.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” said Jake, looking around to see where the boy went.
“What’re you looking for?” asked Mark, almost laughing.
“Do you have something that you need to tell us about tomorrow?” Sam joked. “I guess I’m the only one who doesn’t have to wait a day to tell people about interesting things I find.”
“What?” Carl and Calvin both said, confused.
“It’s a long story,” said Jake. “Hey Calvin, can you still give us a ride back?”
“Sure!” answered Calvin.
Calvin looked around the table.
“Where did my keys go?” he asked. “I put them down right here. Sam, where are my keys?”
“Why does everyone always think it’s me?” yelled Sam.
Everybody laughed except Calvin.
“Seriously guys! This isn’t funny.”
“Calvin, we really didn’t put them anywhere,” Jake promised. “If we did, we would have told you by now.”
Johnny looked out the window. Calvin’s car was driving away.
“Look out there!” Johnny yelled.
Calvin opened up the door and they all went outside. Calvin started chasing after his car, but it was no use. The car was now way to far in front of him.
“Was anyone else here?” asked Calvin.
“Just my mom and my sister,” Carl answered. “They’re both in the basement.”
The six of them all walked down into the basement. Both Carl’s sister and mom were sitting on the couch, watching a movie.
“Was anyone else here?” asked Carl.
“No, unless you invited anyone else,” his mom answered.
“Now quiet!” yelled Carl’s eleven-year-old sister with a mouthful of popcorn. “We’re in the middle of a movie.”
The boys all went back up stairs. Jake was still unsure if he should tell them about the boy he saw with red scratches all over and purple eyes.
“What about the other boy?” he finally blurted out.
“What other boy?” asked Calvin. “I didn’t see anyone else.”
“Neither did I,” everyone else started saying.
“Maybe I just thought I saw someone else,” said Jake.
“What did he look like?” asked Mark.
“Well, he had dark brown hair.”
“You probably just saw Johnny.”
“Yeah, probably.”
What was the use? thought Jake. It was obviously that boy who took Calvin’s keys and car.
Calvin called the police.
“Someone drove off in my car. No I don’t know who it was. Yeah they must have somehow snuck inside and took my keys…”

The Disasters all ended up walking home.
The police ended up finding Calvin’s car after the Disasters all went home. Only when they found it, it stopped driving. No doors opened and the car didn’t move. By the time the police got to the car and were able to look inside, no one was there.
“Something is seriously wrong with your car,” one of the cops had said.
As soon as Calvin was able to get in his car again, he checked everywhere to make sure he still had all of his belongings in the car. He smiled with relief after seeing that everything was still safe.
“A lot of strange things have been happening lately,” said Mark.
“No kidding!” Sam agreed.
Jake still wasn’t sure what he would tell the rest of them. It seemed like Johnny noticed something happened to Jake. Jake would just try to look away whenever Johnny looked at him.
I’ll eventually tell them all, Jake thought.
Jake knew that some day this would all make sense.

Sam did not want to wake up. It was 7:10.
He kept telling himself that it was Thursday, almost Friday.
After Sam finally got out of bed he combed his hair, ate breakfast, brushed his teeth, and then did some push ups to wake himself up. Then it was 7:27. Sam grabbed all of his stuff and ran out the door.
“Hey Sam!” yelled Jake.
“Hello.”
Sam was strong and was never afraid of a fight. But Jake was the one person Sam would never hurt. Jake was like a little brother to him that he had to protect. Sam didn’t have any younger siblings. He had an older sister and three older brothers. Jake had two younger sisters and one younger brother, no older siblings. Mark and Johnny were both right in the middle with one older sister and one younger sister.
When the bus came Mark showed up, as usual.
“So is it Sam’s turn to see something strange?” asked Mark.
“Are we seriously still talking about that?” asked Sam. “Besides, Jake didn’t even see anything strange yesterday.”
It was pretty obvious that Mark didn’t really believe that.

Sam met the other Disasters on the first day of school.
He got in detention after getting in a fight, of coarse. Sam normally didn’t get in fights, or at least start them. Even if someone tried to punch him he’d normally dodge the punch. It was when they actually hit Sam that he’d start punching.
When Sam first got to his middle school he could tell that he was one of the strongest kids there. He still had freckles and longish brown hair.
During lunch break one kid challenged Sam to a fight.
“I don’t want to give anyone a broken bone,” said Sam as his answer.
“Oh please,” the boy said, “I’ve never broken anything in a fight, or lost.”
Sam could tell that this kid must have only fought people before who had no fighting experience.
After Sam started walking away the kid tried to punch him. Sam could tell the kid would, so he quickly turned around and grabbed the boy’s fist, then pushed him back. More people started coming to watch after this.
The boy punched again, this time at Sam’s face, but Sam leaned back. After the boy finally hit Sam in the shoulder, Sam punched the boy’s lip. It started bleeding.
“Do you really want to keep going?” asked Sam, walking up to the boy.
Of coarse that was when some staff members came. From what they saw it looked like Sam was beating up a poor kid.
“You have detention!” they yelled to Sam.
Jake was the only other person there when Sam got into the detention room.
“How’d you get in here?” Sam asked.
“I accidently smashed my teacher’s violin,” Jake replied.
“Accidently?” Sam laughed.
Then Johnny came in and then Mark.
The quote that known of them could forget that day was, “What a bunch of Disasters!”

After school, Sam was on the bus looking out the window. Sam, Mark, and Jake had a rule that the first person in the bus got the window seat. Mark never got it.
Sam soon saw destroyed apartment buildings.
“That must have been what Johnny was talking about,” Jake figured.
“Wow!” said Mark. “That’s incredible that he didn’t die. Even with his fast legs, that’s just crazy!”
“Maybe we should take a look at this place,” suggested Sam. “What do you guys think?”
“Sounds dangerous to me,” said Jake. “So I’m in!”
“Me too!” agreed Mark.
When the bus stopped they all got off. But this time they walked off in a different direction than everyone else.
“Everyone look closely,” said Sam.
“For what?” asked Mark.
“Anything.”
“Ok, I see some crashed buildings, our school bus over there, some dirt, and…”
Sam turned around to look at Mark.
“Ok! Ok! I get it,” said Mark.
“I wonder if these people left anything here,” said Jake, curiously.
“Hopefully they did,” said Sam.
“Look at that,” said Jake, pointing to the ground.
There were some car tire tracks.
“Anyone know of any cars with tires like that?” asked Mark.
After no one said anything, Mark just took a picture of it on his phone.
As they were all looking down, someone tapped Sam on the shoulder. Sam quickly spun around with his right leg out, kicking the person to the ground.
“Ouch!” groaned Johnny. “It was just me.”
“Oops,” said Sam. “Sorry about that.”
“I’ll be alright.”
“So what exactly did you see when you were here, Johnny?”
Johnny told them all about where he was and where the other men where. He had already told them about the weapons.
“Wow,” said Jake.
“Ok,” Mark continued, “Everyone look around for anything else and tell us right away if you see anything… interesting.”
“Got it!” said Sam.
They all began looking around in different directions. Sam decided to look inside the only building that still had a full room, that wasn’t completely destroyed. He held the knob of the door and started twisting it. When he started to pull it open, the door fell to the ground with a loud bump.
“What was that?” asked Jake, as they all looked over at Sam.
“Did you find anything?” Johnny asked hopefully.
“As a matter of fact, yeah,” answered Sam. “I found a door.”
After that, everyone went back to where they were looking.
Sam went inside. It wasn’t a very big room. There were smashed objects everywhere.
“Well Hello there, Sam.”
“Hello!” said Sam, cheerfully.
“Do you even know who I am?”
“Nope. I have no idea. I guess your voice sounds somewhat familiar.”
“Well you and your friends won’t be here much longer. Do you ever wonder why there isn’t anyone else here?”
“No, I have never wondered about that.”
“Well we have people from the Dark Force hidden all around—“
“What’s the Dark Force?”
“Can you just let me finish first?”
“No, I think I’ll need to know whatever this Dark Force is to understand the rest of what you’re saying.”
“I’ll tell you about the Dark Force after I finish what I was about to say.”
“I really don’t care what you were going to say.”
“What?”
“Do you think I’m afraid to get into a fight?”
“You don’t know about the weapons we have.”
“What ever. Bye!”
“No! You can’t leave!”
“Too late! And I’m telling all my friends!” Sam said, as he ran into the wall and fell to the ground.
“Oops,” he said. “That wasn’t the doorway.”
Sam couldn’t move. He ran into the wall too hard.
The figure then stepped out of the shadows.
“It’s You!” said Sam. “I’ll—I’ll…”

Sam woke up on a park bench.
“Where am I?” Sam asked.
An older boy looked over at Sam. The boy had red marks all over, dark brown hair, and pure purple eyes.
“And who are you?” Sam asked.
“I saved you. We’re in the Denver city park.”
Sam looked around. Behind him he saw a large purple building with black outlines and many windows.
“I wish I could enter that building,” the boy said.
“Yeah I guess it looks pretty cool,” agreed Sam.
“It’s not that. To these people I am pure evil. These are the spies.”
“Are the spies good or bad? Are you good or bad?”
“The spies are great! If it weren’t for them we may have already been dead now.”
“Wait a minute, so you’re bad?” questioned Sam, slowly backing up.
“No. I just used to work for the Dark Force, until I figured out what the Dark Force was planning on doing. Then I escaped. But the spies still think I’m with the Dark Force and the Dark Force thinks I joined the spies.”
“That’s confusing. Also did I get knocked out after running into that wall?”
“No. I think something hit your head after Daniel started using his weapon. That’s when I came in and saved you.”
“Who’s Daniel?”
“I thought you recognized him.”
“Maybe I just couldn’t focus after I ran into that wall.”
“Possibly.”
“So where are my other friends?” asked Sam, now looking more worried.
“I think they’re safe.”
“We better go and help them!”
“I don’t know about that.”
“They’re my friends! I’m going back to save them.”
“You can’t! The weapons are too dangerous.”
“Well you can’t stop me!”
Sam started sprinting away from this boy, as far away as he could, before thinking about which way his friends were.
After Sam stopped he looked back to see if the boy was still there. But Sam couldn’t see him anywhere.
After Sam decided which direction he should go, it started to rain.
When Sam finally reached the destroyed apartment buildings he was drenched in rain.
“Jake! Mark! Johnny!” Sam yelled.
He didn’t hear or see anyone. 
Then Sam remembered that he still hadn’t gone to his house. His parents would be extremely worried, not knowing where he was. There was nothing Sam could do now to save his friends sense he didn’t know where they were, so he decided to go home.
“Where have you been?” his dad asked, angrily.
Sam tried to think of something to say. He knew his parents wouldn’t believe him if he told them what really happened.
“I decided to walk home today, but got a little lost because I’ve never walked home from school before,” said Sam.
“You were lost for an hour?” his dad questioned.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Well then I think from now on you better stick to just riding the bus home.”
“Alright.”
Sam didn’t know what to expect for the next day. He knew the other disasters were still out there. He just wasn’t sure where they were.

Sean heard his name yelled.
“Sean! You’ve caused way to much trouble here!”
“Destroy the weapons!” Sean yelled to Johnny, who was hiding behind some barrels.
Sean was able to make Johnny teleport back to his school, while a huge laser was blasting Sean.
“No!” Johnny yelled right before teleporting.
Sean tried to run, but the laser was too fast. He still ran anyways.
Sean felt a lot of pain and then opened his eyes around some apartment buildings. He had somehow managed to teleport right before the laser completely destroyed him. But he had red marks all over him, he realized after seeing his reflection in a window. And he noticed something even more strange; his eyes were purple.
Sean was about to panic, until he saw that he was still holding the two dangerous guns.
“Yes!” Sean yelled. “Vanish13 is back! With these weapons and my power, no one can defeat me! Not the spies or the Dark Force! They can’t tell me what to do, but I could take control of both of them!”

Sam was relived when he saw Mark, Johnny, and Jake all at school.
“Thank goodness, you’re all here!” said Sam.
“Yesterday was strange,” said Jake.
“So what happened?” Sam asked.
“Wait a minute,” blurted Mark. “You tell us what happened to you, first.”
“Yeah,” agreed Johnny. “We heard a loud noise and then you were gone.”
“Alright,” said Sam. “Basically I got knocked out or something, woke up at a park, and then went back to look for you guys, but couldn’t find any of you.”
“That’s strange,” said Mark.
“What?” asked Sam, while Mark, Johnny, and Jake were all looking at each other.
“We all teleported, too,” said Johnny.
“When?” asked Sam.
“It wasn’t too long after we heard the loud noise over where you were,” said Jake.
“We went over to see what happened to you, but we didn’t see anyone,” explained Johnny. “We just looked around for a little bit and then we heard a familiar voice that told us to run. We started running, and after about a second, we were back right outside of our school.”
“Only you thought the voice was familiar,” Jake reminded him.
“I can’t remember whose voice it was, though,” said Johnny.
Then the one-minute bell rang.
“We can talk more about this later,” said Mark.

After school, the Disasters were talking about what they’d do for the last day of school. Every year they went somewhere or did something fun after school got out.
“We should go on a trip this year!” said Mark excitedly.
“Maybe we could go to Disney World!” suggested Sam.
“No,” said Jake. “We need to think of some place that our parents will actually let us go to.”
“I’ve got it!” shouted Johnny. “Thunder Yum!”
“Yeah!” the others all yelled in agreement.
Thunder Yum originally started out as pizza place called Thunder Pizza, back in 2031. Then it got really popular and they decided to add more food. After that they changed the name to Thunder Yum. They also had a couple arcade games in the back of the restaurant, which expanded more and more. Soon after that, Thunder Yum moved into a new, much bigger building. And since then, they’ve added more arcade games, an obstacle coarse, miniature golf, laser tag, and more things like that.
The Disasters loved everything there. They decided they could spend the whole day there, right when school got out.
After they all decided to walk home, they started planning a schedule for the last day of school, which was in a week.
Suddenly, they heard a voice.
“Hello Johnny.”
“Who’s there?” asked Johnny, looking around.
“My name is Vanish13.”
“Well that is a strange name,” said Mark.
They heard a noise in some bushes behind them, and then an older boy with red marks and purple eyes stepped out.
“Wait,” said Johnny, “Sean? Is that you?”
“Yes,” Sean said.
“It’s you!” Jake and Sam both said.
“Wait a minute, here,” said Mark. “Am I the only one who doesn’t know this person?”
“Apparently,” said Johnny.
“I need all of your help,” said Sean.
“To destroy the weapons?” asked Johnny.
“Exactly! I figured out where their knew base is: the Rocky Mountains.”
“It must have been their jet that I saw go into one of the mountains!” said Mark.
“Probably,” said Sean. “As soon as you can, we need to get into their base and bring back the Purtex.”
“What’s the Purtex?” asked Jake.
“It’s the diamond that powers all of their weapons.”
“So if we take it, all of their weapons will stop working?” asked Mark.
“I wish it were that easy. The weapons will still work, but we can stop them from making any more.”
The Disasters all looked at each other.
“I think I know where to go for the last day of school,” said Johnny.
“But Johnny,” complained Mark, “We should help Sean.”
Johnny slapped his face.
“That’s what I was talking about,” said Johnny.
“Oh,” said Mark, “I thought you were talking about Thunder Yum.”
The Disasters decided that they would have a campout with their dads on the last day of school. All of their dads loved camping. They could all camp at that mountain and then take a hike to the Dark Force’s base.
That was the hard part. They all knew their parents wouldn’t let them try to sneak into an evil base.
“I hope this works,” said Sean. “I promise I won’t use you guys for anything else after this.”
“It’s no problem,” said Johnny.
“Great!” said Sean. “I’ll meet up with you again as soon as I can.”
“How will you know where to find us?” asked Jake.
But Sean had already disappeared.

“Are you sure our plan will work?” asked Sean.
“Of coarse it will,” said Isaac. “The Dark Force still thinks I’m with them.”
“Good,” said Sean. “I was able to get the boys to join us.”
“Everything should work. Our plan is better than the spies or the Dark Force.”
Sean and Isaac both smiled at each other. The two of them and Daniel were all best friends.

That night, the Disasters were all texting each other.
“So does this campout work for everyone?” asked Jake.
“Yeah,” they all texted back.
“And are we sure we can trust Sean?” Sam texted. “He seems kind of scary if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” said Jake, “I’m pretty sure he stole Calvin’s car.”
“He doesn’t sound very trustworthy to me,” said Mark.
“We have to trust him,” said Johnny. “I know him better than any of you. Trust me, he is trying to help everyone.”
“I’m still not sure,” said Jake.
“Yeah,” said Sam, “we should trust Jake. He’s the smart one.”
“Sean wants to destroy dangerous weapons,” said Johnny. “How could he be bad?”
“Maybe he’s lying about the Dark Force,” suggested Mark. “Maybe the Dark Force is really good and trying to stop Sean from doing something bad.”
“That doesn’t make much sense,” said Johnny.
“Fine,” said Sam. “I think we’ll trust you, but if something goes wrong I’m blaming you.”
“Good with me,” said Johnny.

It was the last day of school. The four Disasters had come up with a plan. It started with getting good sleep the night before. Everyone went to bed as soon as they could and woke up as late as they could for the last day of school. They would need their energy at night.
“This is it!” said Mark. “The last day of school.”
“Why hasn’t Sean met up with us yet, Johnny,” asked Jake.
“Why do you ask me?” Johnny asked back.
“It’s like you said before,” reminded Jake, “you know him the best.”
“Listen, I don’t understand how his teleporting thing works. I’m guessing he can’t do it whenever he wants.”
“Well he better meet up with us at this campout,” said Sam. “Because I’m not doing this thing without someone like him, who’s had experience sneaking into to an evil base.”

Mark was sitting in his last period of the day. It was a half day for them sense it was the last day of school. So they took a big test in a couple classes and then got to leave.
“Two more minutes,” Mark kept saying to himself.
Mark was trying to think about what could go wrong that night, but he just couldn’t. He was super excited for it. It was a dangerous adventure, which is exactly what the Disasters loved.
After class got out, Mark went over to his locker. To his surprise, Johnny, Jake, and Sam were all already there, ready to go.
“How’d you guys get here so fast?” Mark asked.
“We just took everything to our last class,” explained Jake.
“Are you even allowed to do that?”
“No.”
Mark grabbed everything as quick as he could, and they all walked over to the school parking lot.
Jake’s dad was taking them to the campsite. The rest of their dad’s would meet them there.
“So how was your last day of school?” asked Jake’s dad.
“Boring,” they all said in unison.
“I’m really glad it’s finally over,” said Sam. “This will be the best summer of my life!”
When they started driving Jake turned on music from his iPod and connected it to the car’s speakers.

Everyone got out of the car around 3:00.
“We’re finally here!” yelled Mark.
They all started setting up camp. They brought two ten-man sized tents, one four the dads and one for the Disasters. Everyone loved having lots of space.
When the Disasters started putting out their sleeping bags, they all put theirs in a corner of the tent.
“I really wish I could sleep in that tonight,” said Johnny.
“We can’t do anything crazy today,” reminded Jake. “Remember, we need to save our energy.”
“We know,” the other three told him.
Jake had been reminding them about the plan, the entire week.
After the rest of their dads got there, Sam’s dad immediately asked, “Does anyone want to go on a hike now?”
“No,” the Disasters all said at once.
“What? Why?”
“How about we just wait till tomorrow,” suggested Sam. “We’re all really tired from testing and stuff.”
“Alright, but we are for sure doing it tomorrow.”
“For sure.”
The Disasters all hoped they’d have enough energy for a hike the next day.
“I’m going to get some snacks,” said Johnny, heading into the tent, to his backpack.
As Johnny started unzipping his backpack, he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Sean,” said Johnny, turning around. “Where have you been?”
“Sorry,” said Sean. “I’ve just been very busy lately. You know I can only teleport places I’ve already been. I’ve been looking for you guys for a while, actually.”
“Well you could’ve looked a little harder. The others started to lose trust in you.”
“I’m really glad I have all of your help. If I could teleport anywhere then I’d just jump to the Purtex and jump out.”
“I wish it were that easy.”
“Yeah. Well anyways, we need to all meet together to discuss our plan.”
Johnny gathered the rest of the Disasters over by some trees, further away from their dads.
“Finally you’re here!” said Mark.
“Where have you been all this time?” asked Jake.
“How do we even know that we can trust you?” asked Sam.
“Why would we not trust him?” Johnny asked them.
“Well he did work for the Dark Force,” reminded Mark.
“Yeah,” said Jake. “And he never was with the spies.”
“I left the Dark Force,” said Sean. “And the spies thought that I was still with the Dark Force. I’ve tried to prove to them that I’m not, but they don’t believe me.”
“Listen,” said Johnny, “We have to trust him. Why else would he want to destroy the weapons?”
“Maybe he was just pretending to try to destroy the weapons to make people think he’s on our side,” said Sam. “Well he hasn’t tricked me.”
“Quiet!” yelled Johnny.
“Wait,” said Jake. “Where did Sean go?”
Johnny was glaring at the other Disasters. Sam walked off over to the tent.
“Why can’t you guys believe me?” asked Johnny.
“Give Sean a chance,” Mark told Sam.
Then Jake pulled out his ear bud and followed Sam.
Mark walked over to look at Johnny. Johnny was staring at the direction Sam and Jake went, not saying a word.
“They’ll come back,” assured Mark.
Johnny didn’t say anything. Mark could tell that Johnny didn’t believe him.
Soon, Mark and Johnny came back to the campsite. Johnny and Sam wouldn’t talk to each other.
“We should play some games,” requested Mark’s dad. “I brought some stuff for capture the flag!”
The four Disasters all had two major things in common. They all loved danger and they were all extremely competitive.
After a few games of capture the flag, Johnny started feeling a bit better, but was still mad that the others wouldn’t trust Sean. Johnny knew that Sean was good.
After playing capture the flag, the Disasters all got out their pocketknives. They all loved carving sticks.
“Let’s go down here!” said Jake. “It looks like there are plenty of good sticks over there.
As they started going a bit down the mountain, they began seeing many big sticks and a few logs on the ground. One log was very big and the Disasters all tried balancing on it at once. They stayed on it for a while, but one by one, all fell off and started laughing.
“There’s a perfect stick!” said Mark, getting back up on his feet. He was the only one who hadn’t found a stick to carve.
The others all watched Mark run down, but looked confused after seeing Mark stand behind a tree, with his arms to his side.
“What are—“ Jake started to ask.
Mark held his finger up in front of his lips.
“Let’s see this,” whispered Sam, excitedly.
The other Disasters all started walking down as quietly as they could and then all hid behind a tree, like Mark was doing.
All of the Disasters looked astonished after hearing who they were hiding from.
“Yeah, I got the kids to join,” said Sean. “I’m pretty sure I already told you that, Isaac.”
“Isaac?” the Disasters all mouthed out.
“Great!” said Isaac. “I doubt they’ll ever find out our real plan or what we’re really looking for.”
“The only way they’d find out is if I told them,” said Sean.
“It will be great when we rule over the Dark Force! This plan better work.”
“Trust me, it will. There’s only one problem. I think some of the kids are starting to suspect that I want more that just those weapons.”
“You may need to offer them a reward or something. We need them or else this plan won’t work.”
“I’ll try to think of something.”
“Good. And make sure to say nothing of this plan to those kids.”
“We may need to, eventually.”
“Only if we have to. We don’t want them knowing about all this information. We don’t want anyone else hearing about this information.”
“Ok. Good luck. You know what to do.”
“Good luck to you too. Now leave before anyone sees you.”
After they knew it was safe to leave, the Disasters all ran back up to their campsite.
Johnny held his head down low.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was wrong. We shouldn’t have ever trusted him.”
“I told you he was up to something,” said Sam.
“From now on I think we should keep our voices down,” said Jake. “Sean could teleport to us from anywhere.”
“Yeah,” said Johnny. “Well it’s about seven o’clock and I’m already getting tired. I say we just get some dinner and then go to bed.”
“Hold on one minute!” blurted Mark. “We didn’t come here to not have any danger.” Mark stood up in the tent, while the others were all still sitting on their sleeping bags. “If we have another enemy then I say we trap him and get two jobs done. It sounds to me like Sean and the Dark Force are both wrong, so I say we stop both of them. We’ll stick to the mission plan, only adjust it a little, which I’m sure Jake can figure out. This will be a day to remember. A day when we stop two evil groups at once! Now who’s with me?”
“Wow,” said Sam. “That was quite the speech. Well I’m in.”
Sam stood up with Mark.
“Me too, but y’all are going to have to help me adjust the plan,” said Jake, standing up.
The three of them looked down at Johnny.
“Are you in?” asked Sam.
“Of coarse,” Johnny stood up.
“Now let’s do this our way! Dangerous!”
They all stepped out of the tent.
“Are y’all ready for dinner?” asked Jake’s dad.
“Yeah!” they all said, excitedly.
“I’m starving!” said Jake.
Everyone grabbed a hot dog and a roasting stick and then went to the fire pit.
After Sam got his hot dog he immediately put it straight into the fire until it was completely black.
“Burnt is always the best,” he said.

After everyone finished their hot dogs, they got out marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate for s’mores.
Sam, again, put his marshmallow straight into the flames until it was black.
“Anyone have a good ghost story?” asked Jake.
“I have a good one!” shouted Mark. “It’s about a few kids who sneak into the a huge evil base and end up dying.”
“On second thought, how about we tell a happy story.”
It was about 8:30 and Sam was telling a ghost story, even though Jake suggested not to. Sam loved to tell scary stories.
“I’m getting pretty tired,” said Mark at about 9:00.
“Already?” asked his dad.
“Yeah, we’ve had a long day at school,” said Johnny.
“Well alright,” said Jake’s dad. “We’re going to be out here just a little longer, but you boys can go to bed.”
After the Disasters got into their tent, they discussed the final plan.
“Do y’all still have a lot of energy left?” asked Jake.
“Tons left,” said Johnny.
“Me too,” Mark and Sam said.
“Great!” said Johnny.

They finished developing a plan around 10:00.
“They’re in their tent,” said Johnny, coming back into the tent. “We’re good to go.”
“Great!” said Jake.
The Disasters all got their gear.
Sam brought a headlamp and carried the backpack, which had things like their water, food, first aid kit, or anything else they might need. Jake brought his iPod, ear buds, a headlamp, and started listening to one of his favorite songs, Radioactive by Imagine Dragons. Johnny brought a headlamp, a rope, a camera, and a hiking stick that he found at the campsite. Finally, Mark brought a headlamp and a small mirror.
“Do you seriously need that?” asked Jake.
“Of coarse I do,” he said. “What if I’m in one of the pictures we take? I’ve got to make sure I look good for that.”
When the Disasters all left the tent, they each grabbed onto the rope. They were going on a steep hike and figured that if one of them fell, the others could pull them back up with the rope. So they all tied the rope around their wrists. Sam was in the front, sense he was the heaviest and had the backpack, which added more weight. Johnny was next up because he was the fastest. His left wrist was tied to the rope and he was holding his hiking stick with his right hand. Mark was third and Jake was at the end, sense he was the lightest.
“Sean should be meeting us around here,” said Johnny, not long after they started the hike.
“I’m here now!” said Sean, walking towards them. “Is everyone ready?”
“Of coarse,” answered Mark.
“Lead the way!” said Jake.
They all started by going up a steep mountain. It then began to rain. The rain wasn’t too hard, so they decided they were alright, for now.
“This rain is getting too loud,” complained Jake, putting in his other ear bud.
“We need to hurry, in order to stop the Dark Force from melting the Purtex,” said Sean.
“Sure, that’s why we need to hurry,” Mark whispered to himself.
Soon their hike became more climbing than walking.
“This rope was a great idea!” said Sam, while pulling himself up some large rocks. “If any of us fall, they’ll be lifted right back up.”
As Sam was pulling himself up, his hand slipped on a wet part of the rock. Sam began rolling off the rock, down the mountain, pulling everyone else down with him. When Sam was about to fall off the side of a cliff, he pulled out his pocketknife from his pocket and cut the rope so that the others wouldn’t fall with him.
When Sam was falling off the cliff he felt a hand wrap around his wrist and pull him back up.
“On second thought, the rope was a terrible idea,” said Sam.
“You better be more careful next time,” said Sean, right after he pulled Sam back up. “I barely teleported in time to save you.”
“Thanks.”
After everyone untied the rope from their wrist, Sam put the rope in the backpack and everyone moved closer to other side, further away from the cliff.
As everyone got closer to the top of the small mountain, the dirt got slipperier and slipperier.
“Why did it have to be rainy?” said Johnny.
“We have some ponchos in the backpack,” Sam reminded them.
“I think we’ll be good, at least for now,” assured Johnny, and the others agreed.
“We’re almost to the top of this mountain,” Sean kept saying.
“Why can’t you just teleport us all to the entrance? Or in the base?” asked Mark.
“I’ve never been to either of those places.”
“You could’ve at least gone to the entrance before hand to save some time for us.”
“The second guards noticed me, they’d blast me to pieces. Luckily this time we have a plan to get past the guards.”
“I think Sean just needed us as a distraction while he runs in,” Mark whispered to Jake.
“Maybe,” said Jake. “You’ve got to keep it quiet, though.”
When they all made it to the top of the first mountain, it started to get a bit windy.
“We’re almost there,” said Sean. “It’s just right down there.”
Sean pointed to the side of the next mountain.
“Could you tell us how to get into the base from here?” asked Mark.
“No,” said Sean, “we need to get a closer look.”
Mark glared at Sean, but made sure Sean didn’t see him.
“Just be patient,” Johnny told Mark.
As they all slowly climbed down to the next mountain, guards began to appear.
“Great,” said Jake, sarcastically.
“It’s alright,” said Sean. “Our plan will still work.”
Jake wondered if the Disaster’s plan would work though.
There were some big rocks on the way to the next mountain, so they decided to go and hide behind one rock to another. Before leaving to the next rock, they’d all make sure that no guards were looking. Then they would run as quickly, but quietly as they could to the next rock.
“This is it,” said Sam when they got to the last rock.
Sean nodded to Mark. Mark nodded back and stepped aside from the rock.
“What’re you doing over here?” a guard asked him.
Several other guards came out from up above, with guns pointed at Mark.
“I was just taking a hike,” answered Mark, after gulping. “Sorry if I interrupted something that was going on over here.”
“You did interrupt something. Now go back from where you came from and—“
Johnny wacked the guard as hard as he could with his lucky hiking stick. After the guard fell over, Sean ran over to them, grabbed their arms, and teleported them to the entrance.
“A guard is down!” another guard from above yelled into his CB radio. Then the guard paused for a moment. “Sean.”
“Where’s the entrance?” asked Mark.
“It’s right on this wall of the mountain,” answered Sean.
“How do we get in?”
Sean pulled out his phone. “Now.”
A doorway opened up in the mountain.
“Thanks,” said Mark. “You’re work here is done.”
“What?”
Johnny pushed Sean off the edge of the cliff with his stick, and the Disasters all ran in. Sam found a button on the wall and pressed it. The door closed. Even if Sean did survive, he couldn’t get in.
“Let’s do this, Disasters,” said Mark.

Back at the campsite, the four Disaster’s dads were all comfortable in their sleeping bags, but they knew something wasn’t right.
After trying to go to sleep for an hour, Johnny’s dad finally asked the others if they could sleep.
“For some reason, no I can’t really sleep,” answered Mark’s dad.
“Maybe it’s just this rain,” said Jake’s dad.
“No,” said Johnny’s dad. “The rain is too late to keep me awake. It’s something else.”
“It almost seems too quiet,” said Sam’s dad.
They all thought for a moment.
“That’s it!” said Jake’s dad, standing up. “Our sons are always super noisy and we always have to tell them to go to sleep. We haven’t had to tell them a single time this campout.”
“They did say that they were really tired,” said Mark’s dad.
“We might as well check,” said Sam’s dad. “Maybe getting out of the tent for a little while will get us tired again and we can go back to bed.”
All of them left their tent and checked on the Disasters.
Johnny’s dad was unzipping the tent door as quiet as he could, but it was still very loud.
“You guys alright?” asked Jake’s dad.
“Sound asleep,” said Sam’s dad after they heard no answer.
“Wait a minute,” said Johnny’s dad. He knew something wasn’t right.
After Johnny’s dad stepped inside the tent he felt the sleeping bags and pressed down.
“Pillows,” he said to the others.
Johnny’s dad started dumping out the sleeping bags, one by one. They were all full of nothing but blankets and pillows.
“Where did they go?” asked Sam’s dad.
“We better start looking for them!” said Johnny’s dad.
The four of them grabbed a flashlight and started looking around, yelling, “Mark! Johnny! Jake! Sam! Where are you?”

The four Disasters were walking through a dark hall with their headlamps turned on.
“It’s a good thing our dads go to sleep right away,” said Sam. “Otherwise they’d be worried sick, wondering where we are.”
“Yeah,” agreed Jake.
“We need to remember to be quiet,” reminded Johnny.
Soon they were at a fork in the hallway. They could go straight, right, or left.
“Do you guys hear that?” asked Johnny.
“No,” they all said back.
Johnny was known for having remarkable hearing.
“It sounds like—get back!” said Johnny, stretching out his arms to hold them all back against the wall.
“What?” asked Mark.
“Quiet,” said Johnny.
Soon they all started hearing some footsteps. People were running through the halls and they were getting closer and closer.
“What do we do?” asked Jake.
“Just stay right here,” said Sam.
The Disasters all stayed as quiet as they could. They could feel their heart pounding. Sweat was dripping down some of their faces when they knew the footsteps would get to them any second.
Then two men ran right passed them.
“Sounds like Sean’s back from the dead,” one of them said to the other.
Once the two men were out of sight the Disasters could breathe normally again.
“That was close,” said Jake.
“So where do we go?” asked Sam.
“I say we go the way those men came from,” suggested Jake.
No one else had any better ideas, so they went left.
“We still need to be quiet,” Johnny reminded them.
The hall was lighter now. They began noticing small lights on the ceiling.
After walking for about a minute, they noticed a room to the left. It sounded quiet in there so they figured they might as well look around. Mark started looking around the room and noticed a closet full of the Dark Force’s uniforms.
“Hey,” said Mark, “why don’t we try these on and pretend we work here.”
“Great idea!” said Johnny. “Let’s get the smallest size.”
Their uniforms were way too big.
“Seriously?” said Sam. “They never thought of the fact that one day they may get workers who are under six foot.”
“It’ll be alright,” said Johnny. “We have scissors in the backpack.”
“And fake mustache’s!” Sam reminded them.
After some work they were able to cut off part of the pants and some of the sleeves of the shirt. Sam was the only one who wore a mustache. It was brown, so it perfectly matched his hair.
“These fit alright now,” said Jake.
“Now let’s get back on track,” said Johnny. “Do we even know where this Purtex is?”
“Well Sean told us the general location,” said Jake.
“We should have waited to get rid of Sean until after we found the Purtex.”
“Yeah,” agreed Sam. “Now we don’t even know where to go.”
“Yeah, you should’ve thought before pushing your key to get the Purtex off a cliff,” said a voice behind them.
They all turned around.
“Sean?” said Jake. “How are you here?”
“I can teleport, remember,” said Sean.
“How did you get in here though?” asked Sam.
“My friend Isaac works for the Dark Force. He opened the door for me and closed the shield. Alerts will be going off any second.”
“What shield?” asked Mark.
“It’s like an invisible force field. It won’t let anyone in who has powers from the Purtex.”
“Were still friends, right?” asked Mark. “I mean sure, we pushed you off a cliff and almost killed you, but we’re good, right?”
Sean pushed Mark.
“What were you thinking?” he asked.
“I’m telling the truth,” said Johnny.
“Why would you do that?” interrupted Sam.
“We heard your conversation with Isaac,” Johnny continued. “You’re a traitor.”
“You’re the one who pushed me off a cliff. And you don’t understand the whole thing. Just let me explain—“
Alerts started going off.
“That took them a while,” said Sean. “We better start running.”
“You know this place better than we do,” said Jake.
“True, only I’ve never been in here.”
Sean put on a uniform too, even though he knew people would notice his purple eyes.
“I think we should go this way,” said Sean, pointing left.
“Where are we even going?” asked Sam.
“To the Purtex, of coarse. But first, I’ve got to meet with my friend Isaac.”
After running for a few minutes they turned right, into a room that was mostly dark, except bright computers.
“Now that we’re at a stopping point I can explain myself,” said Sean.
Another man came to them from a computer.
“This is Isaac,” said Sean. “He’s going to help us steel the Purtex.”
Isaac was also we’re a uniform and had short blond hair and glasses.
“He knows all about computers,” Sean continued. “I would’ve told you about him earlier, but sense he works for the Dark Force I thought that you’d think we were both with the Dark Force.”
“Ok then,” said Johnny. “Why were you saying that you wouldn’t let the Dark Force or the spies tell you what to do?”
“I just wish the spies would give me another chance, that’s all. I want to be with the spies and I don’t like them treating me like I’m evil.”
“Why did you say that you wanted more than just the weapons?”
“First of all, I just wanted the weapons so that I could destroy them. And the other thing I wanted was revenge on my brother, Strike15.”
The four Disasters all looked at each other, wondering if they should believe Sean.
“I think he’s trustworthy,” decided Sam.
“Yeah,” agreed Mark and Jake.
“Are you guys serious?” asked Johnny. “There’s no way I can trust him any more.”
“Johnny, we need him to get the Purtex,” said Jake.
“Fine,” said Johnny. “I’ll go with him until we get to the Purtex. We’ll see what happens after that.”
“We better start right now, before they find us,” said Jake.
“Take these,” said Isaac, giving all the Disasters and Sean a small earpiece.
“Now we can all communicate with each other,” said Sean.
“Cool!” said Mark.
Isaac stayed in the computer lab to check the security cameras and open up doors when needed. Luckily, he was one of the most trusted members of the Dark Force and was in third in command. But he wouldn’t be trusted after tonight.
“You there Isaac?”
A man walked in. The Disasters and Sean all hid behind some tables.
“Have you seen anything strange?” the man asked.
“No, not really. I did hear about how Sean might, somehow be back,” answered Isaac.
“Who hasn’t heard about that? It’s all anyone can talk about. But have you seen anything on the security footage? Possibly anything of Sean?”
“It did look like something happened over there,” Isaac pointed to a room on the screen.
“Do you know what happened?”
“No, just something big. People were going crazy over there. I guess it could be Sean.”
“Ok, I’ll take a look over there.”
“Good idea.”
After they were positive that the man left the room, Sean and the Disasters left their hiding spot.
“We have to move quickly,” Isaac told them. “I can’t distract them forever. No matter how much they trust me right now, they’ll know I’m up to something eventually. I’ll talk to you through the earpiece. If you need to talk back, use the CB radio.”
“Got it,” said Sam.
They all headed out the room, back into the hall in their uniforms.
“You will need to take your next right,” Isaac told them through the earpiece.
“How can you see us?” asked Mark. “Do you have a super power too?”
“I have security footage,” said Isaac.
“Oh, right.”
Before they reached the next entrance, they ran into some other members in uniform.
“Who are you guys?” one of them asked.
“Don’t you remember us?” asked Johnny. “We’re the newest members. You met us the other day and congratulated us for being the youngest members of the Dark Force.”
They looked confused.
“Come on,” said Jake, “I remember you. You’re… Gerald and—“
“Actually my name’s Richard.”
“Right, I just got confused with the… a and d in your name.”
“Seriously? That doesn’t sound very convincing.”
No one said anything for a few seconds.
“What ever,” said Johnny.
Johnny swung his stick as hard as he could, across everyone in front of them. Then they all ran as fast as they could passed them.
“Hey! What happened over there?” some people asked from further away.
“Run!” said Isaac. “The next entrance is right up there. I’m opening the door right now.”
“Alright,” said Sean, running as fast as he could.
Sean was trying to stay in front of the group, but couldn’t because Johnny was sprinting way past them.
“I found the entrance,” announced Johnny.
He ran right in and then the others followed. After the five of them were in, Isaac closed the door.
After they were in, the lights turned off.
“What’s happening, Isaac?” asked Jake.
“I don’t know,” answered Isaac. “The cameras over where you guys are, turned off.”
“Quiet,” said Sean.
They all hid behind some big boxes. They seemed to be in a storage room.
“I see some light over there,” whispered Sam.
“Oh no,” said Sean.
It was quiet for a moment until a lightning bolt hit a large box. The box burst into pieces.
“That’s—“
Sean covered Mark’s mouth.
Soon, an electric blue lightning bolt hit another box.
“Get out of there!” yelled Isaac.
But they all stayed right where they were.
“Listen!” continued Isaac. “There should be a vent over where you are. It leads to the Purtex if you follow it the right way. There are also cameras in the vent, so I’ll be able to see where you are going.”
They all looked around. Sam pushed around some boxes, as quietly as he could. Soon, he found a vent and took off the cover.
“I can’t fit,” Sam whispered.
Another lightning bolt destroyed a box right next to them.
“Jake, we need you to try,” said Sean.
Jake didn’t want to go in there alone.
“Don’t listen to Sean,” said Johnny. “He’s going to get us trapped.”
“No he’s not,” said Sam. “Trust me Jake, you will be ok.”
“But what about you guys?” asked Jake.
“We’ll be alright,” assured Sam.
Jake looked over the boxes and started to notice a dark figure with small lightning bolts zooming around his fingers.
“You need to go now,” said Sean.
“You can do this,” said Sam. “I promise I will see you again.”
“Ok then,” said Jake after crawling into the vent and barely fitting in. “Bye.”
After Jake was all the way in, Sam put the cover back on the vent.
“You’ll be alright,” Jake reminded himself.
Jake took one last deep breath and then said, “Isaac. I’m ready.”

“You need to start by going straight,” said Isaac.
“Well duh,” said Jake. “Straight is the only way I can go.”
Jake tried to look as far as he could. Even with his flashlight, Jake could only see the trail getting darker. He didn’t see any turns.
Jake was always known for having great eyesight.
“Do you know if the others are alright?” asked Jake.
It was silent for a moment.
“Isaac?”
“Yes,” Isaac finally answered. “I believe they are alright.”
Jake hoped they were alright. He also hoped Isaac was telling the truth.
“How long will I be going straight for?” asked Jake.
“A bit longer. I’ll tell you when you’re first turn comes up.”
Jake was already tired of crawling so much. He wished he could turn back and join the others. But even if he was able to turn back, he’d have to go backwards. There was no way on Earth Jake would be able to turn around in the tight vents. And if he had to go backwards then we wouldn’t be able to see where he’s going.
That was Jake’s biggest fear: not being able to see what’s coming up, literally of figuratively. Right now he could barely see either.
“How long do you think I’ll be in these vents?” asked Jake.
“Depends on how fast you go,” answered Isaac. “At this rate, about another twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes?”
Jake had been going pretty much as fast as he could. He did not want to be in these vents much longer and he knew his flashlight wouldn’t work too much longer.
“Could I ask you some questions?” asked Jake.
“Go ahead.”
Jake figured he might as well do something else while crawling through the vents. And he still didn’t know Isaac too well.
“How long have you been with the Dark Force?”
“Sean, Daniel, and I all joined the Dark Force when we were about fourteen. We were a lot like you guys. The three of us were best friends. Rick tricked us into joining him. We thought we’d be heroes. Soon, Sean and I figured out what was really happening here. We tried to escape and Sean tried to convince Daniel to come with us. Daniel was mad at Sean for rebelling against the Dark Force and told the whole Dark Force that Sean was a traitor. Daniel never knew that I was secretly against the Dark Force. I tried to join Sean, but he told me that eventually I could be trusted enough and help Sean destroy the Dark Force. Now is the time.”
“Wow. Who’s Rick?”
“He’s the leader of the Dark Force. When you first meet him he pretends to be a nice person, but really he’s cruel. I’ve seen him shoot down members of the Dark Force who tried to stop this chaos, or even question why he does certain things.”
“That’s crazy. So you’re third in command, right?”
“Yes.”
“Who’s second in command?”
“That would be Strike15. I’m pretty sure he’s the one you saw earlier. He’s the only one with the Dark Force who has powers. Everyone else who had powers either left the Dark Force or got killed.”
“Do people just get powers after touching the Purtex?”
“We’re still not sure exactly how that works. It’s something like that, but I don’t think it works for everyone. Oh, and now you need to take a left.”
“Ok.”
Jake’s flashlight was starting to run out of battery. 
“So you’re absolutely sure you know where the Purtex is hidden?” asked Jake.
“Definitely. Rick tells everything to his other leaders. Strike15 and I were the only ones to here about where the Purtex is hidden. The bad part of that is he’ll know that I took it. He trusts Strike15 a little more that me.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Soon, you’ll have to climb up a little bit.”
“How much is a little bit?”
“I guess you’re about to find out.”
Jake was nervous. He knew that he could climb for a bit, but wasn’t sure how long he could hold himself up, especially with nothing to grab onto.
“I wish Sam were here,” said Jake, forgetting that Isaac could hear him.
“Why?” asked Isaac.
“Well it would be nice to have someone else here, physically with me. And Sam has batteries with him in the backpack. My headlamp needs more.”
“Why Sam?”
“I just told you. He has batteries.”
“But why else? You seem closer to him than the others.”
“I’m close to all of them. They’re all my best friends. It’s just that Sam is like an older brother to me. I have no older siblings.”
“That’s cool, I guess.”
Jake started coming up to wear he would apparently, have to climb. But the vents turned out to just be slanted. It wasn’t very steep either.
“This isn’t so bad,” said Jake.
“Not right now. It gets steeper. But the steeper it gets, the closer you are to the room with the Purtex.”
Jake was hoping that it didn’t get too much steeper than was he was climbing. It was still a little hard, just because he had nothing to hold onto, so he had to keep his hands on the walls and push them up, one at a time. It was like climbing up a playground slide, only much longer.
“About how much longer do you think I have left?” asked Jake.
“Maybe another fifteen minutes,” answered Isaac.
“Alright.”
Jake started to notice the vent slowly getting steeper. For a second he stopped and looked up with his light. He saw a wall, not too far in front of him.
“Oh no,” he said.
“What?” asked Isaac.
“This will go straight up, won’t it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Jake took a breath and kept going. His hands started getting slipperier and slipperier.
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” said Jake.
“You can make it. It won’t be going straight up for very long. And after that you’ll be pretty much right there.”
“Well how much is ‘not very long?’”
There both silent for a minute.
“You just have to trust me,” said Isaac.
“You remind me a lot of Sean,” said Jake after hearing that.
Soon, Jake was using his feet to help hold himself up, too.
“You may want to take your shoes off,” suggested Sean. “They have better grip than your shoes.”
“My socks will slide around way more than my shoes.”
“I meant just go barefoot.”
“Oh, ok.”
Jake didn’t want to leave his shoes behind. He knew they’d be useful later.
“I think I’ll keep them on a little longer,” Jake decided.
Jake could see the wall in front him getting closer. But he could only see it as clearly as he could when he first noticed it, because his headlamp’s light was getting smaller and smaller.
“I’m finally here,” said Jake, after taking a few more steps.
“No you’re not. You still have to go straight up.”
“That’s what I meant. I’m at that point.”
“Are you sure you’re going to keep your shoes on for this.”
“Yeah, I think I’ll be fine.”
Jake put his hands flat on the walls and pulled his feet up. But right after he put one foot up, it slipped right off and he fell.
“Jake!” yelled Isaac.
But luckily, Jake stopped himself before sliding all the way back down. His feet were flat against one wall and his back flat against the other.
“That was close,” said Isaac.
“Maybe I should take my shoes off.”
“What a great idea.”
Jake untied his shoes and then slipped them off, along with his socks. He tried to carefully place them down so that they wouldn’t move, but instead, the shoes fell right down. Jake was able to catch them with his feet before they fell all the way down.
“Listen,” said Isaac, “you’re going to have to just let them fall down. If you want to continue, you won’t be able to bring your shoes along.”
“No, that’s not why I stopped them. I have another idea.”
Jake tossed the shoes up the vent, so that they’d land right where he’d be after climbing up the vent.
“Oh,” said Isaac. “That’s a good idea.”
“Thank you.”
Jake then started climbing up the completely straight vent. He did the same thing as the last time he tried, only this time he didn’t slip.
“Good job,” said Isaac. “You’re almost there.”
Jake’s light was almost completely gone at this point. Everything looked almost completely black.
It didn’t take as long to get to the top of that part of the vent, as Jake thought it would take. He reached out his hand to pull himself up, but wasn’t quite high enough.
“Come on,” said Isaac.
Jake’s arms and legs were very tired now.
I can do this, Jake kept telling himself. So he took a few more steps on the wall with his feet and then reached his arm out again. He could barely reach.
“Yes!” said Isaac.
“I finally made it!” 
“That’s great. Now what you need to do is—“
It was completely silent for a moment. Jake’s light was also now completely out.
“Isaac?”
Jake got no answer.
“Isaac, are you there? Where are you?”
Jake still didn’t get an answer.
Without Isaac talking to Jake, or his light, Jake felt completely alone.
“I need you Isaac!”
Jake knew he needed to just keep going, even if he didn’t have a light or Isaac. He stretched out his other arm and tried to pull himself up, but one of his slippery feet slipped off the wall and he fell down.
This time he wasn’t able to stop himself from falling. Jake fell all the way down. He was in panic sense he couldn’t see anything. Jake tried to hold his hands out against the wall to stop himself, but couldn’t.
Eventually Jake felt the wall stop on one side and turn to another entrance.
Of coarse, thought Jake, I need to go the way I came in.
But Jake still couldn’t stop himself. His hands slipped off the wall and he kept falling. It soon became steep again. It was steep for so long, that Jake thought when it was back to the normal level, he’d just break right through the vent.
  Jake was right. Eventually it became level with the ground again and Jake crashed right through the vent.

Sean, Mark, Johnny, and Sam wondered how they’d get out of this situation. They were also all hoping Jake was safe.
After a box right next to them was struck by lightning, Sean looked up at all of them and grabbed all their arms.
“What’re you doing?” Johnny whispered.
They all felt a pull and then opened their eyes back in the hallway.
“Well this is a step back, but at least we’re safe,” said Mark.
“People are going to be after us soon,” said Sean. “We better start running.”
“Where?” asked Johnny.
“Just away from everyone else,” answered Sean. “We should be alright. Isaac is watching over the security cameras.”
“Ok,” said Sam. “He better be keeping a close eye on Jake. I can’t let anything happen to him.”

“How will we meet back up with Jake?” asked Sam.
“When we can, we’ll go to the Purtex room and meet him in there,” answered Sean.
They all started running when they heard some people coming around the corner.
“You won’t find the Purtex, Sean.”
“Calvin? What’re you doing here?” asked Mark.
“You’re that voice I recognized in that destroyed apartment,” said Sam.
“No it wasn’t,” said Sean. “It wasn’t Calvin. His real name is Daniel.”
“What!” blurted Johnny. “You’re the traitor to Sean and Isaac. You’re the reason Sean’s being hunted down right now!”
“How did you know that?” asked Sean.
“I listened to Isaac’s conversation with Jake, when we were in the other room. Some how our earpieces must have stopped working after we teleported because I didn’t hear them talking after that.”
“Why are you doing this?” Sean asked Daniel.
“I’m proving my loyalty to the Dark Force, unlike you did. And it turned out Isaac was with you all along. I guess I’ll be the only one in our trio who didn’t become a traitor.”
Again, Sean grabbed Mark, Johnny, and Sam’s arms and teleported to a different location of the base. They were in the room where they found the uniforms, now.
“Daniel will tell everyone about us and where we are,” said Johnny. “How do we stop him?”
“I wish Jake were here,” said Sam. “He always thinks of good plans.”
“We can still do this,” said Mark. “We can’t give up now.”
“Our plan already took some wrong turns,” said Sean. “It’ll be hard to come up with a new one.”
“I wish we could at least talk to Isaac,” said Johnny.
“I’m not sure why we can’t,” said Sean.
Sean then disappeared for a moment and reappeared.
“Where were you?” asked Mark.
“I just checked on the storage room we were in,” answered Sean. “The box we were behind is gone. Strike15 is now leaving. I had to check super quick, so that he wouldn’t see me.”
“So we can go back?” asked Sam.
“Not quite yet,” answered Sean. “We need to make sure that when we’re back in there, Strike15 isn’t. We can’t risk him being there again.”
They all sat there for a minute, all thinking about what they needed to do. They each thought about what their part would be in this.
“Now,” said Sean.
Mark, Johnny, and Sam all put out their arms. Sean grabbed them and then they were back in the storage room. They all looked around to make sure the coast was clear.
“Let’s continue the journey,” said Sean.
The storage room was a big mess. They all walked through the room, trying to find the entrance to the next room.
“We really need Isaac now,” said Mark. “Any chance Rick told you where the Purtex was hidden?”
“I wish,” answered Sean.
There were some large shelves against the wall. Johnny figured if there was a secret entrance, it must be behind one of the shelves. So he started moving them around to see the entire wall. The others seemed to notice what he was doing and joined in.
“Does anyone see anything interesting?” asked Sean.
“Hold on,” said Sam. “Does this count?”
Everyone walked over to him. There was a painting on the wall.
“What’s interesting about that?” asked Mark.
“I don’t know, it’s a painting,” said Sam. “More interesting than anything else here.”
“Wait a minute,” said Sean.
Sean borrowed a pocketknife from Sam and cut a hole through the painting.
“Just as I expected,” he said.
The hole opened up and there was a dark hole behind it.
“This is our passageway,” said Sean.
They all turned on their flashlights and crawled in. It was a big tunnel and they could all stand up and walk through it. There was a door at the end of the tunnel.
“I think this will be it,” said Johnny.
“I hope so,” said Mark.
When they got to the door, they opened it up. It was an elevator.
“This must take us to the weapons room, which is where the Purtex is,” said Sean.
When they were all inside the elevator, Sean looked at the buttons. But he could only find one. He pressed it and they all went up.
Everyone was silent. This was it. They would take the Purtex and then teleport out of the mountain. But there was a problem now. None of them knew how they’d get Jake. They could only hope that he already made his way to the weapons room.
The elevator stopped and opened up. They looked around and saw weapons all over the walls. It was similar to the room Johnny and Sean had been in before, on the first day of school. But this room was bigger.
Everyone stepped out of the elevator.
“Is the Purtex supposed to be hidden in here, too?” asked Mark.
“No, I don’t think so,” answered Sean.
They all started looking around the room.
“Guys I’m back!”
“Jake?” said Sam.
“Yeah I have an urgent question for Sean.”
“What?” asked Sean.
“Do you think there’s any chance Rick loved the Purtex so much that he lied to his most trusted leaders about where it’s hidden?”
Sean didn’t know how to answer.
“Do you know where the Purtex is?” he finally asked.
“I might.”
“Where are you?” interrupted Sam.
“I must be at the bottom level of the base.”
“We’ve got to find some way to get to you,” said Sean.
“Get to who?” a voice interrupted.
They all looked over to see Rick, Strike15, and Daniel.
“Thanks to these two, I found all of you,” said Rick.
Sam was going to say, “not all of us,” but decided he better not.
“Why would you betray us, Sean? My brother?” asked Strike15.
“I left for Brandon, our other brother.”
Mark, Johnny, and Sam kept looking back and forth from Sean to Strike15, with their mouths open wide.
“We left him,” continued Sean. “It wasn’t right. We were traitors to him.”
“That’s not true!” interrupted Strike15. “He refused to join the Dark Force. He should have joined us. I’m going to stay loyal even if you won’t.”
Sean started backing up to Mark, Johnny, and Sam. The three of them knew what he was going to do.
“It seems all three of us brothers have joined different sides,” said Strike15. “I’m with the Dark Force, Brandon’s with the spies, and you just can’t join either.”
“You can’t stop us,” said Sean.
Strike15 struck Sean with a lightning bolt.
Mark, Johnny, and Sam all appeared back in the hallway without Sean.
“No!” said Johnny.
“We need to find Jake,” reminded Sam.
“Why would Sean just stay there?” asked Mark. “Why didn’t he come with us?”
“He’s being a distraction so that we can find Jake and the Purtex,” said Johnny.
“I say we better make his sacrifice worth something,” said Sam.
They all went back into the storage room. Somehow the door was wide open.
“We took the wrong entrance,” said Johnny, going back to the painting. “We were supposed to go down.”
They all looked underneath the big shelf. Sam wiped of some dust and they found the outline to a trap door. Johnny found the handle and pulled it open. They all jumped down.
“Jake! Where are you?” asked Sam.
“Over here!” yelled Jake.
Sam couldn’t tell if he heard that from his earpiece, or actually heard it from Jake.
Mark, Johnny, and Sam were in a blank room with stonewalls. The trap door closed above them.   
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” complained Mark. “This was a trap.”
“Maybe it’s not,” said Johnny.
“How?” asked Sam.
“Just feel around everywhere. Maybe there’s a hidden entrance,” explained Johnny.
“Where are you Jake?”
“This is pointless. We’re trapped!” yelled Mark, taking out his mirror and throwing it at the wall.
The mirror disappeared.
“And it just gets worse,” he continued, “now my mirror is gone!”
“This is great!” said Johnny.
“What?” asked Mark. “You enjoy seeing me in pain?”
Johnny ran right into the wall and disappeared.
“Where did he go?” asked Mark. “This place is so confusing.”
Sam then followed Johnny, running into the wall and disappearing.
“What! You too, Sam?”
Mark looked around. He was alone. He looked up at where the trap door was, then at the wall, where everything was disappearing.
“Whatever,” said Mark, bolting towards the wall.
Mark reappeared in a hot room.
“You finally decided to join us?” asked Johnny.
Mark looked at the ground and saw a gun in Jake’s hand.
“What are you doing with that?” asked Mark.
“It’s a portal gun,” answered Jake. “You guys were on the other side of this wall. Also I found your mirror. It landed in the furnace.”
“No!”
There was a big furnace in the back of the room, along with a door next to it.
“It’s great seeing you again,” said Sam. “How did you get in here?”
“I fell through a vent and landed in here, knocking that guy out who had the portal gun,” Jake pointed to a man, lying on the ground.
  Suddenly, the door opened up.
“I’ve been waiting to do this ever since I heard about the Purtex,” said Daniel, walking in with one other man, who was carrying the Purtex. “You know, if it wasn’t for me, we wouldn’t have the Purtex right now. That’s right, I brought it here. You can thank me later. Also you should remind Rick that I did that. And—“
“Can you be quiet for one minute?” the other man asked. “Hey, who are you four? And who gave you a portal gun?”
“Uh, that guy,” said Jake, pointing to the man who was lying on the floor.
The four Disasters all ran over to the man who was carrying the Purtex.
“Don’t you understand what Rick is going to do when he gets all this power?” asked Johnny.
“Not really,” the man said. “I’m just doing what the boss told me to do.”
Daniel pulled out a gun.
“Jake, you may win in Treasure Quest, but real life is different. You don’t always win.”
“Spies are coming! Help them!” It was Sean.
“Sean!” the Disasters all yelled.
Jake didn’t know what else to do, so he held the portal gun, facing the same wall Mark, Johnny, and Sam came through.
“Are you still there, Sean?” asked Johnny.
“Sean?” repeated Mark.
“He may not be able to speak to us for a while,” said Sam. “He just left us with that message.”
“That’s it!” yelled the man with the Purtex.
He dropped it in the furnace.
“No!” shouted everyone, including Daniel.
“I wanted to do that,” complained Daniel.
But the Purtex wasn’t melting.
“Come on. Why won’t it just melt?” wondered Daniel.
The man got very tired of waiting, and took the Purtex out of the furnace, dropping it on the ground because it was so hot. When he dropped it, there still wasn’t a scratch on the diamond. There was only the small sliver taken off by the Dark Force.
“This is my time,” said Mark.
Mark ran over to the diamond, took it, and ran back.
“You’ll regret this,” said Daniel, pulling his gun back out. “I promised Rick I wouldn’t let anyone take the Purtex. And I’m going to keep that promise.”
But before Daniel could shoot them, a spy jumped out of the wall and started shooting at Daniel. Daniel tried to defend himself but couldn’t, so he just left out the door.
“Wow!” said Mark, still holding the Purtex. “Who are you?”
“My name is Agent Burns.”
“We need to finish this mission,” said Mark, triumphantly.
“All we have left is escaping,” said Jake.
“Well, what’d you say?” asked Agent Burns. “Finish this mission?”
“Of coarse.”

“Sean, are you there?” Johnny kept asking.
“Still nothing,” said Sam.
“We have to find some way to help him,” said Jake.
They decided to try to go back to the weapons room. Jake brought the portal gun with him and Agent Burns stayed with them, too. Johnny held onto the Purtex next because he was the fastest.

Sean kept being struck by lightning from Strike15.
“You still need more motivation to join us in hunting down those four kids?” asked Rick.
Rick then brought out Isaac, who was tied to a chair.
“They figured out our plan,” said Isaac.
“If you help us, you’re friend goes free. Otherwise we do some more weapons testing on your friend.”
“Dust Storm, Blizzard, Hurricane, and Tornado, I need you to come here and save Isaac.”
Those were the first words Sean had spoken for a while.
“Who are they?” asked Rick. “Are those codenames?”
“They are with the spies.”
“Do it,” Rick told Strike15.
Strike15 electrocuted Sean as much as he could. He was also holding onto Sean, so that if Sean teleported then Strike15 would come with him. There was no way for Sean to stop him. But there was a way for the Disasters to save Isaac.

After hearing Sean speak again, Agent Burns and the Disasters all ran as fast as they could, to the weapons room. They were sprinting, until they got to the elevator. They all stood there together, all anxious for the elevator to finally reach the weapons room.
“I need to tell you something,” said Sean.
Everyone listened closely.
“I don’t think I’ll make it out of here.”
Sean stopped talking in the middle of his sentences, when he was binging struck by lightning.
“You have to save Isaac and the Purtex. Don’t worry about me.”
“No!” they all yelled.
When the elevator finally opened up to the weapons room, they all saw Sean being tortured by Strike15. Sean looked at them all in the eyes and said, “tell my brother I wish I could have joined him. Tell him I’m sorry.”
Then Sean and Strike15 both disappeared.
“No!” the Disasters all yelled.
Soon, they were ripping off weapons from the wall to fire at Rick, but then Daniel came out to stop them. Daniel punched Sam, who easily punched him back.
“What were you thinking, Daniel?” Rick slapped Daniel. “You let them take the Purtex. Wait, who has it?”
“We left it down there,” said Mark, proudly.
“What!”
When Daniel and Rick were auguring, the Disasters figured now was their best time to leave. Jake was holding the Purtex in the vents, but came out when he saw they were ready. Rick saw the diamond in Jake’s hands, from the other side of the room, and started running toward him.
Jake quickly triggered the portal gun in a corner of the room, and the Disasters, Isaac, and Agent Burns all jumped through.
Alerts were going off everywhere. Jake kept firing the portal gun, until they were all outside of the mountain. After they were outside of the mountain, another spy joined them, named Tom.
Guards started trying to shoot them and stop them. After that, Agent Burns turned around and looked at all the guards.
“Oh no!” one guard yelled, after seeing him.
Agent Burns started creating flames in his hands. Guards were now sprinting away as fast as they could. Agent Burns pointed his palms toward the base and began blasting out huge flames.
“Run!” Agent Burns yelled to the others. “I can get back to the spy lab myself, don’t worry about me.”
He and Tom obviously trusted each other a lot, because Tom immediately started running away with the Disasters.

From a mountain further away, Sean and Strike15 could see large flames coming from the Dark Force’s base. Strike15 was still electrocuting Sean.
“That’s it!” shouted Sean. “I will fight no longer.”
Sean was able to step away from his brother.
“Have you ever thought about what you’re fighting for?” Sean asked him.
Strike15 didn’t say anything.
“I’m fighting for the spies, the Disasters, and my younger brother who chose to join the spies. What are you fighting for?”
After a moment, Strike15 said, “The Dark Force!” and angrily blasted Sean off the mountain with a lightning bolt.
Strike15 looked over the edge of the mountain. Sean was still falling down, not teleporting. Even if Sean wanted to teleport he couldn’t. He had already done everything he could for the spies.

Before the Disasters and Tom made it back to the campsite, Tom needed to ask them a question.
“Wait a minute,” said Tom.
The Disasters all stopped running.
“There’s something I need to ask you guys. You like danger right?”
“Of coarse,” said Mark.
“Definitely,” answered Sam.
“Haven’t we already proven that?” asked Jake.
“Danger is my middle name,” said Johnny.
“Good,” continued Tom. “You have all proven something tonight. Now I don’t have a lot of time right now, but my question for you all is: how would you like to join our spy team?”
The Disasters all opened their mouths wide and looked at each other.
“I think I can speak for the Disasters,” said Mark. “We’ll pass.”
“Mark!” the other three yelled at him.
“I’m joking, I’m joking,” he laughed.
“Well then, you’re in,” said Tom. “I promise we’ll find you later and bring you into the spy lab.”
Sam handed the Purtex to Tom.
“Before you go,” said Sam, “there’s something I need to know.”
“What?”
“Why did they give the diamond such a weird name, like Purtex?”
“If I ever find that out, I promise I will tell you.”
And then Tom left.
Then Disasters all felt like heroes that day. And they knew they could continue to be heroes with the spies.
“Ok, I’m extremely tired now,” said Johnny. “Let’s go back to camp.”
The others agreed and they walked back.
“It’s a good thing our parents didn’t know we ever left,” said Mark.
When they finally made it back to camp, they saw their parents with the police.
“Oh boy,” said Jake.
Everybody ran over to them, after noticing them. They’re parents hugged them, so glad that they were alive.
“Ok, what happened here?” Johnny’s dad asked them all.
The Disasters all looked at each other. Johnny, Jake, and Sam all tried to stop Mark from answering for them, but they were too late.
“Let’s just say four disasters saved the world.”
“Wow,” said Mark’s dad. “How amazing! You’re grounded.”