Welcome To The Crew

The three rebels left the manager's office with Riley leading the group. She opened the partly closed door to the room where they had left the new girl and were surprised to see her. Her back was faced towards them and her shoulders were tensed.

"Hey, are you okay?", Riley asked as the other two followed her into the room.

Sabrina was startled and turned around quickly. Before anyone could ask any questions, she signaled them to be quiet but putting a finger to her lips. The others were wary but complied and crept very slowly into the room.

Sabrina's eyebrows were furrowed in concentration as she tried to figure out something. She looked them straight in the eyes and put a hand to her ear.

They all tried to listen in order to figure out what she was talking about and sure enough, a quiet whirring sound was heard coming from left corner that was perpendicular to the entrance.

Once they located the origin of the noise, their gaze simultaneously shifted towards that area.

Archer saw it first.

He pulled out a stun gun from seemingly nowhere, aimed and shot at the target. A loud clang was heard.

He got it.

They all carefully made their way towards the fallen thing with Sabrina in front. She saw it and gasped.

A metal sphere with a circular glass lens was sitting on the floor with some smoke coming out from behind the lens.

"

A drone?", Sabrina asked.

"Thank gosh. We've been looking for that thing forever!", Cody exclaimed.

"Wait, it's been here for a while??? Why didn't you guys hunt it down? Those things are bad news. It could compromise your entire operation!", Sabrina shouted.

"It's just one drone. Plus we don't really have much of value to them so why would they hunt us down? We're not their highest priorities," Archer shrugged.

"Those things are dangerous. They're basically spies. And how do you know that they won't come for you? You are basically setting up a resistance to Vision's nonsense, he'd want to neutralise a threat before it becomes troublesome. You guys have to be careful," Sabrina said quite concerned for her newfound allies.

"You seem to know a lot about him," Archer said.

"I'm just trying to put myself in his shoes," she stuttered.

God, she was so bad at lying.

Archer stared at her and she averted her gaze.

Riley cleared her throat and this broke Archer's deadly glare.

"So we've decided..."

"Decided what?" Sabrina asked quickly. Her nervousness showing.

Archer rolled his eyes as Cody spoke, "About you being apart of our crew."

She mentally slapped herself, eyes dawning realisation, "Oh yes, of course. Sorry, I'm still a bit... uh, you know?"

The others nod and smile in understanding.

"So what's the verdict?", she smiled nervously, playing with her fingers.

Riley smiled warmly at her, "You're in."

Sabrina's whole mood lifted.

"Really? Thank you so much!" she threw herself at Riley and Cody and gave them a huge bone-crushing hug.

In case you didn't figure it out, Sabrina was a hugger.

Cody and Riley both sported looks of surprise and confusion but also fondness for their new crew member. They slowly brought their arms up and hugged back.

"Uhmm. Thank you..?", Riley said unsure of how to react to this.

Cody was grinning from ear to ear, just maybe she could be trusted.

Archer scoffed and they broke their unexpected embrace.

"Right, sorry," Sabrina said sheepishly. She turned her attention to Archer, "You didn't look like much of a hugger, plus I don't think you like me very much for me to get within a 2 foot radius around you so that's why I left you out." She gave a slight smile in an attempt to be friendly.

"Well, you're right about that," he said and turned away from her.

Her face fell. So much for being polite. This guy's a real piece of work. Looks like she's gaining the favour of the other two already, she just needs to try a little harder with this one.

This is going to be a challenge.

"So now that that's over... Wanna grab something to eat?", Cody asked.

Everyone hummed in agreement.

"You guys have food? Like proper food? Where? How? What?", Sabrina asked bewildered.

Riley chuckled in response and said, "Yes, we have food but it's not like restaurant class food. Just basic things that are easy to make, last long and are not picky with storage. But for the things that need more care, we have a freezer."

Sabrina couldn't help but look at the kitchen area next to the sofas. She looked around for a freezer and raised her eyebrow at the black-haired girl when she couldn't see one.

"Oh, the freezer is in our base. This ain't our digs," Riley clarified.

Sabrina's mouth went in an 'O' shape.

"Yeah, our place is pretty cool if I do say so myself," Cody said proudly while tugging on the neck of his gray shirt.

Archer just smirked in response.

"Okay, so are we gonna head there now? Is it far or what?", the newcomer rambled.

"It's close, alright. Turn around," Archer said smugly.

Sabrina was confused but complied, not wanting to get on this guy's bad side more than she already was. She was now facing the door when she heard their footsteps going towards the further end of the room.

Wait, why are they going towards the vending machine? Are they getting the snacks now or are they just trying to mess with me? Are they leaving me here? Are they going to shoot me?!? Are they-

Her thought process was interrupted by the sounds of something being entered into a keypad.

Maybe they are just getting snacks.

The machine hummed and whirred and then she heard something open.

Did they just hack the vending machine to get all the snacks or something? What?

The suspense was killing her. She wanted to know what was happening. She was about to turn around when she heard the younger boy call out to her, "Okay, you can turn around now!"

She could sense the smile in his voice.

She turned around and her jaw dropped to the floor.

Her 'friends' were just standing around the vending machine with smug looks on their faces.

That wasn't the shocking part. The shocking part was that the vending machine was now a door leading to stairs going down into a basement of some kind.

Sabrina couldn't even speak.

"So you can shut up," Archer drawled still smirking.

She almost hated his smirk as much as Vision's.

Riley laughed and Cody opened his arms and dramatically gestured to the secret entrance,

"Welcome to HQ."