Gold. Orange. Blue. White. Black. We garbed ourselves with tights, belts, armor and masks, same as we would if we were going to war. Somewhere out there was a monster, and with it our companions. It was going to take more than a handful of campers to bring them back. No, it was going to need a superhero or two… or in our case, five.

Gabby frowned. “I promised Jorge no costumes,” she muttered, herself transformed by the footless monochrome bodysuit into her widely known alter-ego of Touch. “He’ll just have to chew me out when we drag him back.”

Wild Knight, Herculena, Noble and I gathered behind her on the shoreline, staring into the intimidating wall of darkness on the other side of the water. All manner of creatures lurked in concealment from the Society of Sin to King freakin’ Kong, and I along with the others was expected to punch them.

“Anyone else get a bad feeling about this?” I asked.

Herculena scoffed and polished her sword. “Have a care for your dignity, Glimmer Girl. Fear does not become you.”

The hand on my shoulder made me jump, though I calmed when I saw who it belonged to. Noble squeezed gently to assure me he would be there fighting bravely at my side. I reached and stroked his perched hand appreciatively. At least I wasn’t alone in this.

Wild Knight stepped forward and kicked his boot in the shallow torrent. “So, what’s the plan?” he asked of Touch.

Her eyes narrowed on the void of savage possibility. None of this rested easy with her, least of all her duty as leader, but only because it meant that Jorge was lost, hurt, or worse.

“We stick together,” she instructed. “Everyone got their radios in?”

By ‘everyone’, of course, she meant those whose powers didn’t fizzle out any and all communication devices they had been provided with in the past: namely everyone but me.

“Let’s move. Remember, our priority is to find Jorge and Ari. If we can we avoid engaging whatever it is out there. Alright?”

Herculena grinned. “I will make no such promise,” she mused.

Yeah, I had a really bad feeling about this.

* * * *

The Gadgeteer ducked to hide behind an upturned chunk of earth. It was like world war four out there with the draconic Konquero and his minions come to make another attempt on his planet. He shivered nervously, fearful of their alien might. These enemies were A-league, much more suited to the major heroes like the Vigil, not a weedy little techie with only a handful of his usual toys.

“I need a xeno-linguistic translation matrix, sub-heading: crell,” he ordered into his helmet. From high orbit the information needed was patched into his equipment. In just a few short minutes he would be able to comprehend their dialect: that was assuming, of course, that he survived that long.

He could hear the dinosaur descended behemoth roar while explosions raged around him. For whatever reason the crell super-soldier was in combat with his own people: the walking lizards with the ray guns. It seemed more bad luck than anything that a superhero got caught in the middle of their firefight.

“Can anyone hear me?” Gadgeteer asked the communicator. “Gabby? Jorge? GG? Heck, I’d even take you, Wild Knight…”

No response was forthcoming. The patch he was downloading had also frozen. Something was blocking his signals, most probably the crell soldiers. With a gamut of extra-terrestrial technology at their disposal it would be child’s play to jam a simple transmission.

“Great,” he gulped. Talk about getting stuck between a rock and a hard place.

The Gadgeteer steeled himself and prepared the discs strapped to his feet for a long jump into the treetops. At full speed he might be able to outpace Konquero’s leaps and bounds for a good few minutes before giving out. It was worth a shot.

From the battle he could hear the crell’s hiss. The partial patch his equipment had processed could only translate a single word: “human.” That was his cue. If he didn’t move then he might soon never move again.

Soaring into the higher branches his flight system wined as it thrust him forward at inhuman velocity. The navigation readout nagged at him while angrily climbing red numbers blinked on his visor. “Please, god, somebody help,” he whispered. With any luck he’d stumble into Jorge and Herculena and triple-team his way to victory.

Suddenly there came bolts of laser death through the trees. At least one of the crell warriors was in hot pursuit below and making up for the speed the super-soldier lacked. With only a limited amount of juice powering the Gadgeteer’s escape capture or execution was becoming inevitable.

“I used to be a scout, you know,” the techie spat as he reached into his pocket. “You won’t catch me unprepared!”

He dropped something small, something that could have at first been mistaken for marbles. Before hitting the ground below the swarm unfurled by the dozens, each sprouting insect-like wings and micro-mechanical stingers. With a singular mind they charged the alien, burying themselves in its flesh and gnawing away at its transport.

“I’m like the Home Alone kid meets Terminator,” the Gadgeteer grinned.

KRAK-THOOOOOM!

Snapping against the outstretched branches the young hero spun into freefall. Arcing up from a sharp nose dive he managed to narrowly avoid plowing into the earth. At those speeds not even his portable force field generator would have saved him.

As his propulsion system powered down he was slowed by the cracking of limbs over the surrounding energy bubble before bringing him rolling to a halt on the moist dirt. It wasn’t a smooth landing, but it was a good one if he could walk away from it: or run.

Quick once more to his feet the hero fumbled for another trick. Sonic splitters? They were back in the lab. Motion activated cyber-vines? Still in the production phase. Even his grandpa’s long discarded giga-glue bombs would have come in handy. Instead there was only his lightweight sci-fi pistol and the vain hope that he could make a crack shot.

Taking refuge behind the trunk of the thickest tree he could make out the Gadgeteer sat in wait while the crell caught up on foot.

“Okay, you got this,” he told himself. “Point, aim, shoot, repeat. Easy. 1, 2, 3, 4, right?”

He lingered, listening anxiously to the footsteps of the crell as they stepped from their unseen mode of transport. Try as he might to focus one thought rolled around and would not leave him, that those moments might be his very last. Two or three outbursts would fizzle out the protective barrier surrounding him and fourteen years of life would come to an end. The grim imagery of his own body lying in the grass forced his hand to tremble.

All was silent. They’d stopped moving. This was it.

“We will give you but one op-por-tu-ni-ty to ne-go-ti-ate, hu-man,” the leader crell croaked stiffly. Even through their highly sophisticated rosetta matrices the native terran tongues were difficult for them to grasp.

The Gadgeteer sighed. “My kingdom for some Man-Droid sized help,” he said. Sadly unless the other Young Sentinels stumbled on his location in the next ten seconds to save the day no aid was coming.

Like the nerdy lovechild of John Wayne and Rambo he turned, one arm reaching out into the clearing with a careful eye placing its position. He had to get it just right…

Unfortunately the hero waited just a second too long. The first laser bolt crashed against his defenses. For a few vital seconds they clung to power just long enough for him to deliver a return shot. However it was quickly disabled when the first crell’s companion released the contents of its own weapon.

Ari could feel the burning in his chest. Funny, it wasn’t as painful as he thought it would be: more numb. His body fell under its own weight, his back hitting the soil and his helmet bouncing against a thick root. He wondered almost dreamily, is this what dying feels like? Funny, to him it felt just like he was going to sleep after a long day.

The two draconic warriors hovered over him and hissed to one another. Strange thing was that they didn’t act like they were victorious. If anything they seemed… concerned.

Finally the Gadgeteer closed his eyes. Whatever his fate was to be it was out of his control.

* * * *

Above:

Perched in the air I looked down on the illuminated forest as though it were day. I guess for all intents and purposes it was, except instead of a blazing sun there was me, the lady of light beaming with every ounce of wattage I had.

On the ground below Touch, Wild Knight and Herculena searched for signs while Noble scoured the treetops. Gods, if only I could have had a radio of my own, then I could have heard what they were saying and feel like I was doing something useful instead of just sitting there.

Slowly ascending from his search Noble brought himself to eye level. “How’s everything from up here?”

“Boring. It’s making me anxious,” I confessed. “Seriously, this must be what Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer feels like on his days off.”

He laughed at the comparison. At least he thought I was funny. That was a good thing, right?

“You guys making any progress on ground level?”

Noble frowned. “Nothing solid. We found a few tracks, but after a while they all trail off. It almost makes you wonder if this thing is covering them as it goes.”

“Great, a semi-intelligent monster,” I griped. “Is it too much to fight a Sesame Street level monster, just once?”

“Sesame Street monsters usually stay on Sesame Street,” he said, “and last I heard Sesame Street wasn’t exactly crime alley.”

“I know. Just making light of a tricky situation.”

The hero stopped and shook his head as if he just remembered the cue to smile. He placed his hand on my shoulder again and gave it a squeeze, something I might have appreciated if hard light form didn’t numb my sense of touch.

“Sometimes all you can do is laugh,” he reminded me sweetly, damn his beautiful hide. “Meanwhile, I-“

Noble pause as he looked to the wilderness. Something had spooked him, but all the way up from there? I followed his gaze but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, not on any of the light spectrums that I was able to interpret.

“Is something wrong?” I finally asked.

Wild Knight’s voice crackled in his earpiece so loudly that even I could hear it. “Hey, will you two stop making out up there and give us a hand!?”

I practically jumped. Wild Knight knew about my crush!? Did the whole team know!? Flushed with embarrassment I felt stupid for thinking that I’d somehow been subtle.

“Uh,” I explained to Noble nervously, “I have no idea what he’s talking about… do you?”

Though he wasn’t listening. The next thing I knew Noble was darting down towards the woods with the determination of a hawk. Just like that. So what else could I do? Left awkwardly behind I decided to follow.

Descending to the mossy ground I quickly caught up to ask him what the hell was going on. It wasn’t until I powered down that I noticed the high beams through the bushes and the mangled wreck of the car from which they emanated.

Locked into action Noble and I each took to a door and hoped to the gods that there was nobody inside. No such luck. Two people, a man and a woman, both relatively young lay strewn over the dashboard, pinned into their seats by the semi-collapsed hood. The woman in front of me stared blankly, a trickle of blood running from her temple. I felt cautiously for a pulse, running my fingers over her neck like I was pressing onto wet, slick plastic, but she was long gone.

“Anything?” Noble asked.

His question shook me from my stupor. “No, she’s…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. The reality was just too horrifying. As she was she didn’t even seem human: more like a doll who’d been arranged into a gory display. It’s the kind of sight that can stop your heart cold if you’re not used to it. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your perspective, I wasn’t.

“How did you find them?” I asked. From so far away it was unlikely that he would simply chance on a roadside incident.

“Super-empathy,” he said. “The panic and fear of others is like a scream to me.”

Super-empathy…?

I jumped when suddenly the driver raised his head. “Sh-elleyyyyyy…?”

Noble laid his hands upon him, searching for the worst of his wounds so he could heal them. “Shelley’s fine,” he lied coolly. “Can you tell me your name?”

“I was… is she okay…?” the driver pressed weakly. “Where is she…?”

“She’s safe,” the hero lied again with red painted guilt strewn obviously across his brow. “Tell me where it hurts. What’s your name?”

Whatever the driver said it wasn’t very clear. I could only watch as Noble nodded along, probably himself only barely able to make out the garbled syllables being choked out. Gods, what a gruesome sight.

“Glimmer Girl,” Noble said certainly, “get on the wire and appraise Touch of the situation.” He threw me his earpiece and turned back. It seemed more than likely that what he was listening to were the man’s final words.

I did as I was told and stepped away thinking that if I didn’t see the mess then I wouldn’t have to think about it. Yeah, fat chance of that happening.

Touch responded almost immediately. “Noble? What’s going on?”

“It’s… Glimmer Girl,” came my shaky reply. I was trembling so much I could hardly fit the device properly over my lobe.

“Glimmer Girl? What’s going on? Why are the lights out?”

“We’ve found something,” I told her. “A car wreck. Two people inside. One of them is…” The revulsion welled up. I quickly swallowed it. “Dead. One of them is dead. The other is critical. Noble’s with him right now and… yeah, it’s not looking good.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“I’m sorry. Does it look like an ordinary accident?”

Looking back to the claw marks in the steel frame and what had to be the impact points of giant fists I scoffed. “Not ordinary by a long shot. This is definitely the kind of thing we’re chasing out here.”

Again silence. What was the problem? Something told me that I was really out of the loop.

“When you’re both able we need you at our location,” Touch said. “You weren’t the only ones to find something.”

“You go,” Noble said. “I can take care of this.”

I passed the message on. “I’m coming alone. Noble is still busy here.”

“Alright. Tell him we’ll contact the authorities and instruct them to home in on his location. We need you with the rest of the team.”

“On it.” Turning back to return Noble’s radio I tried to avert my eyes from the dying man in his care. I felt bad just leaving, but at the same time I couldn’t do much just standing around, could I? Just in case I asked “are you sure there’s nothing I can do?”

“Go help the others,” he said again. “We’ll be fine. Promise.”

It wasn’t like I could question his word or anything. He seemed to know what he was doing. Charging my powers again I took to the sky in the direction of the others.

* * * *

“You,” Wild Knight pointed seriously as I hit the earth. “Power down. I need to check something.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. For some reason I felt guilty, which was weird because I really hadn’t done anything, yet there I was being suddenly and inexplicably sniffed by my blue and white clad team-mate.

“Did I forget to put on deodorant or something?”

“You smell like our monster,” he said, “and not whatever was out here with Ari and Jorge.”

I blinked for a moment to try and make sense of it. “Am I missing something here?” I asked of the team. Touch was preoccupied examining something etched on a tree with her torchlight, something which I noticed on closer inspection looked frighteningly like a scorch mark.

“We were tracking Go! and Gadgeteer when Wild Knight picked up a third scent,” she informed me. “Whatever we’ve walked into it doesn’t look like a lone savage on a rampage.”

Great. We weren’t alone, but that still didn’t answer “so why did you have to smell me?”

Wild Knight looked up, grinned facetiously as he ran his clawed fingers through his mane. “Sorry, GG. We’re just trying to set up a timeline. If the smell is anything to go by then that road disaster you came into was the monster’s work. Whoever else is here was nowhere near that and have been following a lot of the same leads we have, albeit sporadically.”

A lot of that went over my head, but the resounding knowledge that our foe wasn’t alone did more than enough to put my nerves even more on edge. I hated mysteries. They were better suited to smarter heroes or fans of detective stories. All I knew was bright lights and shooting.

“Any idea where Go! or Gadgeteer went?” I asked.

Wild Knight frowned and shook his head. “Hard to say. The trail stops dead right here. Same with the other scent that was following them. There’s something else too, it’s… right there tickling my nose but I can’t quite put a finger on it…”

“Then mayhaps we should shift our focus to our attacker in the hopes that it may bear more answers,” Herculena grunted from the sidelines, clearly bored by all the CSI talk. “Of what we’ve found so far its scent is the strongest.”

“For once we’re in agreement,” Touch chided. “Wild Knight, you lead the way. Glimmer Girl, if you could light our path it would be much appreciated.”

I hesitated to do as I was told. The visage of the beast rolled across my consciousness to remind me how very little I wanted to see it again. “Are you sure? What if he sees us coming?”

Laughing at my terror the demigoddess strode boldly forward into the woods. “Surprise is for cowards, Glimmer Girl. We want him to see us coming.”

Touch and I exchanged a look, the kind that was supposed to remind me we were a team: all for one, one for all and all that jazz. It didn’t make me feel all that much better but it was enough to push me along. Lighting up like a candle I followed Wild Knight’s lead.

* * * *

His back burned with fiery needles, yet pick at them as he might the wounds were empty. The only thing he drew back was seared flesh underneath his scales and a fresh layer of blood on his claws. It was one of the worst kinds of pain to which there was no relief, but the beast would endure as he had a thousand times before.

Doubling back he stumbled across the thick roots planted deep in the ground. With a heavy thud his body struck the earth but did not make it tremble: his size had decreased since his previous encounter. To manipulate his growth in such a way did not seem natural, yet it had managed to save his life. Were an average crell to have been on the receiving end of such an assault it would have surely been the death of him.

Crell, yes… that’s what he was. An ancient people, the first inhabitants of Earth, condemned to a life in exile, blood enemies of humankind. They made him a super-soldier to combat their forces but now… now… he is hunted by his own people. Why?

Konquero beat his chest and pressed on. There was no time to think, only to survive. Whether on the home world or in the stars he had no place and as countless enemies closed in had no time to lick his wounds.

Yet something else troubled him. It would not leave his mind and persisted like a nagging itch in the back of his throat. Those humans: one of them was fast, very fast, while the other… it was hard to say, but he was no ordinary human either. Just when he thought it wasn’t possible to hate ape relatives anymore a fresh spring of wrath well up inside him.

“Heroes,” he bellowed, finally articulating the hatred dangling on his tongue. Names fluttered about his head. The All-American, Night Arrow, Mr. Marvel and more: monkeys endowed with undeserved strength placing the savages on even terms with those more advanced. He’d tangled with them before and lost many a time. How he hated them! They would pay for humiliating him…

* * * *

Even in hard light form I could feel the night chill rattling my spine, or maybe it was fear congealing in my veins. I couldn’t stop thinking about the couple Noble had discovered whose fate confronted me in a way I was not ready to handle. Disturbing as it was selfish there was also the thought that any one of us could turn out the exact same.

“Are we close?” I muttered.

“I too grow impatient,” Herculena chided, “but a true hunter knows not to be hasty. You would be wise to remember that.”

Hasty? Who was being hasty? It wasn’t like I wanted anything to do with it. I wanted to fly off to the hills and let someone else take care of the job, like TASK. This was the kind of thing they were paid to do, right? One call and they would be there in a jiffy. Of course it was supposed to be my job too, fighting evil and flaunting danger wherever it popped its head. Hell, it was something I volunteered for, so I guess I couldn’t complain.

Wild Knight stopped for a moment and paused solemnly to say not only that yes, the beast was near, but that we would have a better chance of surviving the night with our heads attached if we only kept our mouths shut. He didn’t have to tell me twice.

Slowly, anxiously, we shuffled our feet through the foliage. In the stark silence where not even the crickets dared make a peep the crunching of moist leaves may as well have been a big brass band announcing us to the world. Every few steps we would pause and wait for something to break. I never expected that it would be one of us.

“MONSTER!” Herculena bellowed, brandishing her sword wildly at the void. “SHOW YOURSELF!”

My heart stopped in my chest, or it would have if it were beating. What the hell did she think she was doing? I stared at her in shock, wondering what kind of broken thinking would have her invite doom on us like that!

“Real smooth,” Wild Knight huffed and drew his own weapon.

Touch grabbed her arm in an attempt to bring her back down to earth. “Are you out of your freaking mind!?” she blasted, but Herculena was too far gone.

“DO YOU HEAR ME, CREATURE!?” the warrior’s cry echoed into the night. “I, HERCULENA, SCION OF OLYMPUS, BASTARD PROGENY OF HERCULES AND HERA, CHALLENGE YOU!”

“Remind me to kill you later on,” Wild Knight snapped at her.

“Seconded,” I added unsure of whether or not we would even get the chance.

“Change of plan,” the ancient girl told us as if she were the one calling the shots. Typical Herculena, not consulting anybody before falling back on kamikaze tactics.

It didn’t take long at all for a response to come. The ground trembled in the beast’s wake as it began its lazy approach. Each foot struck the dirt and left the non-fliers of the group stumbling to stay upright. The beat of war drums was steady but tired as the few unstained scales gleamed back at us from the unbeaten path.

“You… challenged my honor,” it rasped aloud. Gods, it spoke like nails on a chalkboard. Just what had been brought on us?

“And here I thought you were just a wild thing with no use for the concept,” Herculena mused. She for some reason was having a good time with this.

The monster stopped as if to have a thought. That somehow made it seem even more intimidating.

“Herculena? I believe I knew one of your aspects. Yes. Yes, I do think I did. Heh. She tasted just like chicken!”

Bringing itself into the light we at long last had a face to the thing plaguing us. Gods, we actually knew it by name! As if a faceless, mindless thing weren’t bad enough we were confronted by him, a dark omen from the stars.

“Insanity or not I’m going to pick my teeth with your bones,” Konquero laughed. “Know now you receive a better death than any of you deserve!”

There was a strange feeling creeping up. Yep, that was doom alright.

* * * *

Fifty miles above the other side of the planet:

“Ari. Ari, wake up!”

The tech-head shifted painfully. Something rattled inside his skull while the bright lights splitting through his eyelids compounded his already significant migraine. Whatever had hit him felt like it had put him out for days.

“Whu-huh…” he murmured in response.

“Gadgeteer! Come on! I need you to get me out of here!”

Like a slow booting computer covered in dust it took a moment for him to remember who or where he was. His surroundings were completely alien: slick and black with ambient orange lights following the outside of the oval shaped room. Outside of it there was an angel suspended in a dim orb of blue light. When he spoke it was with a voice of authority.

“Ari, come on,” he said. “If we don’t move they’ll kill us. Wake up!”

It took more effort than he would have liked to pry himself from the cold floor, but the stern angel compelled him. The confusion was overwhelming: who was trying to kill them and why? These were the questions he was about to ask before something even stranger took his notice. “Jorge…?”

“Yeah,” the team leader stated.

“Why are you naked?”

Floating on the air with his arms folded the speedster flung himself at the walls of his abstract cage. The action sent him turning like a hamster caught in its own wheel fighting helplessly to regain balance. “I guess they figured I couldn’t build any traction if I were weightless,” he reasoned bitterly, “and they were right.”

“That doesn’t expl-“

“In case I took off a shoe or something and threw it into the machine generating this… whatever it is,” he then explained.

Shaking himself to reality Ari was suddenly all too aware of his surroundings. The last thing he’d seen were the crell chasing him. It didn’t take a genius to realize “this is their mother-ship, or their scout ship, or battle-ship or whatever. Either way we’re not on Earth, are we?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen any windows.”

“I’m sure of it,” Ari clicked and bounced on the spot to test his hypothesis. “That’s artificial gravity for sure. Can you feel it? Oh, right, no, you can’t. Erm… wow. What are we going to do?”

“I was actually hoping you’d have a few suggestions.”

Their conversation was cut short by the immediate arrival of a crell in a dark green bodysuit and the four heavily armored shock troops at his side. Arching around the room the jailer stopped between the two cells and sneered in what probably passed for a bruised purple homo draconus as dissatisfaction.

“Good evening,” he growled unpleasantly to his captives. “I must regrettably apologize for our situation. We were performing a standard recovery operation when we had the misfortune of crossing your paths. A confrontation with metahumans is the last thing we ever desired.”

“I’m sure,” Jorge spat from his bubble in a deliberate show of defiance. “Did you forget that there are larger forces keeping you from getting your hands on Earth? This isn’t your playground…”

“Kraisse,” he interjected. “Field Warden Kraisse. And we are all too aware of the unjust ruling keeping us from our native homeland. However, that is not to say that we do not have our own business to take care of. You see… ‘Go!’, is it? You have been harboring a wanted criminal for some time. The Crell Dominion is in a critical position, and the betrayer must be put on trial.”

Ari blinked and stood next to the energy barrier containing him. “Wait, you mean Konquero? I thought he was a super-patriot.”

“He is not,” Kraisse added bitterly.

“Then we can help you bring him in,” the youth offered enthusiastically. “Then you have your prisoner, you can let us go, and everyone’s happy!”

Jorge frowned. “Sorry, Gadgeteer. I don’t think Kraisse here is ready to make that deal.”

“Indeed not,” the lizard continued. “Ordinarily while I would not be so proud as to refuse such capable assistance, we are in a precarious political situation. You see, nobody can know that we’ve been here. Should it be known that we have violated the order of the Celestial Council there would be grave consequences indeed. For that reason we cannot allow you to bear witness to our arrival.”

Gathering around Jorge’s floating prison the shock troopers inserted their weapons into slots on the base of the generator. They charged slowly, feeding the orb a tint of furious red that enshrouded their captive.

“What are you doing?” Jorge demanded but was not credited with an answer, at least not one of words. Like a rain of needles the surrounding energy shot into his veins, frying his nerves from inside out. Pleading and screaming the speedster flailed in the vague hope that he could latch onto something, anything, and pull himself free from the pit of agony. Sadly there was no refuge to be found, and his closest ally across the room might have just as well been miles away.

Ari could only watch in horror as Kraisse callously turned away. Why would they do this to any living being, even a human who these lizards so long resented? Had they no feeling at all? Throwing himself against the energy barrier the boy called out to the warden “please! You don’t have to do this! We won’t tell anyone! Just let him live!”

“There can be no record,” the crell said threateningly. “We were never here.”

* * * *

TO BE CONTINUED…