“Are you sure it’s her?”

“It’s her.”

“I don’t know, man. Last time we crossed this bastard he stole her body. How do we know he hasn’t pulled the same trick again?”

“It’s her,” the second one said with finality. “I’m empathic, and I know what Laser Lass brand of pissed off feels like.”

Prying herself from the ground the costumed girl swatted away the hands offered to her. She didn’t need their pity to add to the shame of defeat. Satan, did her head hurt.

Vanquisher and King Claw stepped back with arms folded and let her stumble back to her feet: that was fine if that’s what she really wanted. “Look at you. Not even a scratch,” the senior of the pair scoffed. “I can’t believe he got the drop on you again.”

Laser Lass swatted at his bare shoulder where part of the Vanquisher’s costume had been burned away in combat. In contrast to her own near pristine state the other two looked pathetic.

“Something went wrong,” she muttered furiously. That much was obvious, but her memory was hazy. Where was she anyway? For a moment she wasn’t entirely certain, but then the sight of Sam with its frowny face emoticon smashed to a million little pieces had it all came flooding back.

The Technocracy wouldn’t just let her kill Jason. No, he was far too valuable them to allow her to just execute him, even at point blank range. They couldn’t just contain him with mechanical tentacles: they had to protect him with a force barrier as well making it so that she had to free him just to get the job done.

After that things went so quickly. It was strange what happened next, when Jason grabbed her finger and begged for mercy. He even tried to convince her that he wasn’t really who she thought he was, not that it mattered: but when the time came to blast him to kingdom come she just couldn’t do it, not because she didn’t want to but because… somehow… they were linked maybe? It was all a blur.

“How’s the jaw?” Vanquisher asked harshly.

Laser Lass didn’t answer. Yeah, the little punk had taken her by surprise this time, but that wasn’t going to stop her from getting revenge. Only then did she think to clasp her wrist and realized. “$#&%! Prick stole my transport key.”

Frustrating as it might have been for the others this new turn birthed a smile as wide as the blade of the one they knew as King Claw. “Does this mean we get to track him down and spill his blood together?” the red maned figure asked.

“We need that device back,” Vanquisher reasoned, “and where he goes the Technocracy is sure to follow.”

“Fine, you can come with,” Laser Lass hissed. “So long as you let me finish him.”

The three stopped to take note of the corridor they’d created. Something was humming at them and was drawing nearer. The Technocracy was regrouping: they didn’t have much time.

“You got it?” King Claw asked.

Laser Lass frowned at Vanquisher. “Got what?”

Vanquisher nodded. ‘It’ was a rather compact device: a small black cylinder that clasped to his belt until then concealed by the layer of imperial purple draped from his shoulders. “This,” he explained, “is a neutrino bomb.”

“I have a feeling that I should know what that is.”

“It comes from Gadgetron’s forbidden closet,” King Claw laughed. “It’ll disintegrate a solid chunk of the Earth: so much that the planet will be thrown off its axis leaving the rest to crumble. Definitely not the kind of thing we could ever use back home.”

“You sure we’re the only humans left on this world?” Vanquisher pressed.

“Far as I know,” Laser Lass told him. “And if we aren’t we’d still be doing them a favor.”

“If we do this and get the Inquisition breathing down our necks…”

The villain sighed and turned to her man, running her fingers down his chest then pressing him to the wall. She was in charge and he needed reminding. “I leave for an hour and suddenly you’re mouthy again,” she chastised him. “Relax. If it’s to keep the Technocracy out of our reality then anything we do is justified. It’s already killed one world: we’re not going to let it spread.”

Vanquisher tensed and fought the smile that wanted to crack the corners of his lips. She was right: he’d seen enough of this planet to know that it needed to be put out of its misery.

“Then let’s start the countdown and get the hell out of here,” King Claw snorted. “Killing robots is nowhere as fun as the real thing.”

Planting the cylinder horizontally Vanquisher released the cap and turned the mechanism inside. The neutrino bomb was activated. In thirty seconds it would erupt with a massive wave that would neutralize the electron charge of every atom across the continent and beyond. Everything it touched would become less than dust and the Technocracy’s homeworld would be neutralized.

In a flash the three vanished, leaving the industrial trash heap to a quiet death that was far overdue. There was such sweet satisfaction that came with causing the kind of unbridled destruction they were barely ever able to cause, but there were also more seriously matters to attend to. Somewhere out there Jason Cade was laughing his ass off like he was the king of the multiverse: it was time that the Young Scoundrels showed him a thing or two.

* * * *

It was 7:08 before the new Justin Cade managed to pry his eyes open, which was far too early considering he didn’t have school to worry about.

He stopped, caught his reflection in the mirror and took the time to admire it and all of its manly nuances. Pulling back his long hair he wondered how it would look cut short and what styles he might like. Throwing on some pants, a tee and layering it with an open shirt he sauntered down the steps and into his home. Gods, it was great to be home!

Such was the life he was starting to lead with no more daily disguises: except, of course, his life as Starbolt. Still, the life of Justin Cade didn’t feel like it belonged to him, not just yet. Oh well. It would in time.

Nobody would have ever guessed that only the day before a girl had owned his body. How could they? It had taken Kaira telling them flat out for them to finally know. All that had changed now. Nature was free to take its course, and for once that was fine. No more alienation, and a sense of self that matched the world’s expectation. Kaira was female, he was not, and this life belonged to Justin. It was only fair that he should have it.

Turning into the kitchen the young man was stunned to see what looked like his mother in very convincing drag, but no, he was his father in this universe, and for whatever reason he seemed just as stunned by his son’s arrival.

“Kaira?” he boggled. Yeah, this conversation was going to happen sooner than he expected it to.

“Um, about that,” Justin murmured. Gods, did he look like his Mom. The sight was almost overwhelming, but he had to act like everything was fine. Everything would go wrong if he didn’t. “I don’t think I want to be Kaira anymore,” he pressed.

The man… no, his father, Alan, tentatively nursed his coffee cup and blinked. For him this was all very sudden. “Is this because of what you overheard yesterday?” He gave that look, the one that said not to deny it, even though it was Kaira who’d heard those words.

Justin shook his head. “No, I…” He really didn’t want to have that conversation, at least not then: not when he was so overcome by visions of ghosts. What he wanted to talk about wasn’t important. The fact that he was home again, that everyone was alive, that was what mattered!

Alan started to say something, but he was cut off mid-sentence by the desperate embrace of a quivering teenager. What had gotten into him? He wouldn’t ever know, but whatever. All that mattered was that his one and only child was hurting and that was reason enough to hold him back.

“Hey, it’s alright, kiddo,” he said. “We’ll work this out, yeah? I know it’s hard going, but we’ll tough it out. We always do.”

“I love you,” he choked out to the man he wanted to be his Mom. Gods, he really was the spitting image of her.

“You too, Kaira,” he said, hitting again on that one word that completely undid the moment.

Justin stepped away, forced a smile and made up some crap excuse about having somewhere to go. That kitchen, that life, that family: they didn’t belong to him, at least not yet. It was going to take some time to adjust, but in the meantime he needed some air.

Okay, maybe living in this world, keeping his conscience dulled and adjusting to new people was going to be harder than he initially thought, but compared to the nightmare planet he’d come from it was a cake walk. He’d already taken the first massive leap, right? The rest only needed to be in baby steps.

Almost a block away from the house he was halted by what was supposed to be a familiar face. “Hey! Kaira!” Some Hispanic looking guy in a long sleeve t-shirt was very happy to see him: weird, Kaira hadn’t told him about this guy. The stranger looked puzzled. “What’s with the boy disguise, man?”

Justin smiled and shook his head. “I’m going to be Justin again I think,” he laughed wearily. “Girl thing just wasn’t working out. You know, just a phase and all that.”

The stranger nodded along. Gods, who was he supposed to be again?

“Does this mean you’ll be back at school soon? Ms. Berry’s English class has been crazy boring without you there to kick things up.”

“Maybe,” Justin smiled a little more confidently. For once the idea of school didn’t seem so bad.

The mysterious stranger frowned. This frown confused Justin. Did he say something wrong? It was only then that he thought to look down at the boy’s feet: he was wearing custom boots fitted especially for him, the kind usually worn by speedsters. Crap! The guy probably didn’t even go to his school: there probably wasn’t even a Ms. Berry.

Justin retreated a few steps and matched the serious gaze he was locked in. “So who are you really?”

“Go!,” the stranger informed him calmly. “Gee-oh-exclamation point.”

“Wow, I’ve never met a guy with punctuation in his name before.”

“I get that a lot,” Go! said. “I’m also one of the Young Sentinels.”

He was part of a team? Double crap. That probably meant he hadn’t come alone. “So you’re one of Glimmer Girl’s friends,” he determined. “Listen, I can explain everything!”

“You can try, but you won’t be doing it here.” The speedster raised his shirt ever so slightly to reveal the red and white costume underneath. In other words he was prepared if Justin tried to run. Triple crap.

And then it happened: a great crack tore across that stained the sky bruise purple. Justin reeled knowing exactly what was coming, and while Go! was otherwise oblivious to the exact danger he knew to be just as wary. Black flecks descended from the opening, from a distance appearing like a rain of ash falling on Milestone City.

Without second thought Starbolt darted for an obscure corner in which to change, which shouldn’t have been too hard with the handful of eyes on the suburb steet turned upward. Go!, however, seemed to have other ideas.

“Where do you think you’re going!?” he called keeping pace with the fleeing teen.

Justin gritted his teeth. Why did everything have to hit him at once? “Make up your mind, man! Me or the planet!”

As if it was that obvious. Actually, it was. Secret identity be damned, Justin threw off his civvies in the middle of the street and exploded into the sky. The Technocracy had come and something needed to be done: he wouldn’t let them do to this world what had been done to his. Go! could wait until later… if he survived that long.

* * * *

The radio crackled. “Gabby?”

“I’m here.”

“Mission compromised, big time.”

“You’re telling me! Ugh!”

Sprinting over cars the black-clad heroine raced against the human torrent as they fled from the shadowy swarm. Gathering as much kinetic force from the crowd as she could muster Touch launched herself from invader to invader, knocking the giant steel prawns loose as they planted themselves into the pavement: not that it seemed to be bother them much.

How many could she stop? Several dozen, maybe. Compared to what appeared to be thousands tumbling from a gaping wound in reality she may as well have been fighting a tidal wave with a teaspoon. Her actions might have been better served elsewhere given the number of people still trapped in their cars waiting for rescue.

“We’re going to need the full team on this one,” she roared into the headset and bounded to the bonnet of a red SUV. There were small children shivering inside. What kind of monster would just leave kids behind?

“Already sent out the alert,” Go! reported. “TASK are on their way. Our job is to evacuate the city. Any sign of GG’s body double?”

Touch braced as she put her fist through the windshield. It held shape as she pulled it away then reached inside for the abandoned human cargo fate had charged her with. Her forced smile did little to soothe them: the storm outside was greater than the calm in the middle of it.

“No sign,” she said while scooping the pair one by one from their booster seats. She wished she was surprised. “Maybe he’s not the hero type.”

“Maybe.”

Suddenly the skies were silent, leaving only the screams to drown out any rational thought. Touch looked back to the epicenter of the disaster where she could see the invading collective huddling together and piling between the skyscrapers like an alien ant hill. Slowly they began to climb, reaching far back into the crevice they fell from.

The little boy in her arms clutched to the neck of her costume. “What’s it doing?” he choked between sobs, but Touch didn’t have an answer.

“Go!, do you have an ETA on that TASK crew?”

“Fift…n min…es,” crackled his reply. That may not have been soon enough.

* * * *

Starbolt darted across the city in seconds, slowing only to guide himself to his destination. Time was not on his side, especially if the Technocracy were doing what he thought they were doing.

Milestone Energy Management was the closest station to the disaster and was already being evacuated. Only a skeleton crew remained behind to regulate the power surges being channeled into the heart of midtown, easily tripling the city’s annual electric bill. Little did they realize that by trying to keep the city running they were also killing it: someone had to make it stop.

“Where’s the foreman!?” Starbolt roared over the turbines, the urgency in his voice snapping the orange helmeted worker from shock at the sight of his lightning entrance.

“You’re talking to him!” he called back.

“We need to kill the city grid! Probably even the whole county!”

The foreman didn’t seem to take to the idea at all, saying something about power being dead for weeks if he hit the kill switch. Starbolt, however, with a burst of power and an impatient glare threatened to put them out for months: an ultimatum even a mere civil servant could easily decide upon when confronted by a pissed off superhuman.

Before he could even start for the central console Starbolt had the man standing behind the panel ready to put a forty mile radius into sleep mode. The flick of a dozen toggles was all it took to put a city down: hopefully that was enough to impede the Technocacy’s progress until some real help arrived.

An explosion rocked the blackened station, driving home for the innocent foreman just how little control he had. “What the hell’s going on out there?” he gasped.

Starbolt gritted his teeth dreading the battle ahead. “Oh, you know, just the apocalypse. Nothing we don’t kick the crap out of every other week.” The fact that the Technocracy had already wiped out the human race once before was conveniently left out of his explanation, but only because he was sure he could stop it this time.

Never again: not here, or anywhere. The machines already had one world and that was enough.

Time was growing shorter and there was still much to do. Killing the power was only stage one: Milestone needed to be back in the stone age if the Technocracy was going to be contained, which also meant cutting all major forms of communication in minutes. Not an easy task, even for someone moving at the speed of light.

FWOOM-THWACK!

Somewhere over the West Village there’d been a collision: too big and hard to be a bird, and he would have seen a plane coming. It sent Starbolt’s his hard light body on a sharp detour into the river. Of all the times for some piece of super-trash to pick a fight…

He shot up, arguing over whether or not he could make the one who put him down a priority: assuming he had any choice, of course. The faces he caught on the way back up confirmed he didn’t.

“$#&%.”

Laser Lass’ expression lingered somewhere between confused, disgusted and disappointed. “This isn’t him,” she told her teammate.

“It’s him,” Vanquisher said, though Laser Lass only thought him stupid for it.

Flashbolt trembled with uncertainty. After all this time they’d found him, albeit in a new body, and they didn’t even know it. Doesn’t matter! You’ve got more important things to worry about, his head screamed.

“No, moron, look! He’s got the same costume, but check his build. The one we know is a lot shorter… and squeakier. I’d even go so far as to say there’s a real man under that mask.”

The hero interjected: “If you’ll just excuse me, I’ve got a planet I need to go-” but the Vanquisher wouldn’t allow it. Those cold blue eyes knew the truth, and they weren’t going to grant him any mercy.

“It’s him,” he said. “Same guy we fought together, different body.”

Laser Lass twitched as the pieces started coming together. “So then the one I tried to snuff in the power core…”

“Was probably another girl like you,” the vicious empath concluded, “and tricked with the same promise, I’ll bet. Am I right?” Not that Starbolt needed to answer: the Vanquisher could feel the shifting guilt inside the boy.

Tick, tick, tick, Starbolt could feel the end of the world cracking away at him. They could fight later. Containment was the first priority. He turned, but Laser Lass cut him off.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she asked as if it weren’t obvious.

Starbolt clenched his fists. Why now!? There were better things he could be doing than talking. “I know what I did to you was wrong,” he spat, “but it’s the over for this planet unless I stop the Technocracy from spreading!”

“Oh really now!”

“Look, I know you don’t care about this Earth, but you’ve got to see the bigger picture here,” he pleaded. “You’ve seen what they’ve done to my world, and until now they’ve been content with just that, but now they’re forming a whole empire! We can stop it before it reaches any other worlds, including yours!”

The villains gave pause, perhaps stirred by Starbolt’s words. As if.

Vanquisher laughed and wrapped his bicep around the hero’s throat: were Starbolt in need of oxygen he’d be choking. “You stupid little punk,” the villain grinned. “You have no idea, do you? Your world has been destroyed. It. Is. No. More.”

“What!?”

“Let me make it easier for you to understand,” Laser Lass continued saucily. “We blew up your planet. Yes, we can actually do that.” She inched closer into flirtatious proximity. “They’re not looking to build a new empire, sweetheart. They’re just moving house, and now that they’ve lost whatever substitute battery you gave them they decided to come look for you, their oldest friend. Don’t you feel special?”

Starbolt glared. They couldn’t be serious: it was exactly the sort of thing some evil-for-evil’s-sake douchebag like Laser Lass would say to tick him off, yet the story fit. The Technocracy had never been so ambitious before: maybe this was a move of desperation on their part. Maybe what they said was true and his homeworld, the Earth on which he’d been born, was gone.

“Thank the gods,” Starbolt whispered. In some ways it was a relief to finally put it all to rest, but there was still this world to save. No time for grieving. He fought against Vanquisher’s hold, slipping through with a light-speed dash, but was cut down again when Laser Lass sniped him with a fingertip beam.

“I thought we made it clear that you’re not going anywhere,” she told him.

The hero reeled in confusion. “Okay, you blew up my planet. Good. Now there’s only a few of them left. We have to stop them before-“

“It’s already taken care of.”

“What do you mean?”

Starbolt’s body flew across the river before smacking into the pavement. Idiot! He should have seen it coming, and telling by the hard-light harlot’s grin she agreed.

“It means this planet’s already done for,” she told him. “Vanquisher! How much time do we have!?”

“Gadgetron says we’re safe for twenty minutes,” he called back. “Plenty of time for you to take this sucker!”

Had you asked Jason Cade several days before if there was any threat greater than the Technocracy he would have said no. Oh, how wrong he was.

“We can still save them!” he pleaded. “Six billion people! You can’t just let them die!” Not like they had back on his world.

“They were done for the second you set foot on this Earth,” Laser Lass told him.

“So then… why are you here?”

The villain laughed, viciously and condescendingly. Had he really not gotten the picture yet? “The problem with planetary annihilation is that it’s so impersonal,” she said. “I’m here for you, puppy. It’s revenge, pure and simple.”

* * * *

Yesterday was supposed to be the worst day of her life. Watching her best friend being dragged off by robots to a doomed world while a doppelganger took her place was supposed to be the most harrowing experience she could ever hope to live through, but no, an even worse day had to roll around and top it by plunging the whole city into panic.

Tap, tap, tap, her fingers rolled impatiently on the wheel of her stationary beetle as she tried again for a phone signal. She had to know that her Mom was okay, and Angie and Grant and even Seth, the annoying bastard. She didn’t know what was going on: all she or anybody seemed to know was that the sky had cracked open and that everyone needed to run as fast as they could.

Traffic was gridlocked on the way out of the city, even all the way out in the suburbs. It figured that there would probably be an accident. With judgment day at their backs people started abandoning their cars, as if that improved their chances of escape any.

Sadly, their only hope right now rested in Jason’s hands. Whatever was happening he was bound to be in the middle of it, but never in a million years could Tanya believe that he would be the kind of hero Kaira had been: not after what he’d done. That actually made things worse. How could a lying, traitorous monster like him ever protect a city?

As people fled like rats Tanya sat frozen still gripping the wheel. What was the point of running? Was this what absolute despair felt like? What on earth could she possibly do? Nothing. Even if there were other heroes in the world they didn’t seem worth believing in anymore.

Suddenly a bolt from heaven shot down, sending people running for cover. Even Tanya who was momentarily petrified found herself struggling for her seatbelt, but by then it was too late.

By some miracle she was still alive, and so were the bystanders. Despite the bright heat that consumed them all nothing had been harmed: the only thing changed was that there was a girl suddenly crouched between the lines of cars.

Yep, that was me.

Tanya couldn’t fumble out of the beetle fast enough. She was probably just as happy to see me as I was to see her: well, maybe not. Something about being tossed between universes and having your quantum superstrings ripped and reattached to membrane after membrane leaves you appreciating home a whole lot more.

“KC!? Is that you!?”

Yep. Definitely home. “Nice secret identity I had once,” I told her, but pulled into a hug anyway. Screw alter-egos: this was needed.

“Where have you be-“

“Time for that later,” I said. “Just remember that you were the one who lead me home, okay?”

She pulled away, confused. “Wait, what?”

“The first time the door opened you, Jason and the beetle were bombarded with vortex radiation. It’s not hard to track when you’ve got the right equipment. You were like a beacon in the fog, saving my ass all over again.”

“For real?”

I laughed, probably the first time in… gods, how long had it been? “You think now of all times I’d be yanking your chain?”

The moment was short lived. A second bolt erupted from the heart of the crack in the sky and down into the city. It was long, slow, wide, and could be seen from nearly twenty miles away. There wasn’t much time left.

“Time to do the hero thing,” I said and burst into the sky. I didn’t hear what she said as I went but was glad she said it anyway. One precious life and billions just like her: what else was there worth fighting for?

* * * *

TO BE CONTINUED…