Arrival

[Chubbs Story Account]

Out of the spaceport (shored up and held as the primary concern, the most crucial resource), the planet stretches forth in every direction, with smoke fluttering pinpricks along the horizon. The invasion has already begun.

Reinforcements arrive continuously, but they will eventually run out, and in the uncertainty and chaos, it is impossible to tell how the flow of combat is shifting; whether toward victory or otherwise.

The central Militia base is built around the only (ground) exit from the spaceport, with numerous desks to log, funnel through, and divvy up arrivals. The organization, though slipshod, is nevertheless impressive, with signs indicating, in large letters (in multiple languages), where each are supposed to go: this way for those with combat experience, that way for all others; this way for warriors, that way for troops.

The organizing process assigns individuals to a particular regiment, which is associated (at least, for a particular time) with a particular front. A pamphlet is distributed at the end, indicating everything that is known about the invaders. It is short.

A picture on the front indicates a general humanoid; by all appearances, an Earthling, though something about the face is off. It is difficult to say what, exactly, and for those not familiar with Earthlings at all, they difference may be unnoticeable.

==================

Our enemy is organized.

Our enemy wears yellow.

Our enemy is divided into two classes: the warrior (whose armor varies, and who is extremely dangerous), and the troop (whose armor is standard). The hierarchy, as best as can be told, is that every warrior leads an army.

It has been impossible to decipher their communications, and the language they use on the battlefield is alien, but shares certain features. We are working on a translator for the elements of the language, to be integrated in your scouters.

They capture warriors who are defeated, but yet survive.

They do not capture troops, nor do they kill them.

Their tactics are unlike anything we have ever seen, and, though participating in the fundamentals of our military knowledge, nevertheless operate erratically. Orders given by your Generals may seem incorrect for this very reason; follow them.

The Enemy, we have found, are largely unable to pronounce the Earthling 'sh' sound. We have thus adopted 'Shibboleth' as a password. The difference is slight, but it is there.

==================

From here, recruits are whisked away to the respective bases of their regiments, while some free spirits escape off into the distance, in search of opportunity. They aren't pursued.

[[This topic indicates the general state of things on the respective planets. The Militia is the primary form through which combat in this saga will take place. You are welcome, indeed, to act as an independent agent, though (as is natural), it will be difficult indeed to make an impact upon war without participating, at least nominally, in an army.

For those persons who posted in A Call to Arms, now is the time to indicate your arrival on the planet. Please do so in a new thread, created according to the form mentioned in the General Info thread.

For those persons who did not post in A Call to Arms, but nevertheless wish to join the saga, make your first post here (indicating your character's discovery of the war, resolution to participate in the war, boarding of the ship, etc.), and then create a new thread for your participation in the saga, according to the form mentioned in the General Info thread.

Any questions, just ask.]]

[Juno]

When Juno heard the melodramatic distress call, he almost spit up his orange juice.

“Grave danger?” he repeated, rather loudly, much to the chagrin of some of the breakfast diner’s other denizens, “unknown assailant? Are they just screaming, ‘Juno, come help me!’ or what?”

The patrons of the Waffle Shack started to divide their attention between their meals and the crazy guy sitting in the corner. He’d attracted their sideways, badly-hidden glances the moment he had walked in, thanks to the furry appendage sticking out of the back of his pants — God, he’d missed his tail — but now, their judgmental eyes fixated themselves on him, and the majority of them even stopped trying to hide it.

He continued to watch the television, scooping some hash-browns onto his fork and stuffing them into his mouth carelessly, even dropping some off the table in his haste. He had ordered a triple serving, though, so running out anytime soon was his last worry.

His Saiyan appetite allowed him to gorge himself constantly without ever getting full, but always feeling satisfied at the end of a good meal; and right now, a meal might’ve been exactly what he needed to keep his mind off of this ridiculous nonsense that was blaring from the television screen. “Blah, blah, blah,” he mused, downing the last of his orange juice and sliding it to the edge of his table for the waitress to refill, “Yeah, yeah, you need awesome, super powered people like me to come and save your ass, blah, blah, blah.”

Suddenly, there was a slamming noise from across the diner. Juno looked in the direction of the disturbance, and a moustache-sporting man was leering angrily in his direction. “What the hell makes you think you’re so special, huh?”

Juno’s tail whipped back and forth behind him excitedly, but the youthful Saiyan didn’t pay much attention to the hostility lacing the redneck’s comments. He engulfed another bite of hash-browns, and then lay the fork on his plate, wiping the sides of his mouth with a napkin. Kicking his feet up and resting them on the table, he leaned back in the booth, turning his eyes back toward the television.

“You gonna answer me?” the man shouted.

“I hadn’t planned on it,” Juno replied curtly, not even bothering to glance in the man’s direction. A whiff of his Foresight flashed into view, and he saw the redneck’s fist flying at his face — his tail intercepted the real thing when it approached him just seconds later, and with a jerk, the bones in the man’s forearm cracked.

The insolent Earthling let out a blood-curdling scream, and the other customers of the restaurant shuffled nervously in their seats. The waitress dropped her pad and pen, and shifted back behind the counter. Juno let his tail jerk on the man’s broken arm one last time, and the human fell forward, his face slamming into the half-Saiyan’s plate of hash-browns. The seer looked down at his meal, disappointed.

“I was still eating that, jackass,” he scoffed, and hopped out of his seat. Eyes darted toward him, but faces avoided his black irises; he smirked, and chuckled a bit, under his breath. “Self-defense, that’s all,” he assured the remaining customers as he took a few steps toward the counter, “I’m not going to go all Planet of the Apes meets Karate Kid on you guys, I promise.”

Those were the last words he was destined to say to the coffee-sipping midnight crowd inside the Waffle Shack; without another spoken syllable, he reached into the pocket of his black jeans, pulled out several bills, and tossed them to the waitress, giving her a flirtatious smile, his signature move, and then turning on his heel, ready to head back out into the world, where he wasn’t surrounded by bad-smelling, scrambled-egg-eating country bumpkins who weren’t used to the idea of someone who didn’t have a beer gut.

He walked aimlessly for what seemed like forever. It didn’t really feel, at the moment, as if he had a purpose, a goal, anything he was set out to do; for the longest time, he’d been living normally, roughing up a few muggers here and there who hadn’t exactly learned the lessons of chivalry, and then charming the ladies and sleeping with them later that night. When he was really desperate, he’d buy them drinks to seal the deal.

As he took a scenic stroll through South City — by far the hottest, most run-down of all of Earth’s five major cities — he began to replay the message in his head, the overdramatic distress signal that he’d spent literally five to ten minutes making fun of, when the rest of the Waffle Shack’s customers seemed utterly stricken by its seriousness. He didn’t think that he could take much seriously anymore — after all, when he did, everything usually went to hell in a hand basket, so he supposed that by making light of this particular situation, it could become… well… lighter? He didn’t know if that made any sense at all. It barely made sense to him.

‘To all who can fight, now is the time.’ He’d heard that before. Hadn’t that been said in both of the wars he’d been involved in? Granted, those were probably on a much lesser scale than whatever this Trek-level invasion advertised itself as, but still. He didn’t really see any point for him to waste more countless energy on something if it wasn’t going to have any actual lasting impact on the world.

It must’ve been an addiction. To adrenaline, or something else. Or, perhaps, his Saiyan blood was driving him. These were the things which he could attribute to how he ended up inside the militia recruiting station in the first place.

It was pointless, he knew that — or thought it, at least — but somehow, he’d convinced himself to come here, and sign up to go throw his life into harm’s way… again. He didn’t really understand how he could be quite so stupid, but he’d done it before, and here he was, repeating his mistakes.

“Damn you, history,” he muttered to himself, “Always got to fucking repeat yourself.”

[Mr. Zhu]

Crack!

The door swung open, and an array of light crept its way into the room, revealing the sins inside the dark space. The opium den was slow as of late, ever since Jacques had been discovered as a undercover cop and the Norca Clan fell to another leader, one who no one trusted nor believed over Jacques.

The new leader was a friend of Black's, apparently they used to be buddies way back when, and now that he is out of a job, Black had kindly situated him within the East City Mob, as the head coordinator of the Norca clan and its territories. However, everyone knew who was still the one pulling the strings of operation and held the real power. Zhu Zhi.

After the bust in East City, Black had been laying low and hasn't even shown his face. Only his utmost loyalist protection unit knew where he was and knew how to contact him, his only actions have been passed on through memorandums and word of mouth from Tank, who was now basically the symbol of Black's presence. Everything that Tank said was the order of Black.

Two hulking figures walked into the dimly-lit opium stand and walked past the receptionist and straight into Zhu Zhi's office. On any given day this would automatically be death sentence for any other junky, but these guys were sent from the order of Tank, and whatever the interim dragonhead said, trust that it had to be obeyed. The duo arrived at Zhu's office and burst through the door.

"Mr. Zhu," said one of the minions of Tank, "Mr. Black would like to have a word with you."

Zhu, having just smoked a damn lot of opium, looked up towards the voice. It came from two men, one African American, and the other probably of a Russian-descent. No matter though, they were just two unimportant minions sent by Tank. What was impressive, however, was the fact that even these lowly subordinates that take Tank's orders had a impressive amount of combat ability and power level. He could sense it.

"I thought Black was in hiding?" Zhu inquired as he raised a brow, taking his feet off of his desk. He had felt the rush from the drug, he couldn't quite focus just yet, but he knew to an extent what was going on, and whenever that Black summoned you, you know you were being called into duty. What type of duty though?

"It dusn't concern yu," the other one spoke with a thick accent, "yu juz come wid us!"

Zhu rose to his feet uneasily, and propped himself up with the aid of the desk. He almost fainted by the sudden change in stance, and the fact that he was drugged up was not a good state of mind to be in when Black called upon you for something. The dragonhead's authority was something that could not be questioned, otherwise the amount of people looking for your head would be enough to form a legion of armed militia.

"Okay, I'll come with you guys," the eunuch replied drowsily.

The Cat turned to his coat rack and grabbed his robe jacket and followed the two into the dark opium den. As he walked down the aisles of crack smokers, he couldn't help but wonder what Black had in store for him this time. He wasn't exactly pleased with the reward he got for bailing Black out last time at the warehouse, and he certainly wasn't willing to risk his life for the organization, not the least bit.


The blindfold came off as Zhu Zhi found himself seated onto a chair, in the custody of Black and his underlings. Black was dressed in his usual suit, still sharp as ever. He didn't change a single bit since the last time the eunuch saw him, still clean-shaven, bald and intimidating as all hell.

"Thanks for your time Zhu. I realize you're a busy man, and that I've appointed you to look over Norca, but now I have more important matters of my hand, and I might need your assistance," he began, "If you had been following on current events, there had been invasions on Mercy and Namek and I have been contacted from the dragonheads of these respective planets to send over help."

At that moment then and there, Zhu knew exactly what was going to happen to him. He did hear about the possible invasions, but he had never really paid attention. After all, none of it really concerned him as long as it didn't impact him in any way, shape, or form.

"Now, the only reason that I'm contemplating on sending help over is the probability of an Earth invasion after the collapse of Namek and Mercy, which means that if we don't send over help now, not only will our trade surplus and economic ties with the other mobs around the universe get frozen, we also might be at risk of being attacked." Black took a sip of his tea, and looked Zhu dead in the eye, "I'm appointing you twenty of my elites, and you're to take off immediately. Understood?"

Well, since the orders have come down, there was no point in denying his responsibilities. Besides, it could still be fun. Zhu Zhi was not a stranger to warfare, having lived in disastrous times of ancient China, and having gone to war at the mere age of twelve, he was simply a battle-hardened eunuch that worked for whoever paid better. Sure, there was a risk of getting killed in this operation, but if it was so, it was how it is and the proposition was interesting. The reward was sure going to be a big one.

Zhu was guided to a massive ship, this will mark the first time that he's ever been out of the planet. It was unfortunate that he wasn't exactly going on vacation or to shop until he drops, but an adventure was still a great form of payment. That, and he had received Black's personal army of twenty elites. He was interested to see how strong these elites actually were. After all, they were his own personal standing army, much like Russia and its KGB.

He boarded the ship, only to find that all twenty of his troopers were already situated inside and getting ready for war. The occasion was extremely rushed, and he was still very high on opium, so there wasn't going to be an introduction between him and his soldiers. He would have to think on his feet once he's landed them and sober up. With no communication, no equipment, no intel, this was definitely going to go well.

[Shane Warnock]

It was bitter sweet. On one hand Shane had been given a job, to save four planets, earth and three others he had never heard of, but on the other hand he was going to receive a hefty pay check for completing the mission. It was insane; he would have to risk his life for planets he had never heard of until a week earlier, but then again he would be earning an amount of money beyond his wildest dreams.

Shane picked a folded sheet of paper from his bedside table, scanning through it once more. It was from COST (Class of Special Talents) an academy dedicated to turning young people with ‘gifts’ into saviours of earth.

All the time he had spent training for the twenty months would amount to this day. According to the letter he would be placed into a team with four others and sent to either planet Namek or Mercy, depending on which their leader recommended. The letter had failed to mention two things: who he’d be teamed with and the leader of the team composed. That helps, he thought sarcastically.

After finally filing the letter he had received a week earlier, the topless man went towards his wardrobe, gazing at each round dent in his upper body from his chest down to his abs. It was amazing that after so many years of researching, scientists still could not figure out the cause of the dents.

He reached into his brown, wooden wardrobe and grabbed a white, linen vest from a side section, quickly put it on and then pulled out a sleeveless, blue combat jacket which was rough around the edges, wearing it over his vest. If he lived long enough to see his pay check he planned on moving out of his parent’s house and into an apartment, and it would not hurt to have a wardrobe full of his combat attire.

He reached for his black, thirty gigabyte ipod and turned off the rap music, and then switched off his amplifier. There was one last thing he needed to do before he left his room and with that he reached into his top drawer and pulled out a silver chain with a cross on it. He closed his eyes and kissed it, but not for good luck because it would take more than luck to save the universe from an army of unknown invaders. “God, the creator of all things, if my power won’t be enough, give me the extra power I’ll need in order to save the universe so that I can receive my pay check… if that’s alright with you, and forgive me if I’m being selfish because I’m doing this for my own self interest, but being a saviour is not something I’m comfortable with. I didn’t ask to be a mutant. Thank you. Amen.”

Shane opened his eyes and tucked his cross away in the drawer. On his way out he met his mother leaving the living room with a tray full of plats, the top one full of bread crumbs. “Oh, you’re leaving?” asked the brunette (with a few grey streaks) haired woman with hair reaching down to her neck.

Shane reached into his pocket and brought out his mobile phone. It was ten minutes past ten. He needed to be at the academy by eleven AM and it took forty-five minutes to get there by a motor, so as usual time was antagonising him. Being early to appointments was not his strongpoint. He usually got there just on time or late.

“Yeah,” said the young man.

“Wait, let me just drop these dishes in the kitchen,” replied his mum Cary.

There was a deep heaving sound as his dad lifting himself of the living room couch and stood by the doorway. His father had a beer gut with thick arms and receding, black and grey hair, but once upon a time he had muscles almost as big as his sons; in fact muscles in places most men don’t even have them. He still had his good looks at least. Both of his parents were good looking.

“Look at you… my son,” smiled Jacob. “It only seems like yesterday I was carrying you on my shoulders-”

“Dad cut it out.”

His father Jacob removed himself from the doorway just as his mother came back into the corridor.

“I’ve got to admit Shane,” said Cary, “at first I wasn’t happy with the idea of my only child being sent away to train in order to protect earth, but after seeing how much you’ve grown…” Water began to fill her eyes as she gazed at her son. “My beautiful boy is a man now,” she sobbed, unable to hold the tears back any longer. She wrapped her arms around him and buried her head into his chest as she continued to cry.

Shane placed his right hand gently on Cary’s back. “Mum I’m coming back, I mean it.”

She looked up at him. She had to be tough, for him. The brunette haired woman wiped tears from her eyes. “They trained you properly, right?”

“Of course; I wouldn’t be going if they didn’t.” The statement was not entirely true. In actuality, he would not be going if COST were not going to pay him, but he obviously was not going to tell his parents that.

“Then I know you’ll be coming back to us,” she smiled.

“You have no idea how proud we are of you, son. Come here.” His dad took steps towards his son with his arms prepared to embrace him. The father and son hugged. They had not shared a moment like that since Shane had returned from his twenty month training programme at COST.

Jacob took a step back. “One last thing before you go; if you aren’t motivated enough listen to me.” He slapped his right hand on his son’s shoulder. “Your mum and I weren’t courageous enough to use our gifts to save planets, but I can speak for the both of us and say if we were ten years younger, we would. Instead we have to endure the stress from our nine to five jobs wondering how much better our lives would have been if we had utilized the gifts we were born with for the greater good. ”

Shane looked at his mother.

“It’s true,” she replied. “And we only had one special gift, but you have both of ours. A selfish part of me doesn’t want you to go off and fight for the universe but as your parents we can’t just sit back and watch you waste your gifts.”

Shane smiled. “I kinda understand.”

“Kinda’s good enough or me,” replied his dad.

====

Jacob put his hand around his wife’s waste as they watched their son from the front door revving the engine of his red and black Suzuki motorcycle. Cary began to cry again as he saluted his parents before heading down the street. Jacob comforted his wife. Just great, he thought. Now he was going to spend some time having to tell his wife that ‘everything was going to be okay’ which to him was going to be a nightmare.

[Shane Warnock]

Shane glanced at his watch, it was ten to eleven. The situation was not good. He had ten minutes to get to the academy but he was stuck in a traffic jam. At this time of the day the roads of West City were usually quiet considering the fact that most road users at work but today were different. The distress call had naturally stirred up a panic among the inhabitants of earth and as a result literally everyone was out of work.

Shane had not moved for twelve minutes and even worse, the academy was thirty five minutes away, and it was hard to estimate how much vehicles were in front of him or how long it would take for the line to move.

Thoughts were racing through his mind but despite his temptation to get off his motorcycle and jog to his destination, he did not want to abandon his precious bike which was worth a lot. There was no guarantee that the world was going to end today therefore he would not leave it behind.

Shane saw the crimes though the frame of his helmet. There was carjacking and shoplifting and not a lot the police could do to control it; the volume was just too high.

The muscle-bound man glanced at a giant plasma screen through a broken glass window of an electronic shop that displayed (from left to right) an image of an earthling standing next to a green being with antenai, a pale blue humanoid, and a short purple skinned creature with elf ears. It was like a broken scratched record because they were repeating the same message over and over again, overemphasizing the danger their planets were in.

Shane had heard rumours of their being other life forms on various ‘other’ planets but he thought they were just that, rumours. Now it became clear that everything he had heard was factual. As the traffic moved an inch he realised that he really should not be surprised, after all he was not even a human being; he was a mutant.

Shane glanced at himself through the right mirror of his motorbike also realising that just because he had a human appearance that did not make the green namek creature, the changeling and the arlien any less human than him.

It happened again. Shane had a futuristic epiphany. It always occurred whenever something unfortunate was about to happen to him. If there was such a thing as a six sense then this was even better than that.

”Hey, that’s a nice bike.”

Shane turned to his right, staring at the nozzle of a nine-millimetre pistol. His startled eyes travelled from the nozzle to the desperation in the young man’s eyes. It was clear that the situation on earth had caused people to reach their breaking point and right now this man for some reason needed Shane’s precious motorcycle.

“Yeah I know it’s nice, that’s why I bought it,” replied Shane. It was a subtle way of telling the young man how valuable the item was to him.

The man raised the cock of the pistol in his right hand. “Don’t get smart with me, just get off the bike!”

Obviously the young man wearing a baseball cap back to front did not care how much the bike meant to Shane.

The man on the bike raised both hands in an act of mercy. “This situation isn’t easy for anyone I understand that but ask yourself what you’re going to gain from taking my bike. It’s not going to solve the troubles we’re facing on earth. Just think about it.”

“Fuck you!”

BANG

Sparks exited the nozzle first, followed by a silver bullet which careened in the air and then pierced through Shane’s black and maroon coloured helmet and then into his temple. His world went blank and the impact caused him to topple backwards off of his bike and back first onto the ground.

“For a fucking bike?!” Shane roared, swiftly climbing off of his bike and tackling the same armed man he had seen in his vision. The gun in the man’s right hand skidded forty-five centimetres across the floor, cap also falling off. Just in case he tried to retrieve his weapon, Shane pinned the man’s right arm down with his left hand and in an angered frenzy began launching his right elbow into the criminals face. The thought of dying at the hands of this stranger had taken him to a place he had never been before; driven him over the edge. He just kept delivering elbow after elbow after elbow until the man was incapable of defending himself, laying motionless.

Condensation formed in Shane’s helmet as he breathed heavily, trying to regain his breath. The man’s face was a bloody mess but in his opinion justice was served. This was an act of self-defence, no doubt about it.

He picked up the gun. It felt heavier than the types of guns he had held at museums because the one he was holding was loaded with bullets with his name on them, metaphorically.

Everyone was too indulged in the crisis earth was currently in to even concern themselves with the incident or the fact that he was holding a gun.

Shane placed the weapon inside the inside pocket of his jacket. He had a feeling it would come in handy if more trouble came his way. He had no intentions of actually using it, but in a particular circumstance he may be forced to pull its trigger.

He picked up his bike and climbed back on it. He then gazed at the traffic with a frown and then pounded the left side of his motor in anger. It was only morning and it had been a bad day for him already.

With a huff of frustration he glanced at his watch, firstly wiping off a sprinkle of his victims blood and then checking the time. It was three minutes past eleven.

Fuck.

Even his time freezing ability was useless in this predicament. For instance, if he froze time he still would not be able to get his motorcycle along the road. There were just too many vehicles on the road for his bike to skim past without crashing into one.

Even if he had perfected how to fly, how was he supposed to carry his bike along? There was no way he could abandon it. So was he supposed to just wait another hour or so in the worst traffic jam he had ever experienced? It was absurd but he had no choice.

He lifted the frame of his helmet and gazed up at the sky. If only there was sign, something subtle to tell him what he needed to do in this situation.

Just then Shane’s phone rang. He eagerly threw his hand into the left pocket of his jeans. It was his boss. He figured the leader of COST was going to tell him off for being late but if the traffic jam was not a liable excuse then his boss was just a harsh man.

[Shane Warnock]

Shane pulled off his helmet; after all, he had all the time in the world. “Mister William, listen I’m stuck in a major traffic jam, really sorry about being late!” the British accented man had to shout over the constant horns of vehicles and noises pedestrians were making.

“Yeah I know-”

“What?!”

“I said I know!”

“Oh!”

“Shane, just forget about the meeting!”

“The meeting, yeah I know.”

“Listen Shane, head straight to your local militia!”

“What about the meeting?!”

“It’s cancelled! Hardly anyone’s turned up for one reason or another so I just told everyone to head to their local militia!”

“You want me to head to my local militia?!”

“Affirmative!”

“Okay; would be nice if you could send down a chopper!” Shane laughed. He was half serious. That would not have been a bad idea.

“Chopper?! So I take it you haven’t perfected your flight training yet!”

Shane’s cheeks turned a little red with embarrassment. “Something like that!”

“I wish I had seen this coming! We underestimated the distress call and because of that, did not prepare for a war! Anyway, where are you?!”

Most of William’s last sentence sounded like mumbling to Shane, but he managed to catch the most important part, the last part. “In Shersdon!”

“Only?! How long have you been in traffic for?!”

“Twenty five minutes! It’s ridiculous!”

“Well lucky for you I’ve just had a teleporter come over! She left a few moments ago! I’ll get her to pick you up and teleport you to her local militia!

“What?!”

“There’s this teleporter I’m sending to pick you up and take you to her militia!”

“Okay; thanks!”

Shane had read a book in his academy’s library titled Abilities that provided every ability known and a description about them.

For the first time today a smile appeared on Shane’s face. Normally he would have a problem about a female coming to his rescue but with the morning he had had so far, he would not mind even if it were a toddler who was coming to his aid.

====

”Prue… Prue… Come in Prue,” said a masculine voice telepathically.

“Mister William,” a teenage girl replied.

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Right now? I’m in a long queue trying to sign up for the war.”

“This concerns the war.”

Prue moved forward. ”What is it?”

“Report back to the academy.”

The black haired girls face contorted into a look of concern. “Something happen?”

“I’ll explain when you get here.”

Prue gazed at the long line of people in front and then looked behind her. She could count the number of people who were behind on one hand which meant that most volunteers had already signed up. That was a good thing; it meant that she would not have to wait in line for long the next time she joined the queue.

In a flash the girl disappeared from the queue, leaving behind particles of black dust.

She reappeared in a circle structured hall with marble flooring and cream coloured walls. Naturally, the assembly hall was the largest room in the entire academy, but it was also the fanciest.

There were only three others in the room, the leader of COST William, and two of his staff members who were both mentors at the academy.

“We’ll get to it,” said the member of staff to William’s left.

The boss nodded and then the two headed towards the exit of the room, leaving Prue and William alone.

The man wearing a blue suit with a white shirt turned to the teenage girl. “The reason I summoned you here is because I want you pick someone up and transport them to your local militia and get registered. His name’s Shane Warnock.”

“Ah.”

“Funny enough he was supposed to be a member of the team you were assigned to lead but with this huge clusterfuck, three quarters of the academy’s members have failed to show up therefore no teams have been assembled.”

“Oh right,” she replied. “Well where is he?”

“I’ll use my advanced telepathic ability to show you where he is.”

William had stated that he has mastered sixteen abilities and telepathy happened to be one of them, although Prue herself had never actually experienced him communicate telepathically. Prue’s telepathic ability was at an advanced level, even as advanced as her brother, one of earths greatest heroes named Kirano; therefore she was eager to find out if her leaders exceeded her own.

“Close your eyes… and for a moment forget everything that’s going on,” he said. “Clear your mind.”

So far so good for the girl as the images in her mind began to fade to pitch black.

William fixated his eyes on her, the expression on his face blank, and then moments later an image formed in Prue’s mind, it was an overhead view of a busy road full of cars and busy streets filled with pedestrians rioting. The teenage girl slowly shook her head in disgust. Humans had to be the most dysfunctional race in the universe. She would have thought that after having experienced so many threats from other races that they would have grown to learn how to cope in situations like these by now.

The image zoomed in to some cars, still zooming in until a man on a red and black motorbike became the main focus.

“That’s Shane,” said William.

Prue’s mouth went agape. This was a form of telepathy she had never experienced before. William was truly a talented man, definitely worthy of being the leader of the academy, COST.

“I’m on it,” she replied.

“Good luck,” was the last thing he said before she disappeared.

====

Shane felt his right shoulder being tapped and responded by turning to his right to view a chest, a D cup at least, tucked underneath a white vest. The girl was wearing a blue and white checker shirt, but the top four buttons had been undone; that must have been intentionally left undone to entice men like Shane, or maybe he was just being paranoid. She was a Caucasian with long raven hair that had been tied into a ponytail. She meant no harm; she could not have because he had not predicted her arrival with his foresight ability.

“Hey,” said Shane, muffled voice through his helmet.

“Shane Warnock from the academy,” she indicated at him with an index finger.

He pulled off his helmet and then directed his attention to the traffic for a moment. Fuck it, he thought, putting the stabilizers on his bike and then getting off of it. The traffic was not going anywhere so he figured he may as well bide the time by talking to a girl he found attractive. Maybe his day would turn around for the better.

“Are you from the academy too?”

“Yeah, I’m new though, Prue,” she replied flicking her head up.

“Nice to meet you,” he said, extending his hand towards her.

She held his hand but let go after a few seconds. “Stuck in traffic I see.”

“Yeah,” he replied unenthusiastically.

“Well you’re in luck coz the boss sent me to pick you up and take you to my local militia to sign up for this shindig.”

So she was his rescue party.

Shane turned to the traffic. He was not going to pass on the opportunity of getting out of the jam. “How are we supposed to get out of this mess?”

“I’m a teleporter.”

A smile spread across Shane’s face. “That’s awesome.”

“Meh,” she replied with the flick of her hand as if it was not commendable.

To him she was more than just attractive; she seemed pretty cool. He could tell she was the type of girl he could get along well with.

“I’m good to go,” he replied.

Prue noticed him place his left hand on his Suzuki GSXR.

“Tell me you’re aware you won’t be able to board your bike on that ship?”

“Hopefully I can find a parking space for it,” he replied.

“Hmm, a Suzuki motorbike in a parking zone during the heart of rioting; I’m pretty sure you’ll meet the bike when the war is over.”

She was sarcastic too but that did not bother him.

“You’re open to ideas,” he replied.

Instead of a retort, Prue reached into the left pocket of her jeans and brought out a small capsule a few centimetres smaller than a laser pen. The white capsule had a CC insignia on it that Shane instantly recognized.

“A storage capsule; awesome.” They were very expensive. Shane had tried saving up for one a few times but had always spent the money on other things like a Suzuki motorbike for instance.

Shane had seen how to use a storage capsule on TV but had never seen anyone use one up and close. The girl clicked the top of the capsule and the young man watched in fascination as his vehicle slowly began to fade, and then he went agape once it completely dissolved into nothing. “Wow,” was all he could utter.

“That’s pretty much everyone’s reaction the first time they see how it works,” she replied. “After a while it’s no big deal.”

Beep Beep

“Get out of the road!” a man in a car behind Shane yelled.

“Word of warning before we go, you might feel dizzy afterwards; still up for it?” asked Prue.

“The teleportation; for sure,” he replied.

“Cool.” The girl then placed her hand on his shoulder and then the two vanished.