The Newest Heroes

season one, episode twenty-three

The lizard skitters across the rock over to the sunlit side. It stops. The sun feels good today. All is right with the world. The lizard fills with energy and confidence, ready to take on the day.

Suddenly, it disappears in a flurry of feathers and claws. “I got it!” Nathaniel shouts.

His newest friend, Darryl, runs up behind him. “Oh good, that’s one of the tasty ones.”

The two of them sit down to share a meal while their psychosymbiotic Stuffians gather around them. Nathaniel peels off the meat and hands Darryl the bones as he had done with every kill. They always ate different parts of the animal. This was why their hunting partnership worked so well. Darryl tips his head all the way back and drops the bones into his open throat. He was from a little-known planet on the edge of the galaxy where all creatures had two mouths – one for talking and one for eating. Several years ago, he had driven the girls from his planet and earned three medals. He then did some traveling and eventually met Nathaniel on Ninosa. “I think it is the ratio of potassium salts that makes the bones so good,” he says while his gizzard crunches away.

“I like hunting with you and Mojo,” Nathaniel says.

“I like hunting with you,” Mojo, Darryl’s tiger-like Stuffian, says.

“We make a good team. I eat meat. You eat bones. You are tall enough to reach high shelves. I’m small enough to hide in small crevices,” Nathaniel says.

“We should do other things together,” Darryl suggests.

“Like what?” Nathaniel asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe we can be mercenaries or start a detective agency,” Darryl suggests.

Not long after starting their business and naming it The Newest Heroes, they are contacted by a Fkoojite named Captain Moke. “I don’t know what’s going on. People keep going missing, sometimes whole towns at once. I was working with a team of detectives until they went missing too.”

“Yikes,” Nathaniel says.

“Just before this happened, there were sightings of a large, lizard-like creature with a crystal head near the town where the first disappearances occurred. We have no such native species,” the Captain continues.

“So, you want us to find out what’s happening and put a stop to it,” Nathaniel states.

“Yes,” Captain Moke replies.

“Good, now let’s talk about payment,” Darryl says.

Before long, Nathaniel, Darryl, Haticat, Fred, Doctor Bill, and Mojo make preparations to travel to Fkoojy. Darryl wants to test out a ship he bought with the advance money. It resembles a lumpy asteroid and can disguise itself as a comet by releasing its gas reserves. “In the future, we might have to land someplace secretly.”

Finally, they near Fkoojy. Darryl flips a switch and gas flows from cracks in the stony hull. Following Captain Moke’s instructions, they land in one of the northern deserts. In a place that often sees meteors, one more goes unnoticed.

Fkoojy is a grassy planet with no trees. The grass blades sometimes come layered like the pages of a book. There are also deserts. Some of these are stony “rainbow” deserts, such as the one they land in. The rocks are mostly white or grey, but contain patches of slight tinting, adding subtle hues of purple, red, orange, yellow, or blue to the grey. The Fkoojites are humanoids with grey hair, transparent skin, translucent organs, a second set of pharyngeal jaws, and long claws. Stuffians also live on Fkoojy.

They arrive at the first town to be affected and find it empty. Moke meets them there. There are no signs of struggle or plans of travel. The people are simply gone. Eventually, they find a deep hole right between two houses. “Look, footprints of people and animals lead towards the hole, but none lead away from it,” Nathaniel points out.

“Maybe not. Some aliens have backwards feet,” Darryl says.

“But not around here,” Moke says.

“Here’s one track leading away from it – right where it looks like it tore down the side to crawl out,” Nathaniel says.

“This is strange. No one saw any holes during our earlier investigations,” Moke adds.

They all decide to follow the mysterious tracks except for Captain Moke who receives a call about another mystery involving humming sounds forty kilometers to the south. He takes off in his hovercar and the rest ride hoverbikes across town and into the desert. They follow the tracks all the way to the next town. This town is also abandoned. “I’ll scan for another hole,” Doctor Bill says. They soon find one. The footprints are harder to see here, but once again, one side of the hole has been torn down. “This hole – and the pile of displaced dirt – is right in the middle of town. Everyone must have known it was here.”

“Yet, the Captain said no one saw any holes,” Darryl says.

“How could one miss it?” Doctor Bill counters.

After looking around for more clues and finding none, Darryl calls Moke to ask him where the most recent disappearances were. He does not answer. “Well, now he’s missing,” Nathaniel jokes.

They decide to travel to the town with the reported humming where he was last headed and arrive an hour later. There are people walking about everywhere. They don’t seem to be doing anything productive. Most are simply pacing back and forth. None of them speak. “Has anyone seen a detective come through here recently?” Nathaniel asks.

One person turns and walks towards him. Nathaniel tries to describe Moke’s attire and ask questions, but the Fkoojite simply beckons and walks away. He follows the Fkoojite down the lane, across the cul-de-sac, and into a backyard garden. Suddenly, Nathaniel falls right through the ground into a deep hole. He is unhurt, but it is completely black here. He quickly turns on his flashlight, but nothing happens. Then he hears some movement and a quiet humming.

He aims his gun roughly in the direction of the sound. It gets louder and moves towards him. He fires and misses. The humming object then speeds towards him from above and hits his left shoulder. Without thinking, he buries his pistol in it and fires. He has never felt pain this intense – not even when connected to Allison by the Mama-And-Daddy. His left arm is completely limp. He staggers back against the wall of the hole and fires several times into the dark. Only one time he sees a flash. For one-seventh of a second, he sees the entire hole lit up in a dim light.

“Captain?” Haticat yells from above.

“I’m down here!” Nathaniel yells.

“Down where?” Haticat asks, just before he falls into the hole as well. Nathaniel hears him fall. Then the humming starts up again.

“Don’t let the hummer hit you,” Nathaniel says. By touch, he sets his laser pistol on cutting mode, allowing it to shoot a continuous beam.

“I can’t see anything,” Haticat says.

“I’ll fix that,” Nathaniel declares. He fires. At first, nothing happens and it is as black as ever. As he pans his beam around the hole, suddenly he hits something. The whole space is visible. Nathaniel and Haticat stand at the bottom of a deep, dirt hole across from a creature about the size of an elephant, illuminated in the dim light of Nathaniel’s flashlight on the ground. It has been on the whole time! The large, lizard-like creature has a large crystal for a head and five smaller crystals down the sides of its body alternated with its five legs in a zigzag pattern. Its tail wraps helically forward around its body between its legs and ends in its tiny true head, vibrating and humming away. Whenever his laser hits one of the crystals, they can see. Whenever he loses contact, everything goes black.

Haticat asks no more questions. When the long neck/tail swings towards him, he opens fire. He hits the head, but the tough creature keeps coming and head-butts his gun so hard that it is knocked out of his hands. Suddenly, the crystal Nathaniel is shooting at becomes a mirror and he is struck in the armpit by his own laser. He now has two useless arms and drops his gun, but the creature is already climbing out of the hole and the field of darkness has gone. Nathaniel and Haticat sit helplessly as it gets away.

A minute later, Darryl and the other Stuffians arrive at the top of the hole. “What happened?”

“A monster attacked us. You missed it by seconds,” Nathaniel says.

Haticat points. “It went that way!” The others search and search, but cannot find it. It has vanished.

Once Nathaniel receives medical attention and is pulled out of the hole, they exchange stories. “It was very strange. I was following one of the townsfolk when he suddenly vanished for one-seventh of a second. I thought I must have had an eye virus, but later he disappeared for good. That’s when I heard Haticat yelling,” Darryl recounts.

“I was mad that no one would answer my questions, so I tried to grab the arm of one of them, but my paw went right through him!” Fred says.

“Holograms!” Doctor Bill exclaims.

“But where are the projectors?” Nathaniel asks.

“Those crystals. When you shot them is when they stopped working,” Doctor Bill says.

“But the creature was in a hole. How did it project fake people up and around corners?” Nathaniel asks. “Light goes in straight lines.”

“What about Dirkin light?” Fred asks.

“Oh yeah, the Blentites were working on that, but could never get it to work,” Nathaniel says.

“What is Dirkin light?” Darryl asks.

“Light rays with preset pathways. The Blentites wanted to see if they could shoot lasers around corners, but it wouldn’t work with lasers. The best they could do was to preset a lot of light rays to converge in the same spot, but by the time they figured out how to do that, the sibling war was over and they abandoned the project. It was too hard,” Nathaniel says.

“So, the creature could send light rays to a specific point before diverging in all directions, making it look like something is there. A group of these points would look like an object,” Doctor Bill says.

“But how did it make darkness in the hole, blocking both the flashlight and the sun? Is there such a thing as Dirkin dark?” Haticat asks.

“I have an idea. It might produce light rays to meet incoming light head-on at precisely the same wavelength and opposite phase, canceling it out of existence,” Doctor Bill muses.

“That makes sense – I think,” Haticat says.

“So the creature is hiding itself inside some sort of projection of light to lure meat into its trap?” Darryl says.

“Yes,” Doctor Bill agrees.

“How does it see what it’s doing in there?” Darryl asks.

Mojo then speaks. “I have an idea about that. My examination reveals that Nathaniel’s left shoulder has been sonically shattered. All his tissues show signs of sonic damage. I hypothesize that the creature eats by vibrating its prey into liquid before slurping them up. A quick blow to the head with this sonic weapon would kill, which is what I’m sure would have happened to Nathaniel if he hadn’t been shooting at it. Anyways, the same sound could also be used as a form of sonar.”

“Yes, it was humming pretty loudly,” Haticat says.

Darryl then stands up and puts his hands together. “Okay, plan time.”

It is decided that it is too dangerous to shoot wildly in the dark in confined spaces, so the guns are holstered in favor of vibrating swords. The team also procures Kevlar suits, which will absorb the bulk of the sonic blows. Nathaniel has regained the use of his right arm, while his left remains in a cast. Now they need to find the creature.

“The creature releases aromatic oils in amounts too small for most animals to smell, but this wand responds to individual molecules. We’ll be able to track it,” Doctor Bill says.

The team wanders across the rainbow desert, sometimes backtracking as Doctor Bill makes wide swings with his wand and attempts to account for wind. Eventually, they see a small village.

Exploring the village, they see no people. “The monster must have already been here, eaten everyone, and moved on,” Darryl says.

“Where’s the hole, then?” Nathaniel asks.

“Maybe the monster has changed tactics. Since you escaped its last hole, maybe it thinks its prey is learning,” Darryl suggests.

“Look out!” Doctor Bill yells.

Suddenly, they see the creature lumbering towards them, seeming to come out of nowhere. Darryl pulls his sword. Haticat freezes. Fred, Doctor Bill, and Mojo retreat into a building. Nathaniel runs. He does not stop running until he smacks into something hard and invisible. Pain shoots up and down his arm as he catches his balance. What happened? He sees only open desert in front of him, but his hand feels a wall of stone.

In the meantime, Darryl swings his sword at the creature. It simply passes through. “It’s not real; it’s another Dirkin projection!”

“Then where is it?” Haticat asks.

From the other side, the creature appears from nowhere. Darryl stabs at it and it disappears. Haticat screams. “What happened?” Darryl asks.

“Something stabbed me, but the armor worked, but I dropped my sword and I can’t find it. Do you see it?” Haticat answers from right in front of Darryl, but he sees nothing.

“We can’t trust anything we see. Do you hear your sword vibrating?” Darryl asks.

“I hear it, but I’m afraid to grab the wrong end,” Haticat explains.

Elsewhere, Fred, Doctor Bill, and Mojo have discovered a small group of living people being kept in one of the buildings. They appear to be injured and in shock. “Let’s worry about them later and help Nathaniel,” Doctor Bill says. He walks into the doorway and suddenly jumps back in pain.

“What is it?” Fred asks.

“Heat. The creature must have focused its Dirkin light into the doorway,” Doctor Bill says.

Mojo tentatively reaches out a paw. “Ow!”

“There must be another way out,” Fred insists.

The three Stuffians attempt every doorway and window, but hot spots are everywhere. “I guess we’re stuck here. The monster must have separated us so it won’t have so many to fight at once. This must be a sort of larder for its prey,” Doctor Bill says.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” Mojo comments.

Just outside town, Nathaniel feels his way along the ground with his sword. There are loose stones everywhere. Running would be impossible even if he could see them. The distant humming has also been getting closer. It only runs intermittently, for half a second every five to seven seconds. The creature is trying to be stealthy, but Nathaniel knows what it is doing. He picks up a stone. When it hums again, he throws the stone in the general direction of the noise. Then he steps towards the creature, stumbling over rocks, swinging his sword into what appears to be empty air.

For several seconds, he hits nothing. He pauses, takes a few steps, and starts swinging again. He still hits nothing. He pauses, takes a few steps, and swings again. Finally, he feels the tip of his sword deflect off of something soft. The humming begins loudly right above his head and swings towards him. Nathaniel ducks and rolls away while the creature strikes itself in the side with its own head. The desert image shudders for a moment and Nathaniel briefly sees the stones around him, memorizing their locations.

Meanwhile, Haticat feels for the heat of his vibrating blade and feels around it for the handle. “I got it.”

“Good. Let’s go find the monster,” Darryl says.

“I don’t hear it,” Haticat says.

“Neither do I, but I see footprints,” Darryl says.

Darryl and Haticat follow a trail of prints between two houses, up a big hill, and into a garden. “This looks just like the other town’s garden with the big hole in it. It even has the same semicircular stone,” Haticat comments.

“It’s not real. The monster must copy the scenery around it to project again and again,” Darryl says, poking his sword into the garden. It goes right through into nothing. A soft breeze rises from the ground and caresses him. Something isn’t right. He tosses a pebble into the garden and hears it tumble far below. “We’re standing on the top of a cliff!”

Back inside the house, Mojo attempts to tend to the injured Fkoojites. He is surprised when his paw goes right through them. “Hey, they aren’t even real!”

“They show up as real on the scanner,” Doctor Bill says. “The creature must be able to preset rays of infrared and radio as well. Let me switch to nuclear resonance.”

Fred begins to wonder what else might not be real. He thrusts his sword into the wall. “This house isn’t real, either.”

Doctor Bill promptly scans the entire area. “I’m only reading stones and empty space.”

“Can you scan for heat? Maybe there’s a gap in the barrier somewhere,” Fred says.

“I can indirectly, buy scanning the temperature of the air molecules,” Doctor Bill explains.

“I thought I felt a draft earlier. I never considered that it was a normal breeze going through a projected wall,” Mojo says.

“I would never have thought of that, either,” Fred says.

Doctor Bill takes a couple minutes to complete his scan. “There are no holes. The creature must send light beams around in circles indefinitely until they are all absorbed. It’s an effective trap and potentially a powerful weapon.”

“Ugh!” Fred yells.

Back outside of town, Nathaniel and the monster both stand perfectly still. The first one to make a sound will be attacked by the other. Sweating in the sun, Nathaniel keeps his breathing very shallow. Standing still is boring and he is not sure how much longer he can take it.

He feels a rush of wind as something moves past him. The creature is swinging its head around, hoping to bump into him. He can’t wait any longer. He carefully sets his sword on the ground and ties a string around it. The other end he ties to his finger. The creature’s head whooshes by as he remains crouched on the ground. Then he takes out his laser pistol and takes five steps backwards, lining up the barrel with the string. He pulls the string.

The sword switches on. The vibration against the rock immediately catches the creature’s attention. It brings its head down on it, causing it to clang against the stones. Nate fires his pistol. The pistol is promptly knocked from his hands and he tumbles over the stones. The false images flicker for just a moment, but this time Nate sees and memorizes the location of his sword, the creature, and every stone between them.

The humming begins again, looming over him. Running quickly, Nate grabs up his sword from its remembered location and runs at the creature, plunging his hot, vibrating sword deep into its side. He then runs lengthwise down the creature’s body, hearing its guts plop onto the ground behind him. The head catches and pins him against one of the crystals. The Kevlar saves his life, but the vibration hurts so much that his bowels begin to evacuate out of both ends. He can hardly breathe. Still, he manages to twist around and slice the creature’s neck clean through.

The village is gone. There never was a village. Darryl and Haticat stand near a cliff. Fred, Doctor Bill, and Mojo sit on the ground. They’ve all been running around a completely empty desert swinging their swords at nothing like idiots. Behind him, the creature evaporates. It fizzles away until nothing is left but the six large crystals baking in the sun.