Chapter 1
“Ok, kids! This is a game I call Bowling with Uuughh,” Cameron said. Uuughh, a huge purple giant, some eight feet tall, dug his feet into the ground, leaving footprints that would make a sasquatch proud. Uuughh needed to be dug into the earth to prevent the giant sling that he rested in from launching him prematurely before the game began. The sling’s anchor points, two otherworldly, magnificent trees, taller than any redwood in California, stood about thirty feet ahead of Uuughh, with about thirty feet between the two trees, which put Uuughh at one of the three points of an equilateral triangle. Once the purple giant lost contact with the ground by lifting his feet, he would be launched beyond the monumental trees at an arrangement of large boulders, tree trunks, and other objects about a hundred yards beyond the sling’s anchor trees. Earlier, Uuughh had used his unfathomable strength to set the arrangement in place so that the mixed group of adults and teens could try Cameron’s idea for this game.
“Ok”, Jaimie admitted, “this is kinda cool.”
“I told you, right?” Cameron smiled.
*******
The creature needed to feed. It didn’t know how long it had been slumbering beneath the earth, but it knew it needed to feed. Long, wispy tendrils that wound through the soil connected the buried creature to the root systems of an entire field of yellow flowers above on the surface. The creature could feel the vibrations of anything above it in the field or nearby, as the flowers themselves were an extension of its senses. There was prey above. There were two groups of prey. One group was further away, moving around actively along the treeline at the edge of the field. The other was in the middle of the field, much closer and more sedentary. There were also three very loud tiny things right above it, about the size of squirrels from the nearby forest, but they weren’t chattering like animals. Through its vibrational senses, the creature could hear them conversing. These weren’t animals. They were sentients. Good. The creature was something of a sadist. It knew that sentients suffered more than mere prey animals. It enjoyed the fear of its prey as much as it enjoyed gorging itself on them. The creature didn’t know the language they were conversing in, but that didn’t matter. Fear was a universal language. Soon, it would feast on both fear and flesh.
*******
“I can’t believe Cam got the boys to play a game today,” Mary said, incredulous but clearly pleased. Mary aka Velocity Girl sat on a large tarp spread out on the ground in a group of picnicking Pocket Protectors and associates. Her husband Roger leaned back against her chest. A veteran of the American armed services, Roger no longer had legs. Around the married couple sat five of their closest friends. “I haven’t seen them play like that since they were much younger. Everything today is about video games and hanging out. Physical exercise should do them some good.”
The Pocket Protectors and some of their family members were relaxing away from Earth in an otherdimensional place they called simply the Yellow Field, naming it after the yellow flowers that formed a large clearing about a mile wide in what appeared to be a primeval forest. There didn’t seem to be any seasons here. No matter what time of year it was on Earth that they came here to the Yellow Field, the Sun of the place was always at the same angle and the weather was always nice. It was as if time itself had stopped here except for the occasional breeze or the buzzing of an insect pollinating the yellow flowers. The Pocket Protectors got to the Yellow Field by means of a Qwai Gate. The Qwai had been a species of gate builders, of gates that anchored and linked wormholes between worlds. A Qwai Gate stood in the exact middle of the Yellow Field, the only sign that anyone had ever been there before.
“Cam has a way with young people.” William Savant said, as he reached into a large, blue plastic cooler for another ham sandwich. “Teaching is in his blood. His parents were both teachers. On his father’s side it goes back five generations. I hear you’re a teacher, too, Anita.”
William looked at Anita Bayron, the newest member of the Pocket Protectors. “I was, yes. I’m still figuring out what I’ll do now.” Anita was officially, legally dead. She had secretly survived an attempt to murder her. It would not be prudent for the world at large to learn that she was still alive. For the time being, she fought alongside the Pocket Protectors, using the costumed hero name Lady Guard. She looked across the Yellow Field at Cameron David aka Knightshade, her American boyfriend who had teleported her away from the Philippines after she had brought justice to her would-be murderer.
“Don’t worry, young lady,” came an elderly voice from the other end of the tarp. Lee Chen aka Xuan Hu the Grey Fox, a Chinese man in his 70’s, smiled at her. “You’ve got a new family now. This group has been through many things for many years now, and we’ve always stuck together. We’ve taken in many over the years. Some have passed on. Some have moved on. Some are still here. We’ve even taken in a few strays now and then, haven’t we, James?”
James Jackson aka Upbeat smiled at his mentor. “We sure have, old man.”
Lee looked at Anita with joy in his eyes. He had mentored many of the Pocket Protectors since they’d been in their teens or twenties. He’d picked them up when they’d fallen. He’d cheered them through their greatest victories. Now, in his 70’s, he didn’t take to the field of battle with them as he once had, but he was still their mentor. Coming to the Yellow Field like this with everyone here made him feel like a proud grandfather clanmaster. “This will be a good life for you,” he told the Filipina.
The only other member of their party had been silent until that moment. Amy Wrenolds had been laying out in the middle of the tarp with sunglasses on, trying to get a tan from the Sun of the Yellow Fields dimension. She had been the only one of them who had been perfectly still.
“Did anybody feel that?” She sat up and pulled off the sunglasses. “The Yellow Fields have never had earth tremors before, have they?”
Chapter 2
About halfway between the Qwai Gate and the edge of the forest, Cameron David, also known as the costumed hero Knightshade, prepared for the first ever game of Bowling with Uuughh with the four young men: Jaime Smith, Roger’s and Mary’s son, Mike Wrenolds, Amy’s son, Trevor Jackson, James’s son, and Mark, a friend of the boys who had, the previous year, accidentally learned Mary’s secret identity as Velocity Girl, but who had been a staunch ally of the Pocket Protectors.
“Are we ready yet?” asked Uuughh.
“C’mon, big guy,” Cameron teased. “Don’t tell me you’re tired. I know you don’t get tired.”
“No, I’m not tired”, the giant replied. “Just bored.”
Cameron smiled. “The boys are playing ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock’ to see who goes first. I think they’re almost done.”
Cameron examined the sling that Uuughh’s huge form rested in. Cameron had made it himself with his powers. Cameron David, like Velocity Girl, Upbeat, William Savant, and Uuughh himself, as well as other members of Earth’s human population who possessed strange and unusual powers, was a Whirlwind Child. In the 1960’s, there had been secret experiments that had altered the DNA of young volunteers of child-bearing age, volunteers who had been kept oblivious to the true nature of the experiments. Ironically, the experiments had been discontinued not because they had been exposed and stopped at the time on moral and legal grounds, but rather because they had been deemed a failure. At the time, back in the 1960’s and 1970’s, none of the experimental subjects, nor any of their offspring, exhibited the traits that the Project Whirlwind scientists had been looking for. Thus, Project Whirlwind was stopped. However, a generation later, children were born who grew up to be Velocity Girl, Knightshade, Uuughh, Upbeat, the Savant, and many, many more. Some of the Whirlwind Children, like the ones who were members of today’s Pocket Protectors, used their powers to help others. Some used their abilities selfishly or even criminally.
“Ok, Mike goes first.” The boys came back from their game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock” they had been having off in the trees.
“Great!” Cameron smiled as he finished inspecting the giant sling that would soon propel the purple giant Uuughh at the game’s target. The matter from which the sling was composed was black, an ebony so light-absorbent that it was hard for the human eye to find the edges of the fabric. It was cool, but not uncomfortably cold, to the touch. The genetically anomalous teacher smiled at his handiwork. This was going to be fun indeed. Uuughh, as the living bowling/wrecking ball, should enjoy it most of all, he thought.
Cameron’s particular Whirlwind Child power was to be a bridge between universes to an alternate universe that Cameron called, when he described it to others, the Dark Place. Different Whirlwind Children each had a triggering event in their lives that activated their unique genetic makeup. Often, the powers or altered body structures that resulted from the activation of Whirlwind Genes were related in some way to the nature of the triggering event. In Cameron’s case, it had been a case of depression so egregious that it had altered his body’s biochemistry radically enough to activate his Whirlwind Genes, connecting him to not merely a “dark place” psychologically, but an actual Dark Place.
As a toddler, the purple giant now known as Uuughh had looked like a normal little boy. Tragically, an earthquake had collapsed Uuughh’s family home. Though Uuughh’s parents and sibling had been killed, Uuughh’s Whirlwind genes had activated, transforming him into the giant, complete with super-strength and miraculous invulnerability, that he had been ever since. Uuughh was able to walk himself out of the wreckage of the family home, but not able to save his family.
Other Whirlwind Children had similar stories. James, who would become Upbeat, whose powers were musical in nature, had become an activated Whirlwind Child upon attending his first symphony, as the vibrations of the string section of the orchestra literally vibrated his DNA. Mary, who would become Velocity Girl, had been being chased with nowhere left to run except across water when she had been activated.
“All right, Mike,” Cameron instructed. “Here’s the deal. Slowly guide Uuughh so that you aim him for the shot that you want to take. You have to guide him slowly, because if both of his feet leave the ground at the same time, he’s gone and that’s your shot and your turn, whether you meant it or not.”
“Got it.” Even though Mike had heard and responded to Cameron, his eyes were down the playing field, already mentally lining up a shot to knock down as much of the target as possible.
“Ok. Let’s do this.” Cameron stepped back to let Mike line up his shot.
*******
The flowers of the Yellow Fields, though long-stemmed, were not especially tall. Nevertheless, to the trio of p’ckit dragons having their own picnic away from the humans, the large blossoms and wide leaves of the ubiquitous flora created a veritable canopy, blocking out the Sun almost entirely. The tiny creatures laughed, ate, drank, and frolicked.
“Thanks so much for sharing the food, Uncle Smerd.” Melody, a blue female dragon sporting a red crest styled like a human girl’s ponytail addressed a purple male p’ckit dragon as she alternated between sips through a straw from a Yowzah chocolate drink bottle that was bigger than she was, and bites of a Golden Brick creme-filled snack cake that wasn’t much smaller.
“Well,” her Uncle Smerd replied, beaming with pride, “I’ve been saving these for a really special occasion. They are an exceptionally good batch.”
Roxxie, Smerd’s paramour, sporting a pink crest that contrasted with her yellow body, read the label on the box from which the Golden Brick snack cakes had come. “Best if used by January 16, 2029. That’s great! Yummy!”
Suddenly, Melody’s eyes fixed on something behind Roxxie. She snorted out chocolate drink through her cute little dragon nose. “Roxxie, look out!”
One of the yellow flowers had begun to move like a snake and had begun to wrap itself around her uncle’s girlfriend. Other flowers around them began to move as well.
“What’s going on?” cried Smerd as he fluttered his wings and leapt to Roxxie’s aid. He released his claws and began cutting her free. Once Roxxie was free, all three p’ckit dragons flapped their wings, abandoned their picnic, and took to the air.
Rising above the tops of the flowers, they could see that the entire Yellow Fields area was having an earthquake. Then, there was a roar from beneath them. Flapping their wings even harder to gain more altitude as quickly as possible to get away from the thing, the three tiny dragons looked straight down into the terrifying gullet of a large creature as it emerged from the ground. The creature was the exact shade of yellow as the flowers of the Yellow Fields.
Chapter 3
The creature clawed its way out of the soft earth which had been like a womb to it for…..how long? The creature didn’t know. It only knew it needed to feed. It knew that it wasn’t a simple predator, but its memories and sense of identity were fuzzy, vague. Its long dormancy had fogged its mind. It knew, instinctively, that the cure for its present mental lapses was to feed. With nourishment, in the form of blood and flesh, it would soon remember fully what it was and why it had slept so long. In the corners of its mind, it had elusive glimmers of an impression or fragments of a notion that it had slept too long, that the length of its hibernation was abnormal, that something had gone wrong in the past. The creature shook off any further reflection until after it had fed. Feeding would restore its faculties. Then, things could be figured out.
The creature’s hide sported many tendrils that looked just like the flowers of the Yellow Fields. These tendrils grasped at the tiny dragons fleeing from its sudden emergence beneath them, like Venus fly traps seeking to ensnare insects. The dragons were too fast, though. No matter. They were too small to be adequate sustenance anyway. The humanoids off in the distance, though, were another story.
What was this? Suddenly, one of the humanoids was right in front of it, having closed the distance across the Yellow Fields in a mere eyeblink of time. How did that happen? The creature concluded that it must be groggier than it had realized. Feeding must happen. And it must happen right then and there. This golden-haired human who smelled like a female would be first.
*******
Mary had gently passed her husband Roger over to Anita and then tapped into her superspeed to confront the strange, monstrous-looking creature. In the wake of her superspeed dash, yellow flowers had been torn up by her churning feet, bits and pieces of them sent flying as if scattered by a weed eater.
Mary knew that strange creatures were not to be judged solely by appearance alone. Just because something looked like a monster didn’t mean that it was one. However, she decided to assume hostile intent as she saw Smerd, Roxxie, and Melody flying away at the top speed that their cute little wings could carry them screaming things like, “It tried to eat me!”
The giant, yellow, flower-covered creature lunged at her, its ferocious maw and sharp-looking claws looked dangerous indeed, though the chances of the thing ever being fast enough to touch her were slim and none. She wasn’t called Velocity Girl for nothing.
*******
Amy Wrenolds rose from her sunbathing position on the picnic tarp, gazing appraisingly at the yellow monstrosity in the distance that Mary had dashed ahead to scout. “Damn! Just when I thought I was going to get a day to relax.”
Amy bent down and rummaged the pile of clothes that she had worn when the group had first arrived at the Yellow Fields before she had stripped down to her bikini for sunbathing purposes. She lifted out of the pile two scabbarded longswords. Though they looked, as always, too large for her, she had been hefting them around for years at this point, and unsheathed them quickly with practiced grace.
As she prepared her weapons, she barked out commands at the Pocket Protectors who surrounded her. Amy, or her heroic persona Amizara, was the combat leader of the Pocket Protectors, a role she had taken over from Xuan Hu as the elder man had become more retired from combat and field work. Amy had been doing the “costumed hero thing” the longest of any of them, a full two years before the public had seen the debut of the crime-fighting duo Velocity Girl and Xuan Hu. Amy was, in many ways, the First Protector.
“William, start opening the Qwai Gate in case we need to retreat. Anita, cover William. James, stay with Lee and Roger and be ready to get them through the gate. Keep in mind that we don’t know that this is the only one of these things. For all we know, there could be a lot of them underneath us that could emerge anywhere. I’m going to go tank this thing.”
Amy next gave her attention to her mysterious swords. Someday, she hoped to learn the whole story behind them. All Amy knew, and had known for years, was that when her grandmother had died, Amy had been left these two swords in a safety deposit box with a curious set of instructions, instructions that Amy was following to prepare to do battle with the yellow flower creature.
Amy crossed the swords in front of her face. She looked at her reflection in the swords and met her own gaze in her reflection. Suddenly, the barely five foot tall Amy Wrenolds grew to slightly over seven feet tall. The swords were no longer oversized for her. Her hairstyle transformed into a tall mohawk that made her seem even taller. The transformation was so complete that Amy never needed a mask to hide her true identity as a costumed hero. Very few people, outside of some government agencies, knew that the petite Amy Wrenolds was one-and-the-same as the large, super-strong warrior woman Amizara.
Her voice was even deeper, richer, more sultry, as she said, “Let’s do this!”
Chapter 4
William Savant approached the Qwai Gate, accompanied by Anita Bayron aka Lady Guard. The upright stone ring didn’t look to outward appearances like a piece of technology, let alone high technology. Only upon closer inspection and study would one notice that it did not show any sign of weathering or erosion, as monolithic stone structures such as Stonehenge did on Earth. It was as if the Qwai had erected it yesterday, though to WIlliam’s knowledge the Qwai had been extinct for millennia, perhaps longer than millennia.
From out of his satchel, William produced a device about the size and shape of a Geiger counter, though much lighter. He affixed some cables ending in suction cups to the smooth stone side of the Qwai Gate. The stone had no knobs, buttons, switches, or ports of any kind. As ever, the ancient artifact stubbornly refused to look like a piece of technology. WIlliam knew that the stone it was made of was only found on certain worlds in the multiverse. Though the Pocket Protectors had very little knowledge of this particular world beyond the Yellow Fields, chances were the Qwai Stone, as William called it, was probably not a mineral native to that world.
LIke Cameron, Uuughh, Mary, and James, William was a Whirlwind Child. His grandmother had been subjected to medical experiments in the 1960s. The effect of William’s Whirlwind Genes on him were the mental equivalent of what Uuughh’s genes had done to the purple giant’s physical body. William’s IQ was off the charts.
James/Upbeat arrived by the Qwai Gate helping the elderly Lee Chen (Xuan Hu). Chen craned his neck back to see how his students were faring against the strange, alien yellow creature.
“How’s it going?” James asked.
“Alright,” William responded without looking at them. His gaze was fixed on the Qwai Gate as his fingers punched in codes on the top of the device he had attached to the Gate. “C’mon, baby. C’mon. Open for Papa.”
*******
Back in the treeline at the edge of the expansive Yellow Fields, Cameron/Knightshade watched Mike line up his shot for the first ever game of Bowling with Uuughh. Suddenly, directly ahead in the group’s field of vision field of vision, a large, bright yellow creature emerged from the ground with a bestial roar.
“What the-?” Mike was clearly startled. “Uh, guys! I think there’s a new target Uuughh might want to smash.”
“Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Whoa!” Uuughh was so excited, like a kid at Christmas, bouncing up and down and rocking in the large, elastic sling made of black matter Cameron had channeled from the Dark Place, which Cameron called shadowstuff, that the purple giant almost lost his tenuous grip on the ground and launched prematurely. “Line me up with that thing, Mike! I’ll save everybody!”
“Looks like Mary is already engaged with it,” Cameron observed. “I’ll tell her Uuughh is coming so she can get clear.” When the Pocket Protectors normally went into the field on their adventures, they each wore special earpieces that allowed them radio contact with each other. They weren’t wearing these for their leisure day in the Yellow Fields. The Yellow Fields had never been dangerous before.
Cameron concentrated. Black mistlike wisps swirled around him, solidifying into a solid suit of armor made of shadowstuff. This armor served both as protection and as Cameron’s uniform as the costumed hero Knightshade. The shadowstuff armor made him about as invulnerable as his team mates Uuughh and Amizara.
As the familiar armor coalesced around Cameron, it felt different somehow than usual. It felt stronger. The mistlike wisps that formed it came to him more easily, almost effortlessly. It solidified more quickly than usual. Are my powers going wonky? he thought. No time to think about that now. Quickly, Cameron took to the air, flying out over the Yellow Fields toward Velocity Girl and the yellow creature.
As a living conduit to another dimension, the Dark Place, Cameron/Knightshade, by mentally projecting himself along otherdimensional vectors, could, in effect, fly. While flight was not an uncommon thing in the world of individuals with unusual powers, Knightshade was currently the only member of the Pocket Protector’s roster who had that particular ability.
Knightshade could also sidestep instantly through the Dark Place, and, in effect, teleport. He didn’t use this ability to teleport to Velocity Girl now, though, because he wanted to use his advantage of flight to see the entirety of the Yellow Fields from above. What if there were more of these things? What was going on? They’d been coming to the Yellow Fields for years at this point and never been attacked or had any trouble before. Looking to the horizon from his vantage point in the sky, Knightshade couldn’t see anything different from what he’d ever seen before other than the monster attack going on directly below. The ebony-armored guardian hero dove down to get involved.
As soon as Knightshade got within earshot, he shouted, “Hey, Uuughh is about to get slingshot this way. Heads up!”
Velocity Girl chuckled. “Oh, is he now? He’ll love that!”
“You bet he will.” Knightshade smiled back.
Suddenly, Knightshade saw Velocity Girl zip far to the side in a blur of superspeed. Behind him and below him, Knightshade, Weaver of Shadowstuff and Conduit to the Dark Place, heard Uuughh’s voice bombastically bellow “Woooo-hoooooo! Look out, bad guy!”
*******
The yellow creature was doing a double take to try to follow the female human’s blurring speed. It began to let out a primal roar of frustration, “Roooooooooaa—”, a roar that was suddenly cut off when a very massive, very purple missile made of muscle and enthusiasm slammed into it. Instantly, the creature found itself once again buried in the ground. Though its thoughts wouldn’t be the clearest until it fed, the thing’s starved brain did register the unwelcome irony and sense of deja vu that it had just dug itself out of the ground and would now have to do so again.
“Gotcha!” The voice of the large purple humanoid rang in the creature’s ears.
Chapter 5
This had been a marvelous picnic day! Uuughh had been able to enjoy the great outdoors, something he didn’t get to do on Earth nearly often enough, since a huge purple giant would be recognized or at least cause alarm anywhere in the world. (Until recently, he had spent most of the days of his life so far feeling confined in a US government facility until the Pocket Protectors had walked away from working for the government. The new Pocket Protector HQ had been designed with Uuughh and his needs in mind, so that was better.) Additionally, he had gotten to hang out with his best friends and play games. Now, there was a real fight, not just a training match! Uuughh felt like he was in Heaven.
The most massive member of the Pocket Protectors braced himself for the moment the ferocious yellow creature would emerge from the crater that had been created when Uuughh had slammed it into the ground. On the other side of the crater, blocking any access the creature might have to the rest of the non-flying Pocket Protectors as they retreated to the Qwai Gate was the team’s other heavy hitter brawler type, taller though not more massive than Uuughh, Amizara. Above, Knightshade hovered like a dark shadow in his black shadowstuff armor, his hands raised in a ready position.
In the crater, the creature roared its frustration and fury. It leapt to the side of the crater and began using its claws, equally suitable for both combat and digging, to pull itself up and out of its confinement. Uuughh grinned wide in anticipation. He hoped that Amizara and Knightshade would let him handle most of the work.
Inside, the big man felt restless. While William Savant had made sure that the new Pocket Protectors HQ had a huge outdoor area so that Uuughh would not be confined underground twenty-four hours a day as he had been as a ward of the US government, and that had alleviated the giant’s restlessness for awhile, the relief hadn’t lasted and Uuughh himself didn’t know why. The gentle, kind-hearted goliath had felt more and more like he just wanted to punch something, a lot, repeatedly. This was really starting to bother him, since he knew these feelings were uncharacteristic of himself. He knew that by rights, he should be feeling happier than ever. All of the Pocket Protectors loved him and were his family. He was no longer treated with indifference, scientific detachment, or fear as the government workers at the government facility had sometimes treated him. Uuughh didn’t know what was going on inside his emotional world, but he relished the chance to finally brawl with something.
Uuughh stepped up to the edge of the crater to meet the flower creature as it reached the top. Just as the two behemoths were about to begin an exchange of blows, Uuughh saw the creature’s eyes roll back into its head, before Uuughh could have the satisfaction of landing a hit. Uuughh had been looking into the creature’s eyes at that moment. It seemed like someone had just flipped a lightswitch off in the creature’s head. The beast’s whole body fell backwards right back down the distance to the bottom of the crater that the creature had just ascended a moment before, hitting the bottom with enough force to stir up a small dust cloud down there.
Uuughh was incredibly disappointed that the battle would apparently not continue. As he heard the characteristic crackling roar of the activation of a Qwai Gate, he looked up. Amizara, swords out, was still guarding the retreat of the others through the Gate. Knightshade above, ascended higher to watch the horizon for threats and to take one last look around before they left. Suddenly, in a blur Velocity Girl was beside Uuughh, having carried William along with her. The team’s brain trust member had brought one of his briefcase field analysis kits with him.
William smiled in the kind, gentle way he always used with Uuughh. William always made Uuughh feel good. All of the Pocket Protectors did. In William’s case, William always seemed, in his interactions with Uuughh, not like a patronizing parent or adult authority figure, but rather like a stable and friendly older sibling, just a little bit older, but not too much older, than Uughh’s own childlike mentality.
“Can you take me down there, please?” Will asked. “You can guard me in case it wakes up.”
“Sure.”
Uuughh scooped up Will in one enormous arm and lowered the two of them into the crater. At the bottom, the creature was motionless. Will opened his analysis kit and got to work. He even managed to find some needles that would pierce the creatures tough flesh to draw fluid samples from the beast. These samples were deposited in a couple of portable instruments from within the briefcase. While they waited briefly for the readings to finalize, Uuughh suppressed a shudder, remembering all the lab tests that had been run on him during his childhood in the government facility.
“It looks like this creature’s own body shut itself down as a metabolic failsafe,” Will concluded as he packed up his analysis kit and reached for Uuughh to scoop him up again. “On Earth, predators like cheetahs instinctively know, when they are chasing antelope, at what distance to stop running if they have failed to catch their prey by then. If they were to continue to run after their prey past that point, their bodies would expend more energy than would be returned by eating the antelope. It looks like this creature woke from a hibernation with a biological need to feed immediately. Since it didn’t, it’s fallen into a torpid state until some future stimulus might wake it up again.”
“Torpid?” Uuughh was confused.
“You know what people with low blood sugar are like when they don’t eat? This creature needed to eat right away when it woke up. Since it didn’t, its body crashed.”
“Oohhhh,” Uuughh mused. “Well, we could have given it a sandwich from the picnic food if it hadn’t been so mean. That’s what we do for people who have low blood sugar on Earth.”
William smiled. “It’s a predator, buddy. I don’t think it would have appreciated a peanut butter sandwich.”
In one leap, Uuughh got the two of them out of the crater. In a few more leaps, they were next to the Qwai Gate, ready to go through, Amizara standing there, ready to be the last one after them.
As Uuughh stepped through, returning to Earth, he commented, “Well then, it could have been a ham sandwich. I would have shared.”
Chapter 6
“Number four in the corner pocket,” Mark said, indicating with his pool cue his intended next shot. As he lined up the shot, Jaimie asked him, “Are you and Roxxie really going? You’ve decided to go ask him?”
“Yup.” Mark took the shot. The four ball sank perfectly exactly where it was supposed to with a satisfying clack and clunk from that corner of the pool table, followed by another clack and clunk from the nearby soda vending machine as Trevor collected a can of his favorite caffeinated beverage before returning to the pool game.
The three boys, Mark, Trevor, and Jaimie, were playing pool in the Pocket Protectors HQ lounge while Smerd and Roxxie stood on the raised edge of the table, out of the way of the balls on the green surface a few inches below, watching. Next to Smerd was a half-eaten golden, creme-filled snack cake on a small plate.
Trevor opened his can of soda, took a swig, and looked at one of the posters adorning the walls of the lounge. The poster showed a handsomely posed Convention Man, a Pocket Protector who had quit the team years ago. “What if he says no?”
Mark’s face betrayed the confidence that he tried to project into his voice. Trevor and Jaimie both knew that if Convention Man said no when Mark asked him to come out of retirement, that would break their friend’s heart.
“I don’t think he will. Things are different now than when he left the country. There’s a place for him again.”
“And you’d like your place to be at his side as his sidekick Fanboy.” Jaimie stated.
“Yeah. I’m sure he’ll say yes to that, too.”
“Who’s going with you?” asked Trevor, taking another swig of his soda before putting the can down to take up his own cue stick. Mark’s turn was over. The conversation about his quest to bring Convention Man out of retirement had distracted him, causing him to lose focus on his last shot.
“Roxxie, of course. We need her maps. And, I hope Jaimie’s mom gives him permission.” Mark looked at Smerd with a dissatisfied look on his face.
Smerd opened his tiny mouth to defend himself, in spite of it being covered in creme, but Roxxie placed her front paw/hand over it and spoke instead. “Smerd is my boyfriend. He and I don’t have secrets. He’s also Jaimie’s mom’s official sidekick dragon. You can’t ask us, as a couple, to keep her teenage son going on an interdimensional hiking trip a secret from Jaimie’s mom. He either gets permission, or he doesn’t go.”
“Who else do you think would wanna go?” Trevor asked.
Suddenly, before anyone could answer Trevor’s question, red lights flashed all over, throughout the HQ complex. Bob, the HQ’s AI, said over the PA system, “Alert! Bio-specimen containment breach in Lab A. Alert! Bio-specimen containment breach in Lab A.”
There was a whooshing sound as the lounge door automatically shut, sealing the three boys and two dragons in the lounge until the alert status would be lifted.
“What’s William got in Lab A these days?” asked Smerd.
“I think he was working on tissue taken from that yellow flower thing from the Yellow Fields.”
*******
In Lab A, William Savant and Cameron David looked with concern on their faces at a 5-foot diameter black sphere of shadowstuff created with Cameron’s powers. The sphere was hollow, having been hastily conjured to contain what had moments before been a rapidly expanding yellow mass of biomatter, a sample taken from the Yellow Fields alien creature, that had, in a matter of mere seconds, outgrown and burst its safety containment chamber.
“It seems to respond to your presence and your powers, Cam.”
“Fortunately, for now, my powers also seem to be able to contain it.” Cameron knelt down by the black sphere, concentrating on imbuing it with enough of his power to sustain itself indefinitely without him having to concentrate on it. Such effort drained him significantly, so he rarely made semi-permanent objects from shadowstuff.
“Bob, monitor Knightshade’s shadowstuff containment sphere of the alien material very closely. Contact me immediately if there is any change. Cam, let’s finish the rest of our tests outside.”
William grabbed a field instrument that would enable him to continue testing his teammate outside the lab as he and Cam left. “Bob, end alert situation unless there is another breach of some kind.”
“Understood, William,” came Bob’s pleasant voice.
*******
Soon, the two Pocket Protectors, the shadowstuff wielder and the intellectual savant, emerged from the main entrance to Pocket Protectors HQ, a cave mouth on the side of Mt. Rushmore opposite the presidential faces on the mountain’s other side. The cave mouth was hidden by a hologram.
“I’m not sure what’s happening yet with your powers, Cam. They are growing in strength. That’s easily apparent. I have no idea how that’s connected to stimulating the Yellow Field’s monster tissue, yet.”
“I started feeling stronger there, the last time we were at the Yellow Fields.”
“I’m sure that’s connected.” William looked around. “I wonder where Uuughh is. He’s usually back by now.”
Cameron smiled. “If there’s one guy who can take care of himself, it’s Uuughh.”
*******
Miles away, Melody Dragon finally managed to emerge from an exit of her pocket dimension. As Uuughh’s official sidekick dragon, she usually emerged from Uuughh’s Wanda the Wanderer backpack, however, none of those exits functioned at the moment. Fortunately, it turned out that today Uuughh was wearing pants with pockets.
Emerging from one of those pockets, Melody found herself on Uuugh’s right upper thigh. The purple giant was collapsed unconscious on the forest floor, lying on his back. That explained why all her pocket dimension’s normally used exits were blocked. The Wanda the Wanderer backpack was completely crushed underneath the brawny Pocket Protector. She could see the rise and fall of his chest and hear his breathing, much to her relief.
Then, she heard and saw dark shapes moving through the trees toward her, surrounding her and the unconscious Uuughh from all sides.