| Issue #1 | Issue #2 | Issue #3 | Issue #4 | Issue #5 | Issue #6 | Issue #7 | Issue #8 | Issue #9 |

#7

By Ed Ainsworth

 

5 months ago:

“I honestly don't think I'm going to get this, Dani.” Jaime leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head and letting a long breath out from his nostrils. He looked across the table to the somewhat frustrated looking Dani, who sat amongst fifteen open books, and four very high stacks of paper. She held up another image.

“What is this, Jaime?” She said. He took a moment before answering, he wasn't all that interested in what she was teaching him, per say, enough though Booster had suggested it and he thought it was a great idea. Dani didn't have very good teaching skills, on the Brightside; she was very, very attractive. Her long blonde hair cascaded down her shoulders, perfectly straight, and her features were very pleasing, especially the thick-rimmed glasses she wore currently. Kind of a sexy-teacher chic.

“Jaime? Are you listening?” She was shy and kind of boring though. Apparently, her grand-father had been a Blue Beetle as well, not that you could tell. She'd gone on to a specialized zoology degree, with a masters and doctorate in Entomology, with a special emphasis on beetles.

“Yeah, Yeah.” He put his elbows on the table, and his head in his hands, propping himself up.

“That's a ladybird.” He answered, with boredom in his voice.

“What's special about them?” She questioned

“They're all women?” He answered back, equally questioning his answer.

“Come on, Jaime. We've been over this time and time again.” She ran a hand across her fringe, pushing some of her golden locks from her face, and readjusted her glasses.

“I've got some work to do down in the lab, now that I'm full time here, I can't really waste my days anymore.”

“I wouldn't call it a waste.” A voice came from the background. Michael Carter had just landed, and was removing his Booster Gold mask. He ran a hand through his hair and smiled at Dani, as she walked past him.

“Good lesson?”

“Not really.” She answered, walking past him and towards the lift.

“Aright then.” Michael answered, sitting down at the table and taking a big swig of Jaime's cola.

“Hey!”

“Read the signs, Buddy. Until you're old enough to assume command, the Blue part of Blue and Gold Industries is silent. That means this cola…“

“My Cola.” Jaime interrupted with a deadpan voice

“Correct. It is “My Cola.” No touchy.” He finished the can and looked to his young friend and ward.

“No Luck, Jaime. I have no idea where she could be. I'll keep looking, but I'm sorry.”

Jaime's face which was half a bemused smile dropped, and he turned to look out the window. Where are you Milagro? He mouthed, his sister had been missing for a while now, and it was beginning to take its toll on Jaime. Michael's heart sank.

He'd look again tomorrow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Somewhere over the Atlantic:

“So, you're sure about this right?” Booster said from the back of the bug, his arms crossed in a classic petulant move.

“No, I'm not sure; I just wanted to visit England, didn't I?” Cliff glared at Booster before looking back through one of the large portholes at the front of the ship. Of course he was sure, he had a fist sized insect living in his spinal cord making him know these things if he wanted to or not.

“No need to be sarcastic, Kid.” Michael shot back, turning his attention to outside the bug.

“Yeah, well no need to ask stupid questions, Mike .” Cliff spat back. He didn't have any of the nice, even temperament of his father.

“Damnit! What did I tell you about calling me that, you little…”

“Hey! HEY! Trying to pilot here!” Jaime shouted above the din, turning around to look at the pair sternly, only Jaime could only see Michael. The intricacies of Cliff's powers meant that he was effectively invisible to any Scarab powered creature. Garfield Logan, AKA the Teen Titan's Beast Boy separated the pair, by leaping between them and turning into an Orangutan, pushing his large green arms out.

“We getting close?” Jaime asked, after a little while of silence, cruising over the top of England, just entering the Cornish coastline.

“No, the Scarab say's we've got a way to go yet. We're headed for London, well, a suburb of it apparently. Lewisham?” He questioned. Cliff had never left America; in fact, his travels around America had been with his uncle Dudley, an abusive bastard if there ever was one, with no care for animal life, and disregard for “weak people.” It probably had a bad effect on Cliff's childhood, but he didn't complain.

The silence continued, on their journey. Michael looked out the window and Beast Boy continued to try and strike up conversation with anyone. Cliff shot him down with a series of sarcastic replies, eventually devolving into “Shut up.”

As she began to descend, over the London Borough of Lewisham, Cliff spoke up, feeling a pang at the back of his neck.

“It's not far, like, maybe a hundred meters that way?” He pointed out the aft side of the Bug, and ran over to the window, expecting to see another version of Jaime.

“Whoa.” Cliff said, as Michael's Jaw dropped, and Garfield's voice was choked with excitement.

“Lookit all those birds!” Gar said, putting on a fake southern accent.

Jaime banked the Bug a little, pulling the lever that activated the thrusters underneath, allowing them to hover, and flicking the autopilot switch. As he got to his feet, his armor snapped into place, piercing his skin and clamping down into interlocking plates of blue and black.

“Well…Crap.” Was about all he could manage. Around the house below, were hundreds and hundreds of birds. Flying off the thermals of the city streets below, were Hawks, Sparrow Hawks, Red Kites and all manner of British bird of prey. Underneath, lining the houses three or four blocks either way were thousands of Doves and other birds, Crows, Thrushes, Pigeons, all waiting for something.

“They're not mixing.” Michael observed, pointing to the birds of prey in the sky.

“You're right.” The armor told Jaime that species of the birds, and their statistics in a rolling display down his right eye, his left focusing in on one bird, and pulling out to examine the others.

“This doesn't seem right, does it?”

The side door of the Bug seemingly opened by itself, but after a yell from Garfield, it was confirmed who opened it.

“Damnit, Cliff, don't play with that stuff!”

“I'm not playing. We need to get down there; it's the Scarab's that's doing this.” He spat, over the sounds of the engine. As Booster shot off his feet, and grabbed Cliff forcefully, diving out the side of the craft, Garfield shifted into the form of an Eagle and soared out, leaving Jaime to “lock up” after himself.

The Armor wings snapped into place as he leapt out of the craft, and he pressed the button on his hand-held control pad to close the doors. Banking down towards the others, he muttered under his breath.

“How come I can't control Insects?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Space-B:

Now floating in Space-B between time and space; the Alien D-Skipper floats with the uses of gravity moors in one place. Their experiments are long-winded and complicated, and after spending the last decade buried in the soil at the heart of Africa, the ship requires a number of diagnostic checks and trails.

It is during one of these trials that the second in command, Trano, discovers something on the outer-most hull of the ship.

“We have an unregistered external blister.” He stated, looking from the holographic display at his fingertips. The green light, cast onto his yellow, slender frame made him look even paler and more slender than usual.

“It looks as though it is removing fragments of the hull-piece, and converting it into energy.” Trano stated, after continuing his calculations. His captain turned to him, and got from his seat, placing his slender fingers together.

“This is unheard of.” He spoke, looking over Trano's shoulder at the display before them both.

“And organic being in Space-B that isn't a Sun-eater? Disable it and capture it, Trano. We should investigate such a fascinating specimen.” He crossed his arms behind his back, waiting for Trano's movement. As the aliens long fingers slid across the holographic display, a keyboard wide enough to fit twice as many symbols as any human display system could, Trano turned to his companion and parted his lips.

“Organics disabled.”

“Very good, Trano.” The Captain said, before heading out of the room, quickly followed by Trano to the laboratory.

Hours later with the organic now in their possession, they had it on its back, legs to the air, on their table, where a number of sharp instruments ascended back into the ceiling.

“After much observation and dissection.” Trano began, looking to his superior, beads of sweat on his elongated head, as he removed a long glove.

“It has been discovered that this Arthropod, while mimicking the looks of an organic creature, is in fact a crude mixture of a number of elements.” Taking a long finger of his other hand, he pointed towards three sections on the large, glowing white table.

“As you can see, it is predominantly organic, with a large, if not useless vascular system signified here by the ichors that carried oxygenated haemo-lymphs around the body. This is its brain, where the mystery deepens.”

As he lifts the head of the scarab up Trano points towards the centre. Data displays behind him open to give a cross section.

“Biological membranous folds of a cerebrum interspersed with technological elements, which appear to be grown from organic and non-organic compounds, primarily carbon and silicates. Interesting?”

“Extremely.” His superior answered.

“There is more. It appeared to be powered by an unknown energy, both the organic and technological elements. Upon further inspection, and cross-referencing with data-banks, of data from a hundred and fifty six planets, it was found to be conclusive with a hundred and fifteen of these planets as an energy commonly known as “Magic.”

“How does it use this “Magic” energy? In most cases magicians or other users require gestures and spoken accompaniments.”

“This is the part that confused me as well. If I refer you to figure fifteen, the chemical compounds of the creature's body are actually used to control, regulate and generate this energy by the process of raw materials; including radiation. It appears the creature can process or control the energy of anything it can “eat”, which according to the readings from this animal is anything.”

There was silence for a moment, before the superior officer turned to Trano.

“Trano, would it be possible for us to replicate this chemical fluid and its function and utilize it for ourselves?”

“I cannot see any errors in that, sir.” Trano responded, replacing the head on the table.

“Good. I believe I've found our new beacon of Evolution. We can tap our users directly into the power sources they receive their energy from, with this chemical regulating the users depth and power.”

The superior officer smiled, and walked away from Trano, back towards the front of the ship. They would build the next stage of Animal Men.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Christ.” Holly woke up again, the last thing she remembered was a weird dream, in a sterile environment. She scratched her right arm at the shoulder, and glanced through her shoulder length red hair towards the only visible part of her. Her jaw dropped.

“DAAAAWN!” She yelled. Her sister screamed, sat up in bed and screamed again, because she was not yet fully awake. Holly rushed over to her, and grabbed her by the shoulders, yanking her forwards to look at her back.

“You too!” She exclaimed, as the windows started to get darker. She paid no heed to it, and quickly twisted her waist to try and look at her own back. Against Holly's pale skin, Dawn could see two large bulbous areas of skin on each shoulder-blade. Dawn got to her feet and ran a hand through her white hair. Only it didn't feel like hair to her. She shook her head and glance over to the mirror.

“MY HAIR!” She yelled after a few seconds of observation. Holly snapped her attention around and noticed for the first time that her sister's hair wasn't hair – it was downy feathers.

“What the fuck happened to us?”

Their attention was both diverted as the front door exploded off its hinges, and hit the banisters of the stairs below. Holly rushed out onto the landing a looked over the edge. Four people were below, two men and two women, dressed in weird looking variations of their old costumes.

“Dawn.” Holly whispered, gesturing for her sister to come out onto the landing. Dawn crawled out, glancing down at the woman dressed in black. Though it looked like feathers. As she glanced upwards, the pair shot backwards, Holly holding her sisters arm and squeezing as she knocked the bumps on her shoulders against the wall.

The woman slowly ascended the stairs, her foot falls leaving clumps of carpet pulled up by her feet, which weren't human by any stretch of the imagination, two long toes at the front, and two shorter toes at the back of her foot, almost bird-like. Dawn winced at the sounds she made as she walked up the stairs, excited tweets and whistles, before an excited cawing as she turned and saw Holly's foot.

It wasn't long before that foot got closer to the Crow woman's face, kicking her head into the stairwell wall, and sending her tumbling down into the feet of four strange people, two of which Holly and Dawn recognized.

“Beast Boy! Booster!” Holly yelled, as she charged down the stairs into the arms of Garfield in her short sleeping clothes, her sibling following quickly behind wearing something slightly more modest.

“It's them. All of them.” Cliff said. Holly and Dawn turned around to look at Cliff, which annoyed Jaime. Why could they see Cliff and he couldn't?

“All of us what?” Holly asked, as Booster flicked his wrist upwards against the fists flying towards them. Claws and beaks scraped against the force-field now protecting the group.

“You're Scarabs. You've been caught in the Swarm event, or in some kind of aftermath.” Cliff answered, looking Holly up and down rather obviously. If only Cliff knew that she didn't really mind.

Dawn butted in, and she moved out the way to stand closer to Cliff.

“We're not scarabs we're….Oh.” Dawn paused as realization washed over her; she looked towards Holly and pointed towards her sisters back.

“She has shoulder lumps and my hairs made from feathers. Do you think that has something to do with it?”

“More'n likely.” Jaime said sarcastically, pressing his finger against Holly's shoulder, he wanted to see if he got any readings from the Scarab. The reaction was instantaneous, huge red wings exploded out of her shoulders, not traditional wings, but large feathers that curled in the center, linked together by a membrane of smaller feathers. Claws grew on her fingers, and red feathers spread across her chest, forearms into her hands, and calves into her feet. She winced from the pain, and steadied herself against Cliffs shoulder.

“Looks like ->Nrf<- Hawk and Dove are back, Dawnie.” Holly turned to her sister, who had made a similar transformation, only with blue feathers covering most of her stomach and chest, the rest in white down.

“And the others?” Booster asked, as he dropped the field.

“They're the same, Booster.” Cliff answered, and then the battle was met. Grabbing hold of a descending fist, Holly's hand wrapped around the wrist of the Crow woman, and landed a resounding punch to her face, knocking her off her feet, but not sending her away, as Holly still had hold of her. Pulling her in close, she kneed the black feathered woman in the stomach, and threw her across the living room and into the mantle piece, chipping brick and mortar from the wall and onto her now fallen body.

“I'm really very, very strong.” Holly said, looking at her blood covered fist.

“Nice feathers.” Cliff said, ducking underneath a door opening, as a brown and dark flecked chested man kicked out at him.

Jaime was knocked off his feet as a larger man rushed him, and threw him through the kitchen door, into the brick-floored room. He skidded and splayed his legs out to stop himself from falling over. The Scarab's display over-laid his eyes again, allowing him to focus on “what” these people were. It seemed they were birds common to England. Holly had downed the Crow woman, and Cliff was avoiding punches from a Thrush Man. Left to fight were the Kestrel and the Falcon,.

“They're all bird based, and seem to be PRETTY similar to you girls.” Jaime said, as the scarab shield snapped into place around his wrist, defending him against the Falcon mans claws, as they skimmed the surface of his shield.

Dawn flipped out of the way, as the Thrush man put his fist through the wall, as Beast Boy turned into a Gorilla and upper-cut him through the ceiling. Dawn looked to the green beast and smiled.

“Over kill? Probably.”

“Why aren't they speaking like the girls?” Booster asked, as the Kestrel hit his force field with a chair repeatedly until the wooden furniture collapsed, and she was left looking slightly confused.

“Scarab says they're not in their right minds.” Jaime piped in as he launched a kick into the Falcon mans chest, sending him hurtling back out of the kitchen and into an elbow from Holly, knocking him onto the floor.

“Oh, we're doing that are we?” Booster said as a moment of sarcastic realization, shooting a burst of laser energy into the Kestrel's head, burning the feathers off, and dropping her where she was.

He looked to the others, as Jaime scooped his assailant up.

“So…What do we do now?” Booster asked.

“Clean up?” Dawn suggested.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With the house clean, and the group stood outside, Holly and Dawn had reverted to their original human forms, except for the feather hair and shoulder lumps.

“Hey.” Holly said to Cliff, as they all said their goodbyes.

“You let me know what you find, okay?” She handed him a piece of paper with her telephone number on it, and Cliff took it with a smile.

“I'll call you as soon as we know something.” He said, with uncharacteristic politeness.

Dawn stood before Jaime, and offered him a hand. He took it and gave it a firm shake.

“They won't be hurt, we promise. I've got a lab back at home, well, Booster has a lab, and we can get the experts looking into this – We'll find out what happened and let you know if we can cure it, or at least make it…a little easier for you.” He smiled, and Dawn gave him a short hug.

“Thank you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the girls entered their house, they found two very tall, yellow skinned aliens waiting inside for them. Dawn grabbed hold of Holly's hand tightly, Holly instantly recognized them.

“You! You did this to us, didn't you?” She balled her fist up, and raised to it waist height, her sister now trying to pull her back by clamping another hand over her sisters.

“Holly..”

“No, Dawn. I've had enough to this. HAWK!”

Normally, when in danger, the pair found calling their hero name would transform them. That was always the deal with the lords of chaos and order, but now, now Holly assumed her powers would be similar to before – the only downfall to her powers was that they only activated in times when they would need their powers. This situation was not one of those times, and whether it was through manipulation of the aliens, or the fact they meant no harm, Holly's powers didn't activate.

“Damnit.” She spat at them.

“Holly and Dawn Granger. I am Trano – We have a proposition for you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He sat in silence, waiting for his mark. Not so much his mark, in fact, as his business colleague. She was going to make him a proposition, his research and ideas for her money, and depending on how it went, maybe more.

Baron Bug adjusted the metallic band that sat about his ears. It wasn't particularly attractive, and given he had no hair anymore, it wasn't exactly well hidden, but it allowed him to sense who was nearby, and for a super-villain, that was a handy trick.

She walked from the shadows, sultry, seductive, and beautiful. Her body slinked, and her clothes seemed to slide over the soft flesh and around again. Beautiful auburn hair marked her face, and the only thing that seemed out of the ordinary, was the row of reflective scales than ran down either side of her neck.

She smiled and out-stretched her hand. The Baron took it, and planted a kiss on the top of her limb, before casting a glance to her face. Pointed teeth – Fangs.

“Baron Bug, I am Whysper A'Daire. I come with an offer...”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next Issue: GOLDSTAR!