BEN
We were in R&D and I felt like showing off my newest creation.
"Everyone," I said, attempting to get their attention, "behold my latest creation - the Amulet of the Mind's Eye. This little trinket basically allows you to see what the eye cannot."
"What does that even mean?" Derek asked.
"Well...if Casey becomes invisible, for example, I could see him."
"Oh...so it's heat vision."
I was a tad annoyed. "No, it is not heat vision. It can also see things that are hidden to the untrained or naked eye."
"So," Casey said, "it's also like a pair of glasses or a telescope?"
"No, it can do more than that too. You can use it to see in complete blackness or whiteness with no problem."
"Oh," Tim said, "so it has day and night vision too..."
No," I said, getting even more annoyed. "It would also be able to see an invisible barrier that Derek puts up and other things that might fool the optic nerves."
Ojash smirked. "So basically it is a telescoping lens that can do night, day, and heat vision and is just a better optic nerve?"
I grabbed a sword from the table next to me and threw it at Ojash, who barely moved out of the way in time. "No Ojash, it is more than that. But if none of you can appreciate it, I guess I'll just keep it with me." I put it in my pocket and began to walk off. I heard Casey mutter "touchy," and the others chuckled. I smiled to myself and snapped. An explosion in the middle of the group shot them to the sides of the room.
Childish?
Yes.
Potentially damaging?
Yes.
Really stupid?
Yes.
Worth it?
Every time.
* * *
BEN
We had had our powers for a month or so now. We were all pretty good with them (excluding one or two people) and most of us seemed to enjoy having powers. A handful of us, like Ashton, would rather be rid of our powers, but that was by far the minority. While I wasn't so sure I liked having powers, I have to admit that I did enjoy the company of Sethos and Jenny, and I also enjoyed the fun that could result from everyday situations when robots and superpowers are involved.
That all changed rather quickly on a day that forever changed how I looked at superpowers and how I looked at my duty. It was the day I woke up without powers.

I woke up from a fairly pleasant dream and rolled out of bed. I noticed it immediately. There was no power coursing through me that desperately needed an outlet. I was rather shocked by this. For a moment, I thought I was imagining it, but that was not the case. Perhaps...perhaps the entire past month had just been a dream and I was now waking from it...

Not a chance Ben.
Sethos? You're still here? This is really weird...
You're telling me.
What is going on?
I don't know. The portal protectors should not be able to lose their powers all of a sudden, and if that happened then surely I would have disappeared as well.
True, true. So what do you think happened?
Someone or something has to have caused this, and I would guess it is someone on the side opposite the Sptoeretlael.
What do you mean, opposite the Sptoeretlael? What does that make you? What does that make me?
I am neither opposite the Sptoeretlael nor with it. We both are on the side of stopping evil, which may or may not be the Sptoeretlael's intent. At least, I believe that is the side you are on, and I reside in your mind to help you when you need it.
I am a tad confused now...but let's save this for another time. Maybe it's just me.

I showered and got dressed and then headed down to breakfast. I saw Tyler there and was about to ask him about his powers, but I realized it wouldn't actually work. Tyler's powers relied on those of others, and I was the only other around. Thus, asking him if he could use his powers would be rather useless...but I decided to tell him about the disappearance of mine anyway.

"You're joking, right?"
"I wish I was...but no, I am not."
"Hmm...maybe it is just you...or maybe this was all some sort of dream..."
"No, I am quite sure it wasn't."
"Ah...hmm, quite the conundrum."
Derek walked in and I got an idea. I got up and grabbed an apple. After he had put his plate down, I shouted to him "Derek, think fast," and I chucked the apple at him. He made the movement he would to put up a protective barrier that the apple would just bounce off of, but nothing happened. The apple continued through where the barrier would have been and smacked him in the face.

"What the heck was that for [interrobang]" he shouted at me.
"Derek, I was proving a point."
"No, you were being an ass. Why did you throw an apple at me?"
"You're missing the point Derek."
"I don't care if I missing the point. Why did I get hit in the face with an apple."
I smirked. "Because you didn't block it dummy."
"But I did...wait...I did block it. So why wasn't it blocked?"
I turned to Tyler. "Nope, it's not just me." I looked back at Derek. "I woke up and noticed my powers were gone. Since Tyler's powers rely on those of another, I needed to see if it was just me or not."
"Hmm...but maybe this past month was just a dream..."
"No, it wasn't."
"And how do you know that?"
"Yeah," Tyler said, "I was wondering that too. How do you know that it is not just a dream?"

I thought about it for a second. I really didn't want to tell them I was hearing voices, but I didn't have any other thing to go on. I knew that I couldn't just make up something either, for nothing would really sound believable.
"Let's just call it an unexplainable hunch, shall we?"
"No Ben, we shall not." Derek seemed a tad livid. "Look, you have been acting weird since before we even got these powers. I don't know what is up, but you can tell us. I want to know why you don't think it was a dream. I know it isn't just a hunch."
"Derek, no. It is an unexplainable hunch. Believe that to mean whatever you wish it to, for it is the truth."
I think he decided to let it go, which was for the best.
* * *
Throughout the course of the day, I was confronted by almost everyone, asking me why their powers were gone. I told them all that I didn't know, but that the last month certainly did happen. However, the person I was most concerned about was the one person who didn't come to me. After classes I knocked on his door and heard him say enter. I went in and saw him sitting at his desk, looking like a completely normal person.
"How are you feeling Murray?"
"Ben...I'm a robot no more. I don't quite know how to feel. I got so used to being one that it seems so different now..."
"Don't worry Murray, you'll be fine. Everyone has lost their powers, but we can figure out how. You may have lost your powers, but you are still Murray, and nothing I know of can stop you, whether you are a robot or not." He looked up and smiled at me.
"Damn straight. Now let's get going."
"Where to?"
"Let's check Sptoeretlael first."
"Sounds like a plan."

We headed to the pub and it was pretty deserted when we got there, which was odd for a Friday afternoon. However, it did mean that we didn't have to be secretive. We went over to the hieroglyphic and I touched it, saying Sptoeretlael as I did, and we shot downward into the ruins that contained the ancient portal. As soon as we did, we noticed another person was there - Meghan Raebel. She noticed us as we came down.
"Great minds think alike, I guess," she said.
"Indeed they do," I responded. "Have you found anything weird?"
"Nope...everything looks just like when we last left it. It really makes me wonder what is going on."
"Well," Murray said, "the fact that the hieroglyphic worked and the Sptoeretlael is still here suggest that at least it was not a dream."
"Yeah...which is what I have been telling people all day."
"And for good reason," Meghan responded. "I certainly would not believe that this was had all been a dream."
I paused for a moment, thinking about what to do next. "We could head into the portal, making sure it works and heading to R&D at the same time. Maybe something there can shed light onto the situation."
"I don't think anything in R&D can help us here..." Murray responded, "And it looks obvious that the portal works."
"Guys, my pocket is vibrating." They looked at me funny until they saw me take my phone out. I looked and flipped it open. "Hello Tim. I am amazed I get reception down here. Anyway, what's up?"
"Ben...you need to get over to West and you need to get here now."
"Be there ASAP." I hung up. "Well guys...something went down at West, and we should probably go and see what."
"Sounds like a good idea," Meghan said. We took the hieroglyphic up and ran out of the Pub toward West.

I was a tad shocked when we got there. Very few people were outside, and I recognized them all. Tim, Derek, Tyler, JoHanna, Ashton and Lori were all standing around someone lying on the ground. When I got there, they parted and I looked and saw that it was Casey who was down. He looked to be in pain and he was bleeding from what looked to be a large stab wound in his belly.
"We have to get him to the nurse or the hospital."
"An ambulance is already on its way," JoHanna told me.
"What happened?"
"It was this figure dressed entirely in black," Ashton said. "I think he was some sort of ninja. We were leaving the building and he dropped from the sky in front of us. Casey asked him what he was doing, and he pulled out some sort of sword and stabbed Casey, who fell to the ground. He then jumped and was gone."
"We got outside shortly after this," Derek said. "Tim figured we should call you. We agreed that you should know."
"Yeah...but what can we do?" I was at a loss. I didn't know what was going on and I didn't like that. However, I skipped that thought and went to another as the ambulance arrived. JoHanna went with Casey and they sailed off into the distance.

"Ninjas don't just drop from the sky for no reason," I said as we began walking back toward the dorms. "He came here to do something...and I doubt just stabbing someone and running off was it."
"Well," Meghan said, "maybe somebody found out that our powers were gone and wanted to see if it was true."
"But if they did," Derek said, "why Casey?"
"Think about it," Murray said. "Casey's power cannot harm anyone, so if our powers weren't gone, there would be no harm in attacking him. If they had attacked Ben or Tim, a fight could have ensued if they were wrong."
"True," I said, "but I'm not sure if I like that theory. I don't think that, if they found out our powers were gone, they would just disappear with only stabbing one of us. I think...my pocket is vibrating."

"I think my pocket is vibrating?" Derek said mockingly as I grabbed my phone. I looked and saw that it said Rachel.
"Bonjour mademoiselle. What's up?"
"Becky, Ashley and I were just attacked by a ninja-like guy and I think Becky is hurt really badly."
"Where are you guys?"
"Behind Tri."
"Alright, be there ASAP." I hung up and turned to the group. "Well, it looks like I was right. Becky, Ashley and Rachel just saw him behind Tri and Becky may be injured too. Let's go"
"Goodness," Tim said, "I hope the hospital doesn't think anything fishy is going on..."
"Don't worry Tim," I said. "With what my sister has said about the hospital, I don't think that will be a problem."

We got to the back of Tri and found Becky on the ground with a very similar stab wound and Rachel and Ashley standing to the side. They came up to us when they saw us.
"So you say a ninja dropped out of the sky, stabbed her, and left?"
"Yeah," Rachel said, "but I only told you that a ninja appeared and attacked. How did you know the rest?"
"The same thing happened to Casey as he and I were leaving West," Ashton said. "Casey is headed to the hospital."
Another ambulance pulled up and Becky was taken to the hospital as well.
"Okay, so two attacks by some ninja on the same day that we all lose our powers," I said. "Anybody else think that there is something odd and uncanny about this?"
"No Ben," Derek said, "we all think it is perfectly natural to find a random ninja attacking two people in one day."
"My pocket is vibrating. I'm guessing there's been another attack." I looked at my phone and saw that it was Fabrizzio. I opened my phone and said "Let me guess...a random ninja appeared and stabbed someone nearby?"
"Close...he stabbed Eric and then slashed Paul when he tried to stop him...and then he stabbed Honey when she latched on to him to try to prevent him from escaping."
"My goodness...ok, where are you guys?"
"In the lounge here on 2E."
"Okay, we'll be there ASAP." I hung up.
"So Ben," Tim said, "has another person been stabbed?"
"No," I responded, "another three have."

Outside of Scott, we heard a scream. We ran over to see what it was, and Kathryn was on the ground, having been stabbed as well. Ojash, Daniel and Reilly were around her.
"Let me guess...ninja?"
"Yeah," Daniel said. "He appeared from nowhere it seemed. Wait...how did you know?"
"Long story. Did you call an ambulance?"
"Yeah."
"Reilly, go with Kathryn. You two, follow us."
We headed in and got to the 2E lounge in time to see the three being carried away. Fabrizzio and Michael were chatting on the couch and Hiro was following the EMTs.
We walked up to the two of them.
"What happened?" I asked.
"He came in," Michael began, "through the window over there, pulled out a katana and stabbed Eric. Paul then shouted at him, and in response he slashed at him. Honey began weeping and tried to grab the ninja's legs, but he stabbed her when he couldn't shake her off."
Ben," Fabrizzio said, "we need our powers back, and we need them now."
"No."
"What?"

"The most important thing now is to defend ourselves. This is the sixth person. We cannot let this continue. We need to find my sister, my PC, Kyle and Charles and then move to R&D to get some weapons to defend ourselves. Then we can worry about powers. But right now, we can't stay in the past just because our powers are there. Okay?"
"Fine. Charles is in our room, and I think Kyle left just before the ninja came in."
"Okay. Tim and Tyler can get Kyle, but be careful. If he shows up, run. I'll find my sister and Jordan."
"Alone?" Derek asked.
"No, of course not. Who wants to come with?" No one volunteered. "Okay, maybe alone it is then."
"I'll come with," Murray said. "I have a thought I wish to share with you anyway."
"I guess I'll go too," Meghan said.
"Okay. Just let me grab something from my room and then we can head off." I darted into my room, found what I needed, and then darted back. "Let's head out to find my sister and my PC."

We set out from Scott and headed for the Pub. Murray shared with me his thought.
"Ben...what if this ninja is the one who took away our powers?"
"I was thinking that...but again, we should not worry about that at the moment. We need to focus on defending ourselves against him, and not necessarily what he or someone else may have taken from us."
"I have to agree," Meghan said. "Both of you have good points, but defense is much more of a concern at the moment."
I decided to call my sister but, as per the usual, she didn't pick up. Luckily, she was in the pub when we entered.
"Hi Meg," I said. "Do you have your phone on you?"
"It's in my room, and it's probably off. Why?"
"Oh, nothing. Anyway...there has been a ninja attacking members of our little group and we are trying to defend ourselves...but it isn't working too well."
"Hmm...if it weren't for the fact that I know you wouldn't joke about this, I would think you are joking. Who isn't accounted for?"
"Currently just you and Jordan."
"Hmm...Jordan was just here a minute ago...I think he was just checking his mail."
"That's good. We can grab him and then head back to the others."
"Ben," Murray said, "Why don't the other's head here? We can all go into the portal together then."
"Because that wouldn't make it very exciting. A large group crossing over from one building to another is far less incident prone than a small group."
"Hey, you're getting awfully close to breaking the fourth wall..."
"I know, I'm kidding. But no, it would be too difficult for them. Besides, we don't know where Kyle is either..."
"True. Continue then."

Jordan walked back over from the mail center. "Hey Ben, I've heard that a random ninja has been attacking people here on campus. Is that true?"
"Yes. It is also why we are here. Okay, now that everyone is accounted for, we need to head back to the group."
"Isn't it a little dangerous?"
"Naw, it shouldn't be. Besides, if we see him we can just run." I opened the door and walked outside, only to stop immediately. The others followed me and stopped just like I did.

Standing a bit away, facing us, was a man clad in all black. He had a black mask over his face and even a black headband, the ends of which blew in the wind. He also had a black sword sheath on his back.
"Perhaps we should turn around," I said.
"Hmph," scoffed the ninja. "And the plot thickens."
Murray froze in his tracks. I shot him a look. "Ignore it Murray. He's only trying to anger you, trying to get you to fight him. Just ignore him."
"So says the author," the ninja said. Murray bolted at him.
"Don't break the fourth wall!"
The ninja unsheathed his katana and, in one fluid motion, stabbed Murray. However, this didn't slow Murray down one bit. He slammed into the ninja, causing him to fall. The ninja got back up, shoved Murray away, and slashed at him, causing a gaping wound to appear upon Murray's chest, from which blood spurted. The two Megs looked away as Murray fell. We all ran to him.

"Murray...don't worry," I told him. "You will get through this. I will see to it."
"Ben..." he stuttered. "Don't let him...break the fourth wall...again."
"I won't." Murray passed out. I stood up and glared at the ninja. I took a step toward him and then addressed my team.
"Meg, miss Raebel, Jordan - get Murray to a safe place NOW. Not the hospital though, somewhere closer. I'll hold this guy off."
"Ben, no. Mom and Dad would be rather angry with me if I let you face a ninja by yourself."
I turned and looked at my sister. "Mom and Dad are not here and I've got an idea anyway. Besides, I'm not alone." I reached down to my pant's belt loop and pulled out the rod from my vacuum cleaner. "I have the Ojash-beating-stick to help me." My sister chuckled a bit. "Now please go and help Murray by taking him somewhere safer."
They nodded, though reluctantly, and carried Murray off.

"You have greatly annoyed me you ninja freak."
"I am not a freak," he said in a low but not deep voice. It had a tone of respect to it, but had violent undertones. "I am an assassin, sent to incapacitate you and your team Mr. Ranes. I wish only to stop your team...however, he did not wish to stop, so I stopped him with a wound that may end him. I apologize, but it had to be done."
"It had to be done? What kind of an assassin are you? You aren't killing us, you're...you're only trying to stop us. I get it..."
"Yes...but I am afraid you will not be able to tell your friends. You will not make it to them."
"No, I probably won't. But I don't care. You hurt my friends. Now I get to hurt you."
I swung at him with the OBS, and he raised his katana for a guard. I thing he was surprised that the OBS didn't just get sliced by the katana.
"Reinforced casing. Comes in very handy when one doesn't have any real weapons around..."
"I suppose it would..." I pulled back the OBS and he swung quickly with his katana. I met it in midair with the OBS then pulled back and swung at his side, and connected. However, he pulled away from the blow and swung at me whilst I had no defense, so I jumped back to avoid it. His slash caught my shirt and ripped it, but I was fine. He then began stabbing at me, to which I had no defense. I backed up and dodged his stabs, but I could feel myself being worked into a corner. I knew what was behind me - the door to the Pub. And I wouldn't be able to open it. This was not going to end well.

BEN
On a bored whim one evening, I entered Daniel's room hoping that he could entertain me with computer gaming exploits. However, upon entry, I noticed he was not at his computer, but rather Kathryn was. Instead, Daniel was sitting on his bed.
"Hey Ben."
"Hey Daniel. How are you this evening?"
"To tell the truth, I would be much better if Kathryn would stop playing She-Wolf."
"Oh, what a perfect world that would be," I replied. Kathryn turned around and shot us a look.
"Would you rather I play another Shakira song?"
"Goodness no!" was my response, but Daniel's was more sympathetic.
"Sure Kathryn, you definitely can...on your own computer. Not on mine."
Kathryn snarled at us (quite literally) and growled, "But I want to listen to Shakira now!"
"Hey," Daniel said, as if talking to a dog, "there will be no snarling or growling in my room, and definitely no transforming into a she-wolf either. Okay?" She seemed to pout. "And Ben, honestly, what kind of author would give her that power?"
"Well..." I began to speak, but I stopped when a weird buzzing was emitted from the wall between Daniel and Ojash's room and Murray and Ben K.'s room. Wait...Murray's room?
Upon that realization, there was a loud thud, and about two seconds after, Murray came crashing through the wall with a death glare in his eyes.
"NO BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL!" He picked me up and tossed me at Daniel, who I collided into and we smashed into the wall. I got up and Daniel did shortly afterwards.
"Look what you did to my room!" Daniel shouted at Murray. "Murray, you better clean this up."
"Not my problem," he said, climbing back through the hole he had created.
"Daniel," I said, turning to him, "I think you need to call the Plant Department."

* * *
TYLER
After retiring to my room one Tuesday night, there was a knock on my door. I said "enter," and the door opened, allowing Ben and Murray in.
"Do you have a minute?" Ben asked.
"Twenty minutes before my bedtime, so yes."
"Okay...we need to talk about Ashton."
"Really? Why?"
Murray spoke up. "Remember how I said that she does not seem to have powers?"
"Yes..."
"I may have been wrong."
"What do you mean...?"

Ben cut in this time. "It appears that Ashton did, in fact, have powers, but they were so minimal that they were escaping Murray's sensors."
"Okay...but how can he sense them now?"
"Her powers are growing...exponentially. And she claims she doesn't know about it."
"Which," Murray said, "is a large problem if her powers are what I think they are."
"And what might her powers be?"
"Something related to death, but that is all I can tell."

Death. That's not good. But still, why did they come to me?
"In case you are wondering," Ben said, "we came to you asking you to do the same thing I'm asking you to do for me. Don't try to access her powers. I don't even know if you could, but if you can, don't try. Death can be deadly, after all."
"Oh, indeed."
"Anyway...that's about it. Any particular thoughts?"
I had a few, but none that I was going to share, so I said no and the two then left. I decided to go to sleep a bit early that night and lay down in bed then.

I woke up at my regular my regular time of 5:30, showered, had my "quiet time," then went to breakfast. I met Ben and Derek there and we discussed random things that didn't actually matter. Or at least we were until something odd happened. A small little soldier ran through the commons. Of course, no one else saw this little soldier (granted, all ten or so of us wasn't the entire campus) but us three, but that was beside the point. Little tiny soldiers don't just run through the commons, imaginary or otherwise, especially ones that only we could see.
This worried us.
However, the little tiny soldier didn't seem to be causing any trouble, so we didn't worry about it. If others could see it then we might worry, but it wasn't causing a problem and Ben felt that we should just ignore it for the moment (as he put it, "Doing something about it would cause more attention that it is causing by itself.") The mini-soldier left just before we did, and we headed back to Scott to grab our books for class.
It wasn't until we were leaving Scott again that we noticed the problem. It wasn't just one soldier; it was many - and we were still the only ones who could see them. Again though, it seemed that they were not causing any harm, but we couldn't quite tell what they were doing. It was almost as if they were searching for something...
The Sptoeretlael. That is what they must have been looking for. I turned to Ben to tell him this, but he was already on top of things. He had "The Hero's Guide to Superpowers, Ancient Portals and Ultimate Evil" out and turned to us to read a passage.

BEN
"According to the guide," I told Derek, Tyler and Tim (who had joined us in leaving despite not joining us for breakfast), "as the protectors of the Sptoeretlael, we have the ability to see other-worldly things that could pose a threat to the Sptoeretlael but won't actually harm any other matter from our world. In other words," I said, closing the guide and putting it back in my pocket, "Sptoeretlael allows us to see them in order to protect it from them."
"And," Tim said, "I guess that means those who don't have the need to protect the portal don't have the need to see these mini-soldiers."
"Sounds about right."
"You know," Tyler said, "let's not worry about this until they find it. After all, we can't fight them in broad daylight anyway."
"Indeed. Let's just get to class."
* * *
That night, Tyler, Tim, Derek and I were telling JoHanna, Rachel, Ashley, Ojash, Daniel, and Eric about the little soldiers. We were all outside the Pub and I was finishing the telling of the story. The soldiers were still around, but it was a small number and they still were not causing any trouble.
"We figure that they were looking for the Sptoeretlael but they just didn't know where it was."
Reilly and Honey walked by at that moment. "The Sptoeretlael? Isn't that the thing underneath the pub?" Honey said.
All of the soldiers around looked up. They began marching toward us.
"Yes Honey, that is exactly what I meant. Thank you for informing the enemy."
"Don't yell at her," Reilly said.
"Alright, here is the plan," I said, ignoring Reilly. "Now that they know they will be heading toward the Pub. After taking out the ones in close proximity, we need to spread out and get them from where they are coming. There appears to be three factions of troops and there are twelve of us. Three groups of four. Who wants to lead?"
"I'll lead," Tyler volunteered. "So will Derek."
"What? No I won't."
"Tyler and Derek it is," I said, ignoring Derek's protests. "Anyone else?"
No one responded.
"Okay, I guess I will lead the other group then. Derek, who do you want in your group?"
"I don't want a group...but I suppose I can take Ojash and Daniel."
"Okay, take Honey too. Tyler, any particulars?"
"I think that I would do best with JoHanna, Rachel and master Timothy under my command."
"So be it. That leaves me with Eric, Ashley," I paused, sighing, "and Reilly. Fun."
"What," Reilly said, looking at me. "Do I offend?"
"Oh, never." Jenny chuckled at the sarcasm.

"Anyway," I continued, "they are coming from three directions. Tyler and his group should head over between Farr and Todd Wehr, Derek should take his group and defend the area around the commons, and my group will head over to the quads and defend those coming from lower campus. Sound good to you guys?"
"Yeah," Derek said, "because that means I don't have to go far. Come on team, let's go." Derek and his group headed over toward the commons. I looked at Tyler and shrugged, then snapped and launched a huge chunk of land with an explosion. Me and my team launched up and the debris knocked half of the soldiers around too. Another snap and we were headed toward the quads.

We landed in the sand volley-ball court. I landed on my feet, as did Reilly. Ashley and Eric did not. However, recovery time was minimal, for we got there just in time. A large amount of mini-soldiers were climbing the hill. I shot off a large explosion to knock a bunch back and Eric charged in, his poison veins pumping. As soon as he hit one of the mini soldiers, it fell, crippled by poison. Reilly flew through a bunch, ignoring her size changing power to fly through them at high speed. Ashley looked at me. "I have no weapon. I have nothing to charge."
"Who says you need a weapon to charge?" I grabbed some sand and handed it to her. "Try this." She grabbed some and tried charging it, then blew it out of her hand. A cloud of charged sand floated toward a group and when it hit them it dropped. They started making loud noises (some equivalent of shouting, I assume), and fell over with little burned pock marks on their skin. "Heat charged sand. Nice."
"I know."

I felt a twinge in my stomach. I didn't know what it was, but I knew something was wrong. "Ashley...you watch things here. I'll be right back."
I think she began to complain, but I shot myself off, headed toward where I just who knows where. As soon as I did, I felt another twang, one that I knew where it came from. I changed direction, now heading toward where Tyler was. Freaking idiot.

TYLER
Ben's explosion shot him and his group in the direction of lower campus, but we had bigger problems. The soldiers began multiplying themselves again. JoHanna responded by doing the same and taking some wide swings (as did Rachel) but it wasn't working as well as them may have hoped. More just kept appearing and it seemed like nothing we did could stop them. However JoHanna and Rachel were creating a small hole and Tim could escape with them through it. As for me...well, I just shouted for my group to go on without me and they did. This had become a regular occurrence now and I think they were used to leaving me behind. They knew I'd catch up. I think they headed toward Farr, but at the moment I had more important things to worry about, like the tiny regiment that was about to attack me. I went through the powers I had recently seen but none would do any good...except...no, I couldn't. But I had to.
I realize that Ben told me not to use his powers. In fact, he did so multiple times. However, I don't think he counted on exigent circumstances such as these, and I was getting pretty good with the other powers too...so I figured there would be no harm...
As soon as I tapped into his powers, I could feel the influx of energy almost immediately. It was exhilarating, but frightening. So much power...but there was a problem. It wanted an outlet...and I didn't know how to provide it with one. I snapped...but nothing happened. I was incredulous for a moment. Wasn't that how Ben accessed his powers?
Uh-oh...it's really building up now...
This could be very problematic.

My mind blanked for a second, and then it returned. When it did, I was in a flashback of sorts, except I was sure I had never lived through these happenings.
We were in a large, bright room. There was plenty of light and it seemed to be trapped inside the room. The walls seemed reflective, and they were a beautiful bleached silver color.
I tried to look around, but I was frozen in place. I could move my eyes, but that was it. From what I saw, there were other people in the room near me, and they were frozen too. Ahead of me there were three figures. One was a large mass of who-knows-what. It looked like a human clothed in the most ridiculous of garb, but it was frozen too. There was another lone figure a bit back. He was sitting in a chair, and appeared to be wearing golden robes. Between the two of them was a person I did recognize, who was dressed in his usual attire. Looking at the lone figure sitting in golden robes, Ben seemed a tad annoyed. The other figure talked in a rich but monotone voice.
"Five people may go on this journey. No more, no less."
"I take it I count?"
"Yes."
"Do you count?"
"I will be there for the beginning, the end, and maybe a few parts in between. But no, I do not count on this tally. Now who do you wish to bring with?"
Ben paused, thinking. "Is there a possibility that I can bring Sethos along for this journey?"
"If you wish, I can return him to your mind where he would not count as an extra person. However, I cannot do that with the girl." I did not understand a word of what the figure said, but Ben nodded.
"Well then, I'll take Tyler for one." As Ben said this, I found myself immediately unfrozen. I fell to the ground (apparently I was in midair) and I got up and began walking toward them.

My mind blanked again, and when it returned I was in the same position I was before. I was filled with energy and I had no outlet.
"Tyler!" I heard Ben shout. It seemed like he fell from the sky, and he landed in front of me. He was facing me and there was fury in his eyes. "I'd like to show you something."
He was staring me in the eyes, but his hands were at his sides, balled up in fists. However, his scowl turned into a smirk as explosions erupted behind him, obliterating the miniature army that had pinned me into a corner.
"Tyler," he said to me, "this is why I said not to use my power. It doesn't create explosions on a snap. Rather, it puts a massive amount of energy inside my body to which the only outlet is an explosion. I can create them with my mind, but it is much more dangerous that way, so I fixed it to an action.
"Now you try." I paused for a moment, concentrating on setting the energy release to the action of snapping. I then tried to focus on the size of the explosion. I think Ben sensed this.
"Don't focus so much on size. Instead, try to focus on control and placement. If you are focused on control, your mind will release perfectly usable size."
I did what he directed and snapped to shoot off an explosion - and it worked. I was kinda surprised, so I tried it again, and it worked again.
"I only think of size for really big or little explosions, or for explosions that need to be immensely specific. Control and placement are really the most important aspects, ok?"
"Yeah, I think I got it."
"Good. Now you need to rejoin with your group and I need to rejoin with mine. Well...I should but I actually need to do something else." With that he jumped and snapped and an explosion at his feet propelled him through the air back to where he had appeared from. I followed the direction my team had gone in, which was toward Farr Hall.
When I reached them, they had already found a large group of soldiers. JoHanna and multiple copies of herself were heading toward one section of them while Rachel's fists were glowing and busy smashing into another group and Tim was whipping around a third group. However, a large bunch of the mini-soldiers had somehow made their way on top of Farr and were about to jump on Tim. Rather that warn him, I decided to take action. I did precisely what Ben had told me and snapped, causing an explosion behind the soldiers that launched them forward and off the roof. I snapped again and tried Ben's locomotion-explosion technique, which worked amazingly enough, and charged my fists as I launched myself at them. I knocked most of them out of the air and then shot a chain around a nearby light post so I could swing around and come back.
At least that would be what I tried to do. However, the chain was not prepared for that kind of tension, and it broke and I fell on my behind. I heard Tim chuckle, but a group of soldiers came behind me and cut me off from them, again.
I snapped to make another explosion, but nothing happened. I guess it had been too long since seeing Ben's powers. This could be bad.

BEN
I still had that first twang. But I now knew what it probably was. I headed to the Pub. There normally would be no one in here at this hour, but the lights were still on. I still didn't know what the twang was, but I knew what it was as soon as I got inside. Ashton was sitting there by herself, looking awfully nervous. I approached and she stood up and backed away. "You should really stay away," she said. "I think that coming near me would be really bad."
"And why is that mademoiselle?"
"Because...there is this dark energy that is coursing through my veins. I can feel it just wanting an outlet...needing an outlet...but I know it will not stop until it kills something."
"But if you don't let it out, it will explode and kill you and everyone around."
"Wait...what?"
"Trust me on this, for I have a similar power. However, yours appears to be deadly energy, whereas mine is just an immense excess of power coursing inside of me."
"But are you sure that my power could self-destruct like that?"
"Yes, I am completely sure."
"I think they may be too dissimilar to tell too...perhaps I should just keep it inside."
"If you wish, though I would not advise it. I know a way you can freely release your power when you feel the need. I shall stay here with you and I will call stuff here that you can gladly release your powers upon."

I got out my phone and dialed Ashley's number. Thankfully she picked up. "Hey Ashley. "Listen...you guys should head over to the Pub. We can make a stand and I kind of can't leave."
"That's okay. We're losing a lot of ground anyway."
"Really? Why?"
"It's no longer a bunch of regiments of mini-soldiers...it's now a small handful of really large soldiers."
"Ah...fun."
"Indeed."

DEREK
I got the easiest spot of all. Not only was it the shortest distance away, but there weren't even any soldiers there when we got them, and it didn't appear that they were even headed our way. Boy did we get lucky.
However, I definitely did not get the pick of the litter. Ojash was messing around with his powers and scaring Honey, causing her to shoot off flares. It seemed like Daniel was the only sane one, and he was a gun toting Texan who seemed to be waiting for something to shoot at. I had a great team here...

After a good five minutes of nothing happening, some soldiers finally came by. Daniel started picking them off with some gun that I couldn't even begin to describe. I shot a barrier or two at the ones that got past him, and Ojash made them see walls that bottlenecked them to head down a single path, making it easier to pick them off. However, the moment one of them accidentally touched a wall, the charade was over. They knew that Ojash wasn't actually making any real things, and he was then useless. However, Honey had calmed down enough to be able to control her temper, and thus her power. She shot off a handful of flare to knock back the soldiers and we seemed to be doing a pretty good job.

Then my phone rang and things got bad. I answered it and was greeted by Ben.
"Hey Ben."
"Hey Derek. Listen...you should fall back to the Pub."
"Why? We aren't having any problems here."
"Wait...you mean the mini-soldiers you're fighting aren't fusing and becoming maxi-soldiers?"
"No, they aren't." I looked up from the conversation in time to see that, contrary to what I had told Ben, they actually were. Daniel was switching his arm to some kind of sniper rifle and Honey was trying to give him cover, but one of them reached out its enormous arm and smacked them away. They thumped against the Pub wall, and the gigantic soldier started toward Ojash and I. "Okay, heading to the Pub sounds like a good plan. Be there in less than a minute." I hung up and began running, as did Ojash, but the maxi-soldiers were gaining. Ojash created copies of us to confuse them, and we helped Honey and Daniel up and went in.

Waiting for us were Ben and Ashton. "Hi guys. Having fun with the gigantic soldiers?"
"Of course we are," Daniel said. "I just love fighting things that smack me into walls."
"Hey," Ben said, "I want none of your Texan sass." He then went outside and we heard a huge explosion. He came back in a few seconds later. "There, they're gone now. Happy?"
"No."
"Well too bad."
Reilly flew in a moment later. "Hey Ben, thanks for ditching us."
"Reilly, kindly shut up." He walked out the door she came in, and there was another huge explosion. Eric and Ashley came running in, and then Ben walked back in. "There. Now all we need is Tyler's group..."

TYLER
My phone rang. As I was lying on the ground with mini-soldiers enclosing upon me, my phone rings. Luckily, the soldiers backed off. I answered it. "Hello?"
"Hey Tyler, it's Ben. You guys should head toward the pub."
"Really? Why?"
"Because the other groups are. Oh, and you should also be warned. The mini-soldiers are combining to make maxi-soldiers. Have fun." He hung up and I looked over and saw a group of JoHannas backing up away from a "maxi-soldier, as Ben had dubbed them. Rachel was fleeing from another as well. It seemed her punches were no longer effective. I didn't even have to look to know that Tim was running away. I shouted to them "We are heading to the Pub. Let's go." No one questioned me and we all ran toward it.
Ben was waiting outside and pointed us in. As he did, he snapped and blew apart two of the maxi-soldiers. He then followed us in, where we saw everyone else waiting.
"Okay," Ben said, "here's the plan. Anybody have any ideas?"
There was no response.

BEN
"So there is no plan. Fun."

Think this through. What could possibly be happening? Where could they possibly be coming from?
Hmm...they have to be coming from somewhere. I would have to assume that someone is summoning them...
I wouldn't go that far. But there is certainly something that is causing them to appear.
Well what else could it be? They are engulfing the campus from all corners so there cannot be just one spawning point...it has to be someone.

"Okay guys, new plan."
"Is it better than the old one?" Derek asked.
I ignored him. "So...we are going to wait for them to get here and find whoever or whatever is spawning or controlling them and we stop that. Sound like a plan?"
There was a copious amount of shrugs. Luckily, the solution pounded on the door. By writ of habit, I shouted "Enter," and, instead of a mini or maxi soldier, in entered a rather fat man in a camo army uniform. He came in and said "Hello defenders of the portal. My name is Sergeant Smeds. Now, please take me to the portal so I can occupy it."
"What's a polite way to say it...ah, yes I know. How about Hell No."
"I am sorry you feel that way sir. Now your death is going to be a pleasure. It is unnecessary, but a pleasure anyway."

He then summoned a bunch of mini-soldiers which combined into two maxi-soldiers. Maxi-soldiers in the pub. Damn. That isn't fun.
"I think I can handle this," Tyler said.
"You better not be thinking of tapping into my powers."
"Actually...I am." He paused for a second and then took a deep breath. He snapped and let loose a huge explosion that shook the foundation of the Pub.
"STOP! You will cause it to fall down and kill us all."
"But...now the power needs an outlet."
"Then use tiny explosions. Like this." I snapped many times and blew back the soldiers and smashed them into each other multiple times over. Tyler tried the same...but failed in a way.

Ashton then stepped forward. "Ben...I can't hold this in."
"Then kindly fire it at Sarge."
She pointed at Sergeant Smeds and an extremely dark red colored beam shot from her finger. It went through both maxi-soldiers, causing them to shrivel and the beam to get lighter. It hit Smeds and caused him to fly backward. He hit the door and broke it off, landing outside.
I followed him out. "Sarge," I said to him, "We are outside, meaning I can use full force." With that, I snapped and let loose a huge explosion underneath Sergeant Smeds, flinging him far away. I headed back inside.

"Tyler," I said, turning to him, "I hope you realize now why I told you not to copy my powers. They are undoubtedly rather different from almost everyone else's. You almost killed all of us, yourself included."
"I made a bad decision."
"Indeed you did. However, I can also be to blame. All I said is not to do it. I didn't give you any real reason. But now you have a reason. You have evidence. And for most every decision we make, evidence should be the determining factor. Nothing else." I smiled at him, and then turned to Ashton. "And as for you, mademoiselle, you should have told us. We can help you. I can help you. I know what it feels to have power building up inside of you, just looking for an outlet. And we can stop it."
"We can?"
"With a bit of help and practice, yes. I will work with you as much as you need and if you ever can't hold it in, find me and I'll help you release the deadly power."
"I can too," Tyler said. "I now know what Ben meant when he was talking about power - you are only truly powerful if you know when to hold back."

"Well guys," Rachel said, "this is all fine and dandy, but I think you are forgetting one major detail."
"Really now," I asked. "And what might that be?"
"We just missed an entire night of sleep!"

TYLER
While at the pub doing homework, Derek was shirking his duties, as usual, to listen to political commentary. Ben and I were discussing something when Derek shouted out a random comment that I cannot even recall. He then looked up, and he looked at Ben. I saw him smirking, and Ben then looked Derek in the eye. He pulled out a chair and sat in it, facing Derek.
"Pause your show sir, for we need to talk about that comment."
"You're going to have me interrupt my show to debate me?"
"Yeah, sounds about right."

They began arguing vehemently, Derek using his Ultimate Defense to block the comments he didn't wish to hear. Ben was getting rather annoyed at this and began shattering the barriers with inner explosions whenever one appeared. After a few minutes, when I was sure they had almost reached a conclusion, Derek accidently hit play on his computer, and the show began again, only for it to say something they both disagreed with in opposite ways.

They began shouting at each other, and I was getting fed up. I went back to my booth, looked at them and waved. I used Derek's powers to put up a soundproof barrier between myself and them. It was quiet, really really quiet. Now time for German homework. Viele Grammatik!
* * *
BEN
I was up on fifth Scott that night, trying to reflect upon what Daniel had said.
"He said that he had my powers, but he didn't have to snap."
"Which means," Jenny responded, "he had your powers without the limiters you imposed upon yourself."
"Exactly...but how could there be someone with my powers? I mean, I got mine from the portal, and we were the first ones to travel through it."
"I have no clue."

Two things.
Yes?
One - who is to say that you were the first ones?
Point taken. What is number two?
Two - we are supposedly dealing with an ultimate evil which, most likely, can also give its subordinates powers as well. Thus, is it so farfetched?
I guess not.

"Man," I said to myself, "I wish we had an R&D department."
I paused after saying that. We had a robot who could analyze powers, someone who could create metal and then forge it, someone who could charge things with energy, and someone who could use, and therefore understand, every power. Why didn't we have an R&D department?
Because we didn't have the place or the material.
Ah, but we had a portal that could take us anywhere and anytime in this dimension.

Fictional or not too.
What was that?
The portal can take you to fictional places in this dimension as well, though I would advise doing that with caution, as it could wreck the continuity of wherever you travel to.
Wait...could I write about an R&D department and then travel there?
I believe so, but I was...
Sethos, I love how knowledgeable you are about this.
You won't be saying that forever, so I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

I went to my room and grabbed my laptop. I headed to the Pub, figuring I would have much more privacy there if I wanted it (since people aren't there that often at night) and I began to type out a short story about a large lab on a lost and uninhabited planet far away.
* * *
Josh was running as quickly as he could, but he just couldn't seem to outrun the robots. "Curse our infatuation with technology. I said it would be our downfall and look at us now? We are being chased by robots!"
"You say that like we live in a technophile society and like it could have been avoided if we didn't. Neither of those are true."
"Shut up Sam. Running for our lives is not the time to argue with me."
"I am just saying. Now come on, speed up a bit. We'll never reach Joey in time if you keep this slow pace."

Behind them, three metallic beings hovered quickly to keep up. Although it wasn't obvious, they were actually straining to keep up with the humans. However, they were not authorized to go into assault mode yet. These humans were not dangerous enough for such measures.
The lead robot, named Evan, internally sighed at this realization. Too much bureaucracy in robotic rule nowadays. The times when you could hunt humans for sport - those were the days. Not that I ever hunted them; I just watched from the sides. I never really had a problem with the humans...but now they were an endangered species, and when some escape from the holding facility you must bring them back alive. Dead is unacceptable. It is simpler, but unacceptable.
Since when did robots need emotions anyway, Evan wondered. It seemed rather pointless, as that was the human's downfall. However, he could see that bureaucracy would be there's. He had dealt with these humans before and knew what they would do if they escaped. But now those humans were picking up the pace and he was running out of fuel, meaning his subordinates were as well.
Oh well, we'll have to go back to the board empty handed. They'll get compressed and I'll get an upgrade and it'll be back to business as usual.
His subordinates stopped, but he continued pursuit.
Why did the robot officers have to be the ones to get emotions anyway? We weren't the leaders, we were only the scapegoats. And now me and the other commanders have to deal with emotions? Well, only me now. The rest of them have been dismantled, labeled as a failed project. I can see why.
Those humans just will not stop, will they?

After the lead robot was far enough away, John and Lucas made their move. They took the two fallen robots and began dismantling them. Joey could use these supplies, they were told. It didn't matter to them though. They were just happy to dismantle some robots. It seemed fun enough. In fact, they were just happy to be out of that damned cell. Anything was better than being on display, even death. Of course, death was really bad too, so they tried to avoid that outcome as much as possible as well. They had dismantled as much as they could; they put everything they thought was usable into their backpacks and followed the path that Josh, Sam and the other robot had taken. Maybe if that lead robot had fallen they could scavenge it for parts. And if not...well, they had to get back to Joey somehow, right?

Evan was continuing to console himself in his robotic thought.
The actual problem, he told himself, is human potential. With it, they can do almost anything. They can outrun us, escape us, and soon combat us. I know that robots have been disappearing thanks to these specific humans and their friends, and I know that said knowledge is not public. But still, not really my problem, for I am not the one disappearing. I just have to stop them.
His sensors indicated he was being followed by two more humans, who seemed to have a large amount of metal on them.
Either they are trying to masquerade as robots or they just disassembled my subordinates. Either way, at least I know where four of the five are now, and I'm being lead straight to the fifth. But if those other two get their hands on me, I am done. I am not authorized to fight back anymore. I guess I have to go faster than them.
In thinking this, Evan actually sped up.
Hmm...Perhaps I have the human potential too; perhaps it comes from emotions. It seems logical to think that at least. I can never know for sure though, now can I. I think the humans are beginning to tire and slow down. Perhaps they have reached their destination.
Evan stopped and then hovered to the side and out of sight.
Instead of following them into what could be a trap, I shall wait out here and watch the five from a safe distance. If they leave, then I can enter. If not, then I just wait for back up.
Upon reaching this conclusion, the other two passed him. His second idea was correct, and he watched as they greeted the first two. The four of them entered a warehouse ahead and disappeared inside. Evan's sensors could not read what was going on. They could tell him that it had been abandoned years ago and was now known only as Warehouse 51, but that was about it.
Sigh, this is going to be a long night.

Sam and Josh greeted Lucas and John with glee for two reasons - they had robot parts and they no longer had three robots chasing after them.
"But wait a second," Josh said, "weren't there three robots? It looks like you only have parts from two?"
"Yeah," Lucas said. "The other robot was still following you guys when we grabbed these parts, but we didn't see him when we got here."
"I think it was that one that calls himself Evan again," John said. "I never knew robots gave themselves names." They entered the warehouse and continued talking. It was pretty dark, but they could still see decently.
"Robots don't give themselves names. They don't even have names," Sam said. "But that one does refer to himself as Evan."
"It probably stands for something," John said. "I just wish we knew what."

The lights flicked on and instantly the room was bright. The walls were metallic and white and very reflective, furthering the light's spreading across the room. The floor was filled with many panels that were descending and the ascending with various mechanical structures on them. Scanners, welders, computers - every machine known to man and almost every machine known to robot (the only things excluded were actual robots, but they were getting close to building a few) could be found now on the floor of this amazing place. It seemed as if all these things appeared from nowhere. It also seemed that all these things were forbidden to humans. They were, but no one pointed it out. They all knew.
A lone figure came walking out of a door on the far end. He was somewhat tall, taller than average at least, and he had decently long hair as well. He wore glasses too. He seemed to be the average person.
"Hey Joey," Josh said, the first to greet him. "And how are you this fine evening?"
"Just fine now that you two are back here where you belong."
"How did you two get caught anyway," Lucas asked them.
"That is a story for another time," Sam said. "I think Joey has a new idea?"
"Indeed I do. But first, let's look at what Lucas and John brought back."
"Well, we got some pretty interesting stuff here," Lucas said. "However, I wouldn't want to bore you all with the description. Instead, let's just toss it all on the table and see what we can use."
"I see some blasters," John said.
"Here's a robotic motherboard," Sam said. "Don't we need one of these?"
"Ah," mused Joey. "Exactly what we needed - a perfectly intact robotic fuel cell. Our plans can come to fruition with this little thing. However, we need to finish construction and then test it. Sam and Josh, you go through that and sort it out - bring me anything on the list. John, Lucas - you two should follow me."

Evan was still outside two hours later as the five emerged from their warehouse. He could call in reinforcements, but he actually had nothing against them, so he had no reason to call them in. Besides, the one in the back, Joey, had some new kind of contraption, one like nothing he'd ever seen. He decided to scan it, but the results were complex so he put the processing to the back burner as they walked away. He paused to make sure they had left, and then entered their warehouse.
This is why robots shouldn't have emotion. I am not actually doing my duty, but am instead exploring. Faulty programming? Well, perhaps emotions are faulty programming. I would never know.
It was rather dark in the warehouse, for the lights had been turned out. Rather than rely on his sensors, Evan acted on an impulse and located the light switch to turn on the lights.
Really now? I am acting on impulses too? Faulty programming indeed.
As he hit the switch, more than just the lights turned on. Panels on the floor disappeared and reappeared with amazing technology, including some he had never even seen. In fact, he was sure most of this technology was illegal, even for robots. So how in the world did they get it?

He then spotted something in the corner of the room. There were dismantled robots in the corner. In fact...it appeared as if they had been taken apart, put back together and then taken apart again. Seemed a tad excessive. At the same time, Evan was actually amazed by all this technology. He was even more amazed when he found the blueprints they had been using...
He had never seen some many prints before; it was almost like looking into the future. But when he saw the largest one, he understood their plan. He knew that it would mean the end of the world in a bad way. Thus, he developed a plan. Luckily, all the materials he would ever need were here in this warehouse. But first, he needed to build an escape route if it didn't work out. He saw a path in the back and found it led to a large circular room that was fairly empty. He would start here.
* * *
"What are you doing in here?"
I looked up from my story and saw Taima. "Bonjour Taima. I'm just writing a story."
"Ah, fun. Mind if I sit with you?"
"Go ahead."
"My muses are coming to me tonight...I can actually write."
"I know what you mean mademoiselle."
She sat down and began to write her own story while I recommenced mine.
* * *
Chief police officer Oliver was having a bad day. A robot bad day is worse than any ordinary bad day, by the way. Robots can't just quit - their programming forbids it. They must abide by what they were supposed to do. And today Oliver seemed to be failing, but he couldn't quit. Not only did he loose two robots in a chase against some escaped humans, but now his highest ranking commander was missing while the humans who escaped were wreaking havoc on the police force with illegal technology.
It was times like these where he wished he hadn't illegally gotten the emotions upgrade to make himself more efficient. Well, he more or less got it so he could understand how his commanders were feeling, but now he regretted it. One of two robots with emotions, and he had them illegally. If word got out, he was scrap metal. However, now was not the time to be worrying about that.
A group of five humans used illegal technology to create a gun that could suck the electricity out of robots, and they used policing fuel cell technology. Not only was it his job to stop them, but it was also in his best interests to keep what was running these guns quiet. He just hoped Commander Evan contacted him soon. Oliver worried about Evan, at least as much as a robot with illegal emotions could worry about a robot with legal emotions. Not only was Evan his best and brightest commander, but he was also a unique case who needed special care. He had been getting sloppy recently, in a negative correlation to the amount of robots with emotion. The more of them that were disassembled, the sloppier Evan got. He was still the best, but to a lesser extent. But his beacon was still on, meaning he was still alive. He was just somehow cloaked, which was also illegal.
But it couldn't be the humans because they have no reason to keep him alive. So what was Evan doing?
Again, now was not the time to be worrying about this. Oliver made sure he was functioning properly and then set out to stop the humans. This may not be his best idea, but he knew how to stop the guns and he also knew where the human's hideout was. He was set. He could even protect himself against the gun that was destroying his force - or at least he hoped so. If not...well...at least he wouldn't have to worry about either of those other things anymore.

Joey was actually having fun with his new toy, which was a stretch to say because Joey never has any fun. But he was enjoying sucking the power out of robots. Their weapon was working perfectly, leading him to believe he could, in fact, do this on a larger scale, which was his plan all along. His associates didn't actually know his plan though. They thought this was all just good fun.
"That's what they get for being NPCs," Joey silently told himself. Of course, he didn't know that he was just as one dimensional as they were, but he didn't mind. In his head, he was the most important person in the world because he would change it the most. By association, that could be true, but it sure was a stretch.
Joey's fun stopped too soon for his liking though. Another robot came out of the station, but this one had a different presence about him. So far, he had just been facing regular officers, but Joey could tell he had just gone up a rank or two.
"Three ranks actually," Oliver said in a metallic monotone. "You have just gone up three ranks and are now facing the police chief. I hope you are prepared."
John and Lucas backed off some. They were never good at fighting or running, which is why they stayed in the shadows and only came out to loot. Even Sam, who was normally somewhat comical and brightening for the team, was visibly nervous. Joey stood his ground though. Nothing could go wrong in his mind. He was unstoppable.

Joey fired a shot at Oliver, but he was too quick. Oliver glided out of the way easily. "You would be better off if you put down the weapon."
"Make me," Joey replied, firing a volley of shots. Oliver let out an inaudible sigh and activated his hover jets. Instead of being a few inches from the ground he was now multiple feet above it. All of Joey's shots missed greatly and Oliver glided over again until he was above Joey. He deactivated his jets and landed on Joey, knocking the wind out of his lungs and the weapon out of his hands. Josh quickly grabbed it and shot it at Oliver, who Josh knew couldn't possibly move out of the way. But, to the humans' surprise, Oliver didn't even attempt to move. Instead he pulled something out of thin air (or so it seemed). He produced a large ball, which then absorbed the shot. He then threw it at Josh and it exploded at his feet, knocking the gun out of his hands and sending him flying. Oliver caught the gun and promptly disintegrated it. The humans then decided it was time to run and Oliver decided to pursue them alone. Being the chief, he should have had other officers do it for him. But his other officers proved incompetent, so he would have to do this himself.

Joey lead them back to the warehouse, thinking they could outgun one measly robot there, especially one bound to be low on fuel at that point. He also noted that this would allow them to replace the lost fuel cell, and with one probably much more efficient, being from a higher ranked robot. (He did not, however, make the connection between a more efficient fuel cell and his belief that Oliver would be low on fuel, which begs the question of if he fully understood what he was doing.) However, lead the robot to the warehouse was what he did, though he got a surprise when he entered. The lights were already on and the tech was already out, but not because he left it that way in anticipation. Instead, it was because another robot was lying in wait, working on something in his warehouse.
The robot promptly turned around as they entered and shot them with a gun that rendered their muscles (other than the vital ones) paralyzed temporarily.
"Ah, Chief Oliver, how nice to see you."
"Commander Evan. Good to see you are okay. What are you working on?"

Evan paused. He didn't want to tell the chief, who would be obligated to shut him down if he said anything. But he had to.
"These humans have a plan to suck all the energy from robots permanently with a bomb. It would be very bad. Thus, I am fixing it to eradicate all life as well."
"Then the planet will be peaceful. How long will it take?"
"Maybe another hour."
"Evan, I understand how you feel, for I feel the same way, literally. Thus, I take these guys back and delay the inspection teams for you. Good luck, my friend."

Oliver left and Evan was amazed. The police chief had illegal emotions all this time...remarkable. But now was not the time for reflection. Now was the time for completion. He now had an ultimatum...if he didn't finish the device it would be too late for the entire planet.
The next 45 minutes flew by rather quickly. Oliver came back in and looked at Evan. "You have five minutes, at most."
"More than I need. I'm setting the timer for a minute. Now follow me."

A minute later a huge explosion ripped across the planet. All the leftover humans and animals died with the explosion, which also sucked out the intelligence and energy from all the robots left on the planet. And all was quiet again.
* * *
"Finished," I said, happy that I was done with my story.
"Very nice sir, very nice. So, what's it about?"
I paused. I didn't want to endanger another person by telling her about the portal, but how else could I explain a story about a laboratory on a long-abandoned planet?
"It's about a robot named Evan and how he brings about the end of a lot of bad things in one foul swoop."
"Sounds fun."
"Yeah, it was. But unfortunately now I have to go to sleep...tis almost my bedtime."
"Silly freshman with their bedtimes...Okay, see you later then."
"Au revoir."

I left the pub and paused for a moment. I needed to figure out if this worked. But I should also have a witness or two...but who would still be awake and not doing homework?
I checked my watch. It was a little before 11, much earlier than I had thought. Tyler is probably still awake, doing homework. I doubt he'd mind my stopping in with what I have to show him. He wouldn't mind the less sleep. He can nap it off later anyway.
I got to his room and knocked on the door. I heard someone say enter, so I did. Tyler was lying on his bed, but he wasn't asleep. His roommate, Weston, was nowhere to be seen.

"Wakey wakey Master Knowles. We have a trip to make."
"At 11 at night?"
"What better time?"
"Can't it wait until morning?"
"Oh, I'm sure it can. But it won't."
"Why me?"
"Why not?"
"It's already past my bedtime..."
"It's not like it'll be dangerous or anything..."
"Fine. But let's grab Tim too."
"If you insist."

Tyler and I left and went up to Tim's room. He was, amazingly enough, asleep. He was shivering a lot though and seemed uneasy in his sleep. Tyler shook him awake.
"Tim," I asked, "are you okay?"
"What? Yeah. I just fell asleep while working on chemistry...and I was having a horrible dream...I was being attacked by these..."
I cut him off. "Tim, that story is for another time and another place. We have some business to attend to, hopefully before my bedtime."
"Really? What business?"
"Yes Ben," Tyler said. "You have yet to tell me this as well."
"I'll tell you on the way. For now, we head to the portal."

As we headed to the Pub, I told them about my assumption (I couldn't tell them how I knew, evidently) and then about the story I wrote. We entered the Pub and Taima was gone, thankfully. Again, I didn't really want to get her involved in this.
We got to the Sptoeretlael and I looked into it. "Sptoeretlael," I began, "could you possibly take us to Warehouse 51 from my story?"
The swirling vortex buzzed for a moment. It then began to spin rather quickly, almost hypnotically so. As it slowed down, the vortex was replaced by the isolated planet that was the end of my story. It zoomed in to show the warehouse, and for the moment, I was perfectly satisfied with that. "Great," I said. "We can travel there tomorrow and I can sleep easy tonight."
* * *
About 22 hours later I had assembled about half of the team, including Ashley, Kyle, Murray and Tyler - the new heads of the new R&D (I told them this in advance). We entered the portal and emerged in the large and empty circular room. I led everyone into the main room and hit the switch, and then the equipment was revealed.
I pointed out some of the more interesting tools and some of the most useful things, including the designing studio designed specifically for creating blueprints (which elicited a chuckle from Jenny. "Seriously? A design studio designed for some reason? What a bad pun for any author to make." Murray shot me a look, but then couldn't figure out why.)
"Okay," I said, "I have a few specific items I'd like to see made. Here are the plans. As for everything else...well, tis up to all of you. By the way, time passes much more slowly here. When we come back, it'll be roughly the same time, assuming we don't stay too terribly long. Have fun and get cracking."

DANIEL
I have to say, chasing a man in a mask using explosions as a propellant was not my idea of a fun Tuesday. At least, not until Michael transformed into a large albatross, we all climbed on his back, and he took off after the man in question. Ben's sister had legions of squirrels, raccoons and other furry creatures following us on the ground, Paul was looking out for water sources and using them to take swings at the man, I was trying to use the sniper rifle to get a good aim, and Jordan was doing the same in a new form - a range form that gave him an analytical headset and a crossbow (along with very fancy-looking clothing), and Ojash was giving us all cover with his powers.
"Michael, how're you doing?" I asked him. He made a loud screeching noise in response.
"He said," Hiro said, "'I cannot understand a single word you are saying.'"
"Great," I muttered. Jordan fired a shot at him, but an explosion blocked it and sent it flying away. I wondered if he could do the same with a bullet...

BEN
"GAH!! Where the heck are we?"
"Nice to see you've woken up now Jenny," I muttered so that no one else could hear.
I ignored whatever she was saying as a comeback and got to the task at hand.
"Okay," I said, "we're going to split into two groups - a recon group headed by Tyler and a back-up group headed by myself. The recon group will head out and try to find any signs of life or any signs of Honey. My group will stay here and try and come up with rescue plans. We'll also locally explore the area."
"Ben," Tyler asked me, "where are we?"

"If I am thinking correctly, we are on Mars, close before the cataclysmic event that rendered the planet lifeless."
"And," Fabrizzio said, "what might that event be?"
"Do you see that giant asteroid?"
"Yeah..."
"It crashed into the planet, causing massive damage. Without the asteroid there to churn the iron core, Mars's magnetic field died, which caused the atmosphere to be shredded apart by solar winds."
"Ah...and how can we breathe?"
"I don't know. Read a Sci-Fi book once in a while, you'll learn that doesn't matter. Anyway, Tyler, who do you want in your group?"

He thought for a moment, and then spoke up. "Derek, Casey, Lori, JoHanna and Ashton, if I can."
"That leaves me with Tim, Kyle, Charles, Fabrizzio, Ashley, Rachel and Becky. I'd prefer your group to be smaller, but if you like it, that's fine by me."
"Okay." He paused. "Team, let's head out." He seemed to enjoy saying that, and I held in a chuckle as his team headed out.
"Well team," I said to my seven companions, "the first thing I should have asked, before even thinking about teams, is about the powers of the four of you who just got through the portal." I then cracked a wicked smile. "However, in my experience, I think it's better for you to learn how to use them by trial instead of by just thinking about them. So that's what we'll do."

I motioned for everyone to follow me, and they did. We walked around to the front of the nearest temple, seeing as I figured it was as good a base as any. I turned to everyone and continued. ""Now, from what I saw when we first entered the portal, very few of us knew their powers right away. In fact, one person still doesn't know his powers. Instead, many of us learned theirs completely by accident, like Fabrizzio and Tim both did. Thus, we'll set up a controlled situation for you to learn your powers."

I turned back and looked at the temple. It then hit me that the temple looked very similar to something I had seen before.
"Does anyone think this temple looks familiar?" I asked. I got a bunch of head shakes. I then realized where it was from. "Oh, yeah," I said. "It's from Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. That's why it looks so familiar. Goodness, was there really no better inspiration..."
My thought was cut short by a robot falling from the sky. Murray popped out of the portal and landed on top of me. He then got up and picked me up by the throat.
"What did I tell you about breaking the fourth wall?"
"Nothing..." I choked out. "You just...told Casey and...Tyler."
"Oh, yeah, that's true." He let me go. He then picked up Tim and threw him at me. "Here is your warning. I heard both of you break the fourth wall. DON'T DO IT AGAIN!"

We got back up, and I brushed the red dust off of myself. "So, Murray, where are we?"
"My sensors indicate we are on Mars a few million years ago or so. I'm not too sure though - after one million, everything starts to flow together."
I smirked. "Told you."
"Ben," Fabrizzio said, "where did you learn that?"
"I'm in the Exploring Mars FYS, and I actually pay attention in all my classes."
"Was that a cheap shot at me?"
I paused. "Not at you...Anyway, back to powers talk." I looked to the four without powers. "Do you all at least have an idea as to what your powers might be?" Again, I got nods. "Good. Then let's begin.

TYLER
As me and my small team walked away from Ben, I had to wonder how exactly we were going to find Honey. We didn't exactly have the most analytical of people, nor did we have a tracker. We had a person with no discernable power, a person who could become invisible and intangible (but who needed more practice), a person who could create copies of herself, a person who could teleport, a person who could create barriers, and a person who...a person whose powers we didn't yet know. Hmm...that could be a problem.
I should probably rectify the situation. Then again, I don't know how I would go about asking. Well, no time like the present to learn how to ask, right?
"Ashton," I said, "do you have any inkling as to what your powers might be?"
"I have as much an idea as I hear you do."
"Oh, good. Well, no, not good." Derek chuckled at my comment. "What? That's at least one other person, like myself at least..."
"Let's just go," Lori said. It seemed a good idea, and we continued our walk. We decided to head to the large mountain in the distance, figuring that was probably the logic Honey Reilly and Kathryn used. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

KATHRYN
Well, somehow, we were in a cave. This is what we get for following Honey around into a portal and then following Reilly in trying to find a way back home. We were in a cave at the base of the largest mountain I had ever seen.
Honey was getting very emotional. She had apologized multiple times for her actions in taking us to the portal and for dragging us in (literally speaking in Reilly's case). The more emotional she got, the hotter it got in the cave. I had to guess that her power had to do with fire, or at least heat.
I really didn't care that much. This was a very nice distraction from everyday life and we weren't in any real danger. However, there was a voice inside my head...a subtle calling. It was only saying one word, that same word, again and again and again...it was saying change.
Change.
Change.
Shut up!
Change.

I ignored it though. I was having too much fun wandering aimlessly in a cave on the base of a mountain to think about a voice in my head. Reilly didn't seem to be having nearly as much fun. She was buzzing around in a rather annoyed fashion. I mean that literally though; she was actually buzzing around. She had shrunk down to the size of an insect and was flying around in a very annoyed manner. She was also yelling at Honey while doing this. She was very angry that we were stuck here (though we weren't), and was blaming it all on Honey.
Honey was just getting more emotional as this continued. She put her hand on the wall, and the wall began to melt. It looked as if I was right; Honey's powers are heat relating to emotions. She swatted at Reilly to get her to stop, but it didn't work. She was only creating a cloud of hot air.
Reilly changed back to normal size, and then flew at Honey. I didn't know what had gotten into either of them. Perhaps it was just stress from going to this weird place. Whatever the case, I couldn't let them fight.

The voices telling me to change were louder than ever, and I gave in and changed. I felt my back get more arched as I changed, and my teeth and nails grew longer. I also started growing hair...I was turning into a werewolf. No, I was turning into a she-wolf. Ha!
I darted between them. I could hear the wolf's voice in my head, but I ignored whatever it was telling me and just stood between the two.
"You two need to stop fighting," I growled. I was surprised. I still sounded like myself, for the most part. "You'll only end up hurting each other."
"It's all her fault," Reilly shouted at me. "Had she just listened to Ben, we wouldn't be in this mess! And I won't take orders from some she-wolfen freak."
I snarled at her, then stopped. "Sorry, that was the inner wolf."
"Stop fighting you guys," Honey said. She was almost in tears. She seemed really unstable. "Just stop it," she shouted.
Reilly ignored her. She stepped back, then flew at me. I turned and dodged her, but when I went to swipe at her, she had already shrunk. She then grew and stopped flying - right above me. The wolf inside snarled as she landed on me. It wanted to tear her to pieces, and I was having trouble holding it back. I shoved Reilly off me and pushed her into a wall.
And then Honey couldn't seem to control her emotions (and thus her power) any longer. She burst into tears and then burst into flames and began running around. She set some random shrubs (and what appeared to be dead grass on the cave floor) on fire, which spread further into the cave. Suddenly, there was a loud rumbling and rocks began to fall. It also got really hot.
Even Daniel could have told that something really bad was happening.

DANIEL
This was getting ridiculous. Everything we threw at him (literally and figuratively) all just bounced back. Jordan had switched back to his regular self. He looked at me with a look that screamed bad news.
"Bad news Daniel." Called it. "I think that he wants us to follow him."
"Really? Why?"
"Well, if he wanted to get us off his tail, he'd just explode us all and separate us or kill us or at least injure Michael. But all he has done is knock back our attempts to stop him."
"He has a point," Ben's sister said. I really need to learn her name. "He's using the explosions only for propellant and protection. If we just follow him and see where he's leading us, it'll probably be best."
"Fine. Let's see where this creep leads us."

BEN
"C'mon Kyle. You gotta be able to fight back somehow. You're not just gonna be hit by those chains all day long, are you?"
"Shut up Ben."
"Tim, is your accuracy improving?"
"Yeah, I am shooting them at him pretty accurately." As he said this, he shot a stray one that landed at Ashley's feet. The opponent I chose for her was Rachel, and she seemed to be having fun watching Ashley dodge her punches. Ashley picked up the chain and it began to glow. I smiled. "Hey Kyle," Ashley said, "do you want to switch?"
"It'd be my pleasure," he said.
Ashley swung the chain around a bit more, and it continued to glow. She paused for a second, and the glow changed from white to red. Tim shot a few chains at her, but she twirled the red-hot chain and melted Tim's attacks. The glow then changed to yellow, and she used the chain to zap Tim.
Meanwhile, Rachel was throwing punches at Kyle. He was trying to block, but it wasn't working to full capacity. Then, something interesting happened. As he went to block, a chunk of metal appeared in his hand. Rachel punched it, and it looked like she hurt her hand. She then powered them up and began punching harder, but Kyle had begun to shape the metal he conjured. He made it into a crude glove, and met Rachel's fist head on (so to speak). It appeared to be a stalemate, but it was bare fist versus covered, so Rachel got the short end of the stick.

"Very nice you two, very nice. And thank you Tim and Rachel." Tim glared at me and Rachel gave me a powered punch that sent my flying. I smashed into the wall, which fell down to reveal a hidden chamber full of swords. I handed one to each Kyle and Ashley. "Can either of you use your powers on these?"
After a second, Ashley had hers glowing, the sword filled with energy. Kyle was having less luck. "I think I can only mess with metal I create."
"Ok, good enough for me. NEXT!"
Charles stepped up.
"Okay Charles, any idea what your powers might be?"
"I honestly have no idea."
"That's okay," Fabrizzio said. "We'll find out." He patted Charles on the back, but that seemed to send him into a daze.
"My vision is messed up, it's really bad."
"And that's new?" I asked.
"No, it's not that I'm blind like I was before. Now I can only see these beams coming at us, rather fast."
"Hmm...," Murray buzzed, "Charles, try shifting your vision, figuratively though."
There was a short silence, and then he said, "Ah, that's better. I can see perfectly again...well, my perfectly."
"Charles, I think you did a shift in your visible spectrum. I think you jumped down to seeing gamma rays." Murray seemed quite confident in his assumption, and I wasn't going to question it.

"The only person left," I said, turning, "is Becky." She was slumped over. It looked like she had been knocked unconscious. "Becky," I asked, "are you in there?" She abruptly sat up, startling us all.
"Actually Ben, I wasn't in there. I think I left my body...oh, what is that called again?"
"Astral projection, I think."
"Yeah, that's it."
"So, Becky, if you can astral project..."
"If she can what?" Fabrizzio said.
"Fabrizzio, you really need to pay attention," I said. "You're almost as bad as Tim." Tim didn't even notice I had said something.
"Astral Projection. Noun. An esoteric interpretation of any form of out-of-body experience that assumes the existence of an 'astral body' separate from the physical body and capable of travelling outside it. Astral projection or travel denotes the astral body leaving the physical body to travel in the astral plane."
We all look Murray, who just performed the function of a dictionary. Ashley smiled, saying "Thank you Murray."
"Not a problem."

"Anyway," I said, cutting in, "Becky, if you can astral project then you can easily find Honey. Would you mind doing so?"
"I'll see what I can do," she said. Her body went limp as she left it, and we recommenced practicing. In a few minutes, Becky returned. She sat up abruptly and it made Tim jump.
"Well, I have good news, bad news, better news and really bad news," she said after a moment (probably to get her bearings back).
"In order, please," I said.
"Good news - I can travel really fast and found her and her friends with ease. Bad news is that they are somehow inside Olympus Mons."
"Hmm...bad news indeed," I said, letting my inner Derek take over.
"The better news is that all three seem to be using their powers, or attempting to at least. The really bad news is that, in doing so, I think Honey is about to set off Olympus Mons."
I stared at her. "Please tell me you're joking..." I got my answer in the form of a loud rumble, then an explosion. We looked to the north and saw a large plume of fire and rocks burst from a mountain. I sighed.
"Of course, we go to the place with the largest volcano in the solar system and someone just had to set it off."
Rachel looked at me and said, "Well, maybe we are just a volcano-setting-off bunch."
"Second time using the portal, second time we set off a volcano...yeah, maybe we are. Somehow, that doesn't inspire confidence." She then punched me for my comment.

TYLER
"If Ben is right about this being Mars," JoHanna said, "then I think that is Olympus Mons." We all looked at the gigantic mountain. No, it was more than gigantic, for it was larger than anything I had ever seen. There was then a very loud rumbling, followed by the top of the gigantic mountain erupting in a plume of fire, rocks and heat. The fire wasn't a problem, neither was the heat. We were far enough away so that those didn't matter, at least not yet. However, in the rocky, somewhat mountainous land we were on, those rocks were a rather big problem.
Derek put up a large shield to protect us from the rocks, and when they were gone, we began to run. Making it back to where we started was the biggest concern now. Of course, I really had to wonder why volcanoes just hate us...

We got to a split in the path. There was one that looked like a more direct root, but it was higher up and less protected from rocks. The lower path looked quite a bit longer, but it was more shielded, at least to an extent. Before we could decide though, more rocks began falling, and a large one came smashing down and forced us to split up. Ashton, Casey and I had to take lower path while Lori, JoHanna and Derek took the higher one. Derek tried to shield us from the rocks, but it wasn't working that well. Many of the rocks he shielded from them came down at us.
"Derek," Casey shouted to him, "could you please be more careful?"
"It's kinda hard to run and shield at the same time." As Derek said this, another large rock came down, but not one either of our groups. It instead came down on part of the upper path that they had just passed, and caused it to crumble and block the lower path. The three of them stopped to look at us. It looked as if they were going to climb down and help us, which was the exact opposite of what I wanted them to do.

"Just go," I shouted at them. "We'll follow soon enough." Derek shrugged, and he was about to go when Lori stopped him. She put one hand in his shoulder and the other on JoHanna's. She teleported and disappeared. A few seconds later, she appeared alone next to us.
She said "I wouldn't leave you guys behind. Well...at least not Casey. He'd die out here." We all chuckled as we moved into a more sheltered area on the path. Lori frowned at me. "Tyler, I don't think I have enough energy to take us all back. I'd have to leave someone here..."
"Then leave me. I'll make it back. You can't leave Casey, who would die, and Ashton has much less experience with this kind of stuff. Ben made me a leader for a reason, and while I don't know what that reason is, I know he would agree with me on this."
Lori nodded, and then grabbed Ashton and Casey and teleported away. I was alone, but at least my friends were safe. I got up and continued down the path, trying to go around the rocky blockage. It was no use though. Some more rocks came, and one was headed right for me. It was too large to avoid, and all I could wish for at that moment was a shield to block it.

It didn't hit me.
It bounced off of an invisible field, like one of Derek's shields.
But...I was the only one there...how did this...
I focused for a second. I made another little barrier, and then chuckled. Another rock came flying at me. I moved the barrier to intercept it, and then shot the barrier forward to launch the rock away. I chuckled some more. I was really happy not to be dead, but I still didn't know my power. It certainly wasn't the same as Derek's, but it was. How come I couldn't feel it then?
I focused again, and I thought of Lori and her powers.
I thought of the base where we had been, the temple that we had landed at. I focused more, and I felt a tingly sensation. Next thing I knew, I was standing next to Lori, Ashton and Casey, and a lot of people were looking at me. This was a good thing, since all the people were the people I came here with, every one of them. Plus a Murray...don't know how that happened, but I didn't care at that moment.

"Hey guys," I said. "I think I figured out my power."
"Yeah," Ben said, "you have the ability to worry me half to death. Congratulations. Now gear up. It's time to rescue Honey, and if Lori is too tired to take us there, then I guess Mr. Mirror will have to do."

BEN
I decided it best to let some people rest (and leave behind the people who would only be a hindrance). Thus, only four of us went. Tyler was the way we got there, Fabrizzio was the main protection, Tim was the main rescue (if we needed to get to far places), and I was the muscle if we needed it. All in all, it wasn't that great a team, but I didn't want to stress Tyler's powers, especially right after he got them.
Tyler teleported us as close as he could get us and we began our trek. Fabrizzio sped us all up so we could easily avoid the rocks and lava. I looked at Tyler. "You're our back up, just so you know."

"You knew my power was a mimicking one, not another teleportation power. How?"
"Murray knew and told me. We felt it best for you to figure it out yourself. You have to actively think of using a power, don't you? That's why you didn't sense it before."
"Yes, it appears to be that way. And I can only mimic powers I have recently witnessed, not just the powers of people around me."
"I suspected that. That's why you are a mirror - you can only reflect what is there."
"I suppose." He paused, and then looked at me. "Could you do a little explosion, just so I could use your powers?"
I got really serious for a second. I looked him in the eye and told him "You don't want to use my powers. You shouldn't have to."
Jenny was the only one who responded. "Ben, you needn't be so serious. You treat these powers like they bare a bad thing." My only thought was "and they aren't?" I didn't say it though.

We continued our trek in silence for a short while, until we were at the base. There was a small cave, and out of it darted Honey and some werewolf thing. I paused and looked at it.
"What?" it...she said. I recognized the voice, and then broke out in laughter.
"Kathryn, you're a she-wolf! Hahaha!"
"Shut up Ben," she said, changing back into her normal self. Her clothes we a tad ripped, and now that I looked, Honey's were fairly burnt.
"Where's Reilly?" A small speck on Honey's shoulder flew toward me, getting larger as it went. It was Reilly. "So you can shrink and fly...wow..."
"Hey, don't dis her," Honey said.
"Now which one of you guys set off the volcano?"
They all looked at the ground, until Honey looked up.
"It was Fuente Ovejuna?"
"No, it wasn't. It was you, wasn't it Honey?"
"Yes, it was me. I couldn't control my power and I lit on fire and I...I...I made it explode."
"Well, let's worry about this after we are far away. Master Knowles, teleport us to base, please."
I put my hand on his shoulder, Reilly shrank and sat on his ear, and Honey wrapped herself around his arm. Everyone else just put a hand on his back, and we prepared to teleport...but we didn't.

"I don't understand...I have the energy, why can't I teleport?"
I sighed. "I should have seen this one a mile away. You can't teleport because it has been too long since you've seen Lori teleport. Like I said, you can only reflect what is there..."
Honey let go and looked at me. "Do you mean we are stuck here?"
I paused. After thinking for a short moment, I responded.
"No, once Fabrizzio tires from using his powers we'll all be crushed or burned alive. We won't be here for long."
Honey let out a loud whine.
"Honey, this is why I said not to go into the portal without me. This kind of stuff will happen. According to Rachel, we are a volcano-triggering group." I paused again. "Actually, we aren't stuck here. Be right back..." I almost began my return, but first turned to Tyler. "Seriously, you do NOT want to try this. If you do, don't blame me for whatever may happen."
I then jumped in the air and snapped. An explosion at my feet shot me through the air. I then snapped again and shot myself further, doing a few twists to aim myself in the right direction... This was really fun, but I had to focus on what I was doing or I would blow my feet off or worse, I'd miss. I was on my way, flying through the air by the seat of explosions. I just hope I made it there in time.

DANIEL
We had been following the creep for almost a half an hour before he finally landed. He did so in the most peculiar of places.
We were at a Taco Bell drive through. He landed in front of the ordering station and proceeded to order. His voice, like his powers, was eerily similar to Ben's, but seemed much darker and more...well...evil. I began to wonder who this guy really was. He finished his order and walked up in the line. He got his food and drink. He looked back at us and, although I couldn't see it through his mask, I knew he was smiling at us. He jumped and rocketed into the air with another explosion.
I turned back to everyone else. "Do we have to?"
There were some grumbles like mine, but the general sentiment was that we did have to, and so we hopped on Michael again and followed him some more.

BEN
I got back to the base in less than five minutes. It seemed like everyone was surprised to see me returning that way. Derek was the first to comment. "Where is everybody else," he asked.
"Oh, they all died from the heat and lava. We should head back." That comment earned me a few gapes and another punch. "Kidding, kidding, geese."
I turned to Lori. "Are you rested up yet?"
"I don't think so...I might make it there, but I couldn't take anyone or go back." She looked at me and frowned. "And that's a big might."
"...Damn. There goes that plan. This is a large problem."
"What is a large problem of which you speak?" Derek asked.
"Well...to put it bluntly, when Fabrizzio runs out of energy and then when Tyler runs out of energy, the three I brought along with Honey, Reilly and Kathryn will be melted or crushed or something like that." I paused. "And his power is draining fast, most likely."
"Ah, a problem indeed. But can't Tyler teleport you guys out?"
"Hmm, I never thought of that. I'll go back and tell him...NO, HE CAN"T! It has been too long since he's seen Lori's power, and he can no longer use it."
"Don't worry Ben," Rachel said. "You'll think of something."
"For their sake, I hope I do."

I walked over to Murray and took him aside.
"I heard that Ashton doesn't think she has a power either. Is that true? Does she not have one?"
"I don't see one in her like I can in everyone else. I don't know what to tell you."
I looked over at Ashton, and she looked back at me almost simultaneously. I motioned her over.
"So you don't think you have a power?"
"I can't feel it in me...I don't know what to say."
"Neither do I," Murray said. "My sensors don't indicate one inside of you."
"Which, if you ask me, is impossible. Considering everyone else, that is twenty-six people, all got powers, I find it very hard to believe you would be left out."
"This doesn't matter right now," Ashton said. "We need to save the people you stranded."
"I didn't strand them, I just left them there so I could bring back a way to save them." I looked over at Kyle and Ashley. "And I think I just thought up a way."

I ran over to them. "Kyle," I asked, "how large of a hunk of metal can you make?"
"Um...I don't know, really large, I guess..."
"Can you make one boat sized?"
"Yeah, I think so..."
"Do it." I turned to Ashley. "I am going to need you to fill the boat with cold energy, some sort to keep it cool."
"I don't think I understand. Why do we need to do this?"
"Because the boat will melt in the lava if you don't."
"Ah. Okay, I'll get right on that."
I thought for a second. "Now we just need some way to transport it..." I looked around our base to see what powers I had at my disposal. I thought and I thought, but I couldn't come up with a way, until it hit me - quite literally, in fact. Rachel punched me and I looked at her. "How far do you think you could punch this boat?"

Ashley, Kyle, Lori and I were holding on to the metal boat as tightly as we could. We had it propped up so that Rachel could easily punch it.
"You guys holding on tight?" Rachel asked us.
"As tightly as possible," I said.
"Let me help with that," Kyle said. He bent the metal around our hands. We would now lose our hands before we lost our grip. I didn't like either thought, so I pushed them out of my mind. Sethos just chuckled.
"Three, two, one, PUNCH!" We were sent flying into the Martian sky. I stabilized us with a few well place explosions (it is truly difficult to snap when your hand it encased in metal, but I found a way) and we were there in no time. We actually landed just a few hundred feet from Honey's little group, and they all ran to us. "Everyone," I said, "Hop on and hold tight. Fabrizzio and Tyler - stop slowing down the volcano and let it loose!" They did so and lava gushed forth from the cave and from the top, and surged underneath our boat. The heat was brutal, but it was better than dying, and the lava pushed us quickly across the Martian planet. Ashley kept the boat relatively cool, which helped to keep us cool, and soon we found ourselves about to rush into a wall of rock. I paused, trying to think of what to do. I decided to let loose a large explosion under us and hope it didn't kill us. Luckily for us, it didn't, and we landed only a short way from the base.
"Lori, are you well rested yet?"
She chuckled. "I hope so."
"Okay, let's teleport to base then."
She teleported Ashley, Kyle, Tim and Fabrizzio while Tyler then teleported me, Honey, Kathryn and Reilly. We all wound up in the base, half exhausted. I looked at everyone else. "Are we ready to go home now?"
"Yes," Derek said, "I think so."
"Okay...Sptoeretlael, take us home please."

DANIEL
It was night by the time he landed again. I was rather hungry, and I noted that he was eating while he was traveling through the air. But he landed and, to our surprise, he was right outside the commons when he did. We gaped at him, and in his creepy voice he said "Well, that was fun. My master will be pleased to hear of this."
There was a bright flash of light that glinted of the shiny red on the skull mask, and it looked as if a being made of light appeared in it. The being grabbed the masked man, and they both disappeared into the night.

Not even ten seconds later, the doors to the Pub opened up and Ben came strolling out with the rest of the team behind him (as well as Honey, Reilly and Kathryn).
"Hey guys," he said. "Have a fun time while we were gone?"
I glared at him. I changed my arm into a shotgun and aimed it at Ben. "Say that one more time Ben, I dare you."
"Goodness, Daniel, you are so on edge."
"Yeah," Kathryn said, "it's like you just had the worst day of your life."
"We just chased around a mask-wearing freak who had the same powers and the same voice as Ben. You tell me I'm on edge?"
"Yeah, that sounds about right," Ben said. I shot at him, but he snapped and a small explosion deflected my shots. I paused. "Actually, he didn't have the same powers as you. He didn't snap."
Ben's cheery attitude seemed to disappear when I said that. "Grand," he said, "looks like another worry for me." I didn't know why it was such a large worry for him specifically, but it seemed like Ben was hiding something. Too bad, I thought. I just want to get some sleep. It's been a long day and a long episode.
"Hey," Murray shouted, "No breaking the fourth wall during narration either!" He began to run at me.

INDEX vol. VI
Here is an index of my posts. It will be updated every couple of posts (and put as a new one, with the old one being replaced or deleted...)

WRITINGS
ToICR(tt) - The series of random conversations inspired by actual conversations.
- Act I, Scene I: Nothing: Yeah...this is the only one I finished, and I think I lost the actual files anyway...
Three Brothers - The first short story I attempted to post here. Inspired, like a lot of my work, by a dream I had
- Part One: The beginning. When I rewrite the story, this is the only part that's gonna stay...
- Part Two: Tried to do some character development/filler...didn't work too well...
- Part Three: Almost everything else I wrote in the story...then I hit a wall...
- Part Three (not real): This was not a good idea...I don't know why I wrote this...
- Character Info: A page on the three brothers.
- Plot time: Plot of the actual story (the SS is just the opener)
Fugue Island - Another short story inspired by a dream, only this one I have promised myself that I will finish...I must
- Part One: He finds himself on an island, falls asleep, and has a dream which he cannot comprehend.
-Part Two: He has a few more dreams, furthering his confusion.
THE LEGEND OF KEITH - A quick series that I write episodes for when I am bored. "Angels" have wings made of random items...
-ep. 1: The beginning of the series, but not the beginning of the story.
-ep. 2: Some backstory about the incident is revealed as Keith and Ben try to figure out what to do next.
-ep. 3: OMG, A SPHINX. Enter Derrek, the green sphinx with the head of a falcon.
-ep. 4: A really long flashback about how Keith and Ben got their wings...kinda. The anime mocking really begins here...
-ep. 5: While Keith snoozes and has visions of the angels, someone is watching them from faraway...someone evil...
Arc 1 - Psychic City
-ep. 6: An explosion in a city below them causes the group to have a run in with an old acquaintance.
-ep. 7: Ben and Essence chat about Psychic City while the prisoner formulates a plan to escape. Also, goblins attack.
-ep. 8: The anime mocking continues with the fight between the angels and the goblins. But who is that figure at the end of the episode?
-ep. 9: The prisoner finally breaks free, and it is revealed that he too is an angel.
-ep. 10: Dr. Graffis, the evil chemistry teacher, attacks and battles with Essence
-ep. 11: Dr. Graffis comes back to attack angain, and becomes a giant. Also, Santana meets up with the other angels.
Sptoeretlael - A new series based on people in Ripon. This will be more serious than TLOK. If TLOK is anime, then this is a comic book series.
-1: The First Episode
-2: The Sptoeretlael Activated
-3: Forested Trouble - Powers Galore
-3.5: Forested Trouble - Troll Versus Man, Tiger Versus Man, and Volcano Versus Man
-4: Filler Fanatics
-5: The Second Journey - Honey Escapes!
HSG - A series I may or may not continue, currently, it's just the trailer. If I do continue, it'll still be a few weeks...
-Trailer
Free-writing - I take out an hour or two to do stream of consciousness writing without distraction.
-8-8-09
-11-04-09

RANTS
NG Rants - Regular rants that I wrote as posts here on NG (sometimes, the rant is not the entire post)
-Things you may want to think about before entering a male pageant like I did.
-Wii Music is a great game. This is why I like it.
-News that has no bearing anymore
-Goals for the future, that are now mostly moot...and it doesn't even include the biggest ones.
-Life, the Universe and Everything
-Job description...and Pluto
-A thought that just occurred to me...a while ago...
FB Rants - Rants that I wrote specifically for FB, often times with a message I was hoping to drive home to specific persons
- Friendship Rant: A rant about redefining friendship..
- Unattainable Goals Rant: A rant about how certain goals are impossible to attain without a little help.
- Motivation/Understanding Rant: A rant about how I no longer understand some people, and about understanding things in general...
- The Love Rant: A rant about that indefinable emotion, love.
-Friendship Rant Vol. II: An (angry) rant about how friendship doesn't seem to be what it should, at least for me.
-Long Term/Life Goals Rant: A rant about how not having declared a major (and not really having any distinct idea) is bad, in my opinion.
-Dreams Rant: A somewhat nonsensical rant about dreams. This may cause more confusion than it is worth.
Emo Moments - Not really rants, but just some moments where I felt down on myself/my luck or think that everything that can go wrong is going wrong (for me and others)
-Annoyed due to something a friend said to me.
-A story of a Panda and a dilemma...that is now moot.
-Super shitty shit happens.
-More super shitty shit happens, to me and my friends...
-What I really want...
-Craziness
-Problems stemming from forgetfulness...

This post is a combination of a rant and a couple of writings.

YOUTUBE VIDEOS
French - Videos me and my friends did for la classe de Francais
- Bonne Anniversaire
- Bizzare Restaurante
- Augmentation d'obscuritie: L'as Noir des Coeurs (no subtitles yet...)
Global Insights - Videos me and my friend did for G.I. class
- LHC: The Movie: The Trailer
- Philanthropic Shenanagins
Music
- Jenn, Je t'aime
- Ca m'enerve
- Waste, Poor Jack, and C'est la Vie [note- c'est la vie isn't actually a french song, it just has a french title...]
- Telephone
-Headphones on Your Heart

Deleted Posts
This was just me re-iterating some things from the post before that went unread.
This was pretty much the story of my life...but after someone pissed me off, I deleted it for little reason.
This was the first index.
This was the fifth index.

RADIO SHOW

That is all.
Ben, aka bbbrrr aka nerdicus was here...

Same deal as last time. I do apologize if this offends you (though this one isnt nearly as offensive), and if you have a comment, dont marr the writing by putting it here, send it to me in a message. Thank you.

Also, this was cut short due to many distractions, including music from the hall and my roomie comming in a half an hour before I wanted to finish. I apologize if it feels undone or incomplete, but I was really distracted at the end, and he doesnt seem to have even noticed. Man, I need to schedule these with people next time...

The only thing that was edited was one name.
-----------

SO I finally decided to sit down and do another free write, and let me tell you, it has been hell finding the time. In fact, I shouldn't even be doing this, considering I have to do a bit of homework, but it doesn't matter, I'll get it done, no worries mate.
Ha, I haven't had outback steak house in a while...I used to love that place until they added tomatoes to my favorite dish there...and I hate tomatoes...
In fact, earlier today AW screwed up and put tomatos on my burger...It annoyed me until they gave me a free meal, which was nice...I didn't even ask for one. But the lady was nice when she saw that my burger clearly wasn't plain...
Anyhow, this totally isn't what I expected to be righting about, after all, free association is supposed to get down to what really matters, right? Tis what freud thought, no matter who believes him or not. Man, it is hard to keep up with my mind...sdidn't I run into that problem last time?
For those of you who don't know, I already did one of these in early august. I needed to get stuff of my chest and I needed an SNN, but the desire ended up being overcome by my need to utilize the bathroom...but I'm fine in that respect tonight...at least I hope I am. I better be. There is no way I am interrupting this, although I am leaving thoughts in the dust, which is a problem....
Anyway...speaking of problems, I have a few, don't I. Well...I actually don't have the two problems that are giving me the most worries, or shall I say three...those are actually problems my friends are having that I cannot helpo them on...and I feel so bad, despite the fact that there is nothing I can do about it...it just annoys me soo...and I don't know why. Its not like there is anything I can do about any of them...but that angers me. I want to help my friends, I want to know whats wrong, but I cant ask because I wont get an answer. I really do want to askwhat I missed when I drifted apart from you for a short while...something big happened and I completely missed it. You needed me and I want; there and theoreticallty, I could have helped you and stop the problem, but no, that didn't happen, now did it. When you needed me, I was nowhere to be seen. Well, that'll never happen again. You are one of my closest friends and I don't ever wish to abandon you ever again. I realize it wasn't even my fault, as you tell me not to blame it on myself (as does psychology), but I still do...and I feel like I could have stopped it, but, then again, I barely know ther problem and I don't know the solution and I couldn't have helped, even in retrospect...sigh...
'Ha...essence yelled at me for making her sigh in TLOK...I find that rather amusing. Perhaps she sighs more than she thinks (or less than I think or boith), but we'll never know, now will we...oh well....
Tlok is coming along not so great, btw...I keep on not being motivated because I am not actually by any of the characters anymore...I feel like I'm leaving you in the dust by writing sptoeretlale (had to pause for the spelling), and its true that I am, but there isn't much I can honestly do about that...does that make me a bad person?
Again, you would tell me no, I need to stop thinking down on myself...but then again, you do the same thing. I think we bother bother eachoter with our negative tendancies...but we don't fight that much...hahaha...oh well...
Anyway...yeah...I got nothing now...though that was impressive for a bit...I just went on and on and on and ond and n jfjhdfknm...
Damn, that didn't work ...
That didn't last long either...oh well...
I keep on running out of thoughts, and I skip some as I type others and for some reason I can hear tyler lecturing me about luck, which is odd because he never actually has...but nevertheless, I can hear him saying things like "no, luck is bad<' and the like...
Wow,...that was coherent...non.
Not, I manre...
Mean...I mean...
Wow...I am not typing well, am I
That another problem I ran into last time...I just wanst typing well,,,but lok at me now...I'm going well., anad I don't think I;ve made any mistakes recently...no...I looked at the screen and was proven worng...oh well...it could be worse...
Damn, I do say that I lot, and I always think that right after I say (or type) it...hmm...odd, n'est-ce pas? Oh well, c'est la vie...
La vie de moi, at least...
Hahaha...I just rememebered when derek said that about Rachel, and she punched me (comme d'habitude) because we were speaking French...I think that was funny...
Hmm...my neck is starting to cramp, which is a problem, sint it...
Let me readjust me seating arrangements...there we go...didn't help the neck, but helped posture in general...
I remember what Tauberry was saying about posture, not that I really ever listened to about half of what he said...seing as that was the half that I would reply to him with bald jokes...call it our way of communicating...
Yeah...I have to censor myself here, so I am going to skip my current though...
I said skip it...think of something else...it isn't working, I can feel it coming out...
Nvm...it has been shrouded by another problem, one of my friend derreks...
That is two "r"s on purpose, just an fyi...
He has been having many problems as of latew, and again, I am sad that I cannot help him...
Wow...how did I do that...I almost inserted a bullet...that was ooddd...
Must have hit control or alt something...wow...
I love ctrl Z, btw...
Best thing ever...Id use it now...but that would be a stupid thing to do when free writing...
Damn, I have to sneexe...wiat...wait...ok, itsa gone now...that's good...
It would have really distracted me...
Damn, I need to get earplugsa for this next time...the hall isn't exactly quiet...
And that sucks for me...
Well, considering I;ve already started, stopping would be bad, now wouldn't it...I really needed toi do this, and I set out the time specifically to do this, there is no way I'm stopping until the designated time...whi is still a ways to got...ok?
Ok. Good, glad I have an agreement with myself...
Crap, Is Hiro's windo open? Are those outside sounds? Damnital.., those are...cant they tell I'm doing a freewrite here? Gah, the gall of some people...
Gall is a funny word, it looks weird and is pronounced weird...
Apparently, I have back problems, so says the random demonstration from psych class...
I get to do psych experiments tomorrow...one is about morals and the other is about penguins...
Damn, I juts lost the game...
Hahaha...if anyone reads this, they'll be pissed at that...if they play the game, of course...which is unlikey...
But Rachel will probably find me And punch me after reading thast, because she does and she has done that before when I lost the game and caysed her to loose...
Its rather funny that way, sitn it...losing the game causes violence...well, not real violence, Rachel violence...the kind that is only harmfull to me when I get RSD from it...hahaha...she'll punch me for that too...
Don't believe me? She totally will...I could do an experiment on that...but I wont...
It would be hard to do anyway...without multiple Rachel smiths, it would be rather difficult...
And now I am thinking of the stochasitcity episode of radio lab, and the beginning thing with the ballon and how the radio show now has that name, thanks to radio lab, which wouold then be thanks to celena and prof hatcher for simulatnaiously showing/telling me about radio lab and compelling me to get the podcast, wich I did...and which I love...it is awesome...
Hahaha...wow...
Which...
Wich...
Why is it impossible to starve in the desert? Because of all the sand which is there! Hahaha...
Wow, bad joke from psych book...
Anywho, the psych book helped me realize something about someone again today...it mad eme realize that ********** has really high self esteem, which leads him to be aggressive and to think he is right and he can relate everything to himself...which is incorrect. Relating the fact that something that was horribly disfiguring and truly harmful being removed by almost a miracle and something not too bad being replaced by something that will cut my life shorter than most everyone else I know...not a sound comparison...wait,m did I say said person's anem...damn, Imma have to censor this one too...I had to censor the last one...
I do think I am finally over her...she is now out of my head, which is a good thing. My head is not where she belongs...she has her own needs, wants, problems, aspirationsa and whatnot that don't realte to me and mine.,..she shouldn't be in my head and it is a good thing wshe is out...but is she...if I am typing about her now, is she really out?
Yes.
Wow...that was simple...and why couldn't I do this about a year and a half ago? Oh yeah, because I was a different person then...speaking of a year and a half ago...
I got nothing...I coudnt even tell you what month a year and a half ago was, and I'm not going to stop to figure it out...that woul be silly and fallous...truly bothm truly both...
Wow, this is making my eyes tired...but that's what happeneswhen you are in a rom with no light but the computers backlight...
All of a sudden, the screen goes dark...white text appears on the screen, letter by letter...
I know what you did last summer...
Wow...I have an overactive imagination right now, that came out of nowhere...
Wow...Three brothers the novel is stalling, I cant seem to think of things for it...which is a problem...but luckily I have notes so that if I ever forget, I can refer to them later to get the story back in my head...
I do love writing...I'd be an English major if I thought I had to be to write...but I don't...that doesn't mean I wont take English classes, but I only have the one atm, and I don't have time for the others...
Btw, I'lln stop being quagsire on the tenth, after a full month...I may return to myself or become something new, but I wont be a quagsire anymore...nor will I be a wooper...and I probably wont be another pokemon, though it is undecided...
Hey, Rachel still has my ds...oh well...I wouldn't have the time to play it anyway...last time I played it was before the radio show on Friday...which seems to be the only thing I have to look forwar to anymore...
How dismal does that make my life - that I only have a radio show to look forward to? Well, that's not true...every day (well, at least four of them), I look forward to seeing Rachel in psych...I enjoy seeing my friends in class...I wish Tyler and I had a class...and that Derek and I had a class other than French...but oh well...for my closest friends here, it could be worse...
Damn, I do say that a lot, don't I...oh well
Wow, I also say that a lot too...oh well though, not much I casn do to change my habits...
Well, that depends who you ask...Prof hatcher would say we can through training...and I should look up thast video.. I know it couldn't possibly turn me off of meat (though that would be impressive if it could), but I should still look it up and write about it for a point...after all, I sadly enough don't always get the questions done on time...which I should be doing now, but hey, I have peace and quiet and people who would bother me are at the play or on the fifth floor (or looking for the person on the fifth floor) and the door says do not disturb in two places...but last time I said that, no one listened...because people don't listen to me...
Again, sad but true...and again, you would yell at me for being adowner, wouldn't you...but I don't care...I can be a downer at times...it is just how I am...and soi are many people...its better to be a downer than an upper...
UPer...
Hahahsa...
Wow...bad joke, I do apologize...
Wait, I didn't even make a joke,, oh well...
I am actually amazed,,,I haven't gotten that angry in this one yet, and I was really adamant by the end of my last one...maybe that shows that ripon really has changed me...
Of course, I was adamant in the last one because someon treated me like shit and then ignored the fact (and still ignores the fact that he treats me like shit some of the time...), but I suppose that is beside the point...now isn't it. There are better things to do than complain about how crappy things are...
See, really have changed...I would have dwelled on that had this been three months ago...and I did...but I am not...I am still just as annoyed and depressed, but it isn't coming out as aggression, it coming out as...well...annoyance and depression. Its not chanign forms, which is good or bad, depending on your view. Mine says that it is good, like a lot of the habits I am developing here, like not drinking much sod and drinking water and eatin apples...then again, I had a soda with my AW unch today and I haven't had a dinner and is that music from the hall? What the hell? What part of Do Not Disturb don't people get? I mean, have they no respect for the other members of the hall? I should tell them to shut it off, but it isn't that bad (despite it being hip hop, from what I can tell), and I can cope, and they wouldn't listen anyway and it would stop the writing and I cant do that because it is integral that I keep writing and my back is getting sweaty and my neck still hurts and is the music getting louder? No, my typing is getting softer...I'd shout, but my voice feels a bit horse atm...I mean hoarse...but anyway, it could be worse...damn, said it again...'
Oh well...
Damn, again...oh well again...
I'm am not going to fall into that loop, I shouldn't...still, that music is beginning to annoy me..I wish they would turn it off, but again, they wouldn't listen even if I TOLD THEM...OH WELL, C'EST LA VIE...IT COULD BE WORSE...
DAMN, AGAIN...WAIT...CAPS LOCK, DAMN...just SEC...ok...that's good...
I hopre,, at least...
Wow...ypos dying down or picking up, I so cannot tell...
Hey, Imma be in the brawlers tourney...and Imma be Lucas..and I don't know why that popped into my haed...oh, because I almost typed PK when typing picked...ah, that makes sense now...
Backwards thinking =normally does...damn, I think the music did get louder...wait, now I cant hear it...no, Now I can...damn, this is annoying me...seriously, I need earplugs next time I do this...it annoys me so...well, not so much, I gfuess I am being overly dramatic,...
Last time, I would've been really adamnt about this, but now, not so much...damn, I think I am becoming a nicer person...that's a good thing, right? It better be...You know, I love being politically talkative, but I don't like where it is leading recently, and it seems that most people here blindly follow...that's why derek is awesome, he doesn't blindly follow, nor does he quote comedians for reference...still, he like everyone else talks to much about it. We are here to learn, npot to debate which side is better and whatnot...grrr...that music is kinda getting on my nerves...Now ben, be nice about this, don't get angry...ok, that's better...the happty...well, not the happy, the nonaggression is back, lets say that. You know, I have to wonder...in those friend questions, one of them says "would ben ranes bail you out from jail?" and I would bail most of my friends out from jail, assuming I have the money, so I want to know who said no...but oh well...I am not interested enough to anser the ridiculous amount of questions to know...I am happy with the odd social interview questions...though I am a tad apprehensive about some...some I don't want to answer, or I do, but I don't want people to see my answer. After all, I did decide to swear off of relationships, which means not pursuing the one I really would like to...well, that and I don't think it is the best idea atm for other reasons...she needs to be away from relationships more than I do...then again, it doesn't matter. I am too afraid of rejection and the like to ever actually get up the nerve to ask, and I'll be the first to admit it. That, and the whole crappy commutnicationt hing is what damned me last year...but that is, again, beside the point, I need to be focusing on my studies...
Says the man blowing them off to do a free write...ha!
Well...its been an hour now, give or take, and last time I think I went longer and typed less, but that is not the point, now is it...wait, I think the music is done...REJOICE!
That was not in caps lock, btw...I don't actually use caps lock that much, I am a "hold down the shift key" kind of person, but that Is beside the point...
Damn, I say that a lot too...there are a lot of things I say a lot, aren't there...oh well, ti ould be worse (I did that on purpose, fyi)...
Hahaha,,,wow. Am enjoying this way too much and...am I in italics? Whoops,...not that people will see that, but that was kinda funny...I aleways do thayt, pushing control instead of shitft, then I have to control+z it all to hell...imagine that power...oh wait, I already did...hah...I just call it reverse of reverse, not control z...
Anyway, I stlll need three powers, don't i...but I can figure them out later. I have untilsunday to finish 5.5, after all, and I did get one power today, which I am pround of. Man, my FYS is showing up a lot in 5.5, isn't it...hahaha, that's kinda funny...
In any case, I should stop this soon, but I wont...I don't want too...voices in the hall...gone now...no bgack...sounds like paul and eric...but it cant be, they're at the play, which I am not at...and yet I could have been...oh well...and the music is back now too...what the heck, why now...damn...and now my roomie is about to enter...and he is entering, and the music is so much lousder since the door is oipen and a light is now and hes walking around and I am so disteracted right now itrs now even funny and he turned on another light.,..well, I geuss I am done now...lost all my thoughts...still, for an hour and five minutes, its not that bad...

Bye bye.

???
Sethos was running down a street. He turned left, and continued running. He turned left again, then made a quick right. "I'm almost away from him," he muttered as he ran. He jumped at a ladder above the ground and he barely latched on. He climbed up it, and then turned. He started climbing the steps on the side of the building, trying to get to the top. He looked down and saw a man beginning to climb the ladder, but by now Sethos had reached the top. He was on the roof of a building, but he didn't have time to take in the sights. He started running again, jumping to a lower rooftop. He looked back, but swore when he saw he was still being followed. He jumped off the building, grasped out and caught a flagpole, then swung himself on it to create some momentum. He jumped and smashed through a window. He rolled and got back up, running as he did so. He opened the door and burst down the hall. It appeared he was in some sort of high class hotel, but again, he didn't have the time to take in the sights. He got to the main hall. He had three options - take the elevator, which would give him a rest, jump down to the lobby (a few floors below), or take the stairs. He pressed the elevator button, waited a few seconds, and then just said "screw it" as he jumped down the stairs, landing on the banister and sliding the rest of the way. He got a few looks as he jumped off, then went and ran to the other side of the lobby. He jumped a couch as he made his way for the side door. He opened it, but stopped immediately. The man who he had been running from stood there, smiling at him. A wind blew, causing the man's long hair to glide with the breeze.
The man reached out his hand and hit Sethos's chest.
"Tag, you're it."
The man then bolted the other direction.
Sethos paused, swore, and took off after the man.
* * *
BEN
I'm not one to rush recklessly into unknown situations. That just isn't my style. I either approach with caution or wait until I know more. I'd love to equate this to Yu-Gi-Oh, but I'll skip the obvious nerd reference. Thus, naturally, when people ask me "Hey Ben, when are we going back into the portal," my natural response is something along the lines of "Honey, we have to wait until we know more about the portal so we don't blindly walk into a lethal environment."

I say that my typical response revolves around Honey because she is the only person who desperately wants to go into the portal. Not even Tim, the most eager person in the world about his powers and using them, wants to go back into the portal.
Honey would argue that's because he has powers from being in the portal once. She doesn't, which is why she needs to go.
Then my line goes something along the lines of "I'm sorry Honey but I'm not taking anyone back into the portal for a while until we know more about it, and that is FINAL."
And then she storms out of my room in a huff for about five minutes, then comes back to hang out some, or maybe ask me again, or to try and teach everyone on the floor to Tango (because my room is now a dance studio...).

Or at least that is how it went for a few days. But one Monday night, when I guess I was a tad more adamant than normal, she stormed off in a huff and didn't return in five minutes. At the time, I thought nothing of it. I even went to sleep thinking it might have actually sunk in. Of course, I was wrong.
I awoke at the normal time, went to breakfast, and then back to sleep. I woke up to a loud pounding on my door. Naturally, this isn't how I really want to wake up in the morning.
I rolled out of bed (fully clothed since I already showered and ate), and opened the door. Fabrizzio rushed in. "BEN! HONEY IS GONE!"
"Now Fabrizzio," I said, still partially waking up, "I'm sure you're just over-reacting. She is just somewhere else..."
He moved my door so I could see my dry-erase board. Instead of the lovely phrase I wrote on it the previous night, written upon my board was a note from Honey. It said "Ben, if you won't take me to the portal, I guess I'll go by myself. I'll be back soon, with awesome superpowers to show for it. Also, I am taking a few friends so I don't get lonely (or eaten). Bye, Honey."
I paused after reading it, taking a second to process the information.
"So she is gone. Okay. Well, I'm sure she'll be back soon, like she said."

He looked at me. Well, stared actually. I think he couldn't believe that I would just leave her there. Truth be told, a part of me couldn't believe it either. In fact, I knew that, if Jenny was awake inside my head, she'd be giving me hell about this. Thankfully, she was still asleep (she accustomed herself to sleep through my classes and my sleep cycle), so I didn't have to deal with her.
Still, I felt that it was Honey's fault for going against what I said in the first place. In fact, I said just that to Fabrizzio.
"So maybe it was her fault," he responded. We were sitting in the lounge now - it was more comfortable than standing. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't go and save her."
"Yes," I said, "but how will she ever learn to avoid dangerous situations and listen to the people who know what they are talking about if we bail her out every time she gets in trouble?" It felt like I was talking about some troubled teen in jail.

"But if she wasn't in real trouble, wouldn't she have come back by now?"
"Not necessarily," said a voice from the hall. It was Tim. He must have been listening to our conversation. He came down and sat with us. "It may take a while for them to get back out of the portal. We don't know how our time relates to time there."
"Yeah, but last time we came out at almost the exact same time we went in. Why would it be different?"
I tried to think of how to explain it, and I realized I had the perfect way. "A series of books I read," I began, "is based upon there being two universes - ours and a demon universe. That universe has countless worlds that time affects much differently. For example, in one realm time could be sped up greatly, while it could be slowed down by twice as much in another."
"Yeah, but does the portal really work like that?"
"Who knows? Certainly not me..." Fabrizzio looked at me again, this time with a somewhat sad stare. I felt like he was trying to guilt me into going, even though I had no clue if we could even go to the same place that Honey went, and what time we would get there relative to her. We didn't even know where she went...
"Fine...gather the troops."

We didn't have the amount of troops I wanted. We had substantially less. Still, I suppose we had to make do. This was a Tuesday - people have class and homework they want to do. They don't have time to go on rescue missions for reckless people.
I was happy that we were able to round up a decent amount of people. We had Derek, Tyler, Casey, Lori, JoHanna, Ashton, Rachel, Ashley, Becky, Kyle, Charles, Tim, Fabrizzio and myself. Fourteen people was good enough to make a few teams to go and rescue a person or two...at least I hoped so.
Either way, we headed to the portal. We got to the pub, and I touched the hieroglyphic and muttered "Sptoeretlael," and we shot downward again. Those who had never experienced this were a tad shocked and disoriented, but in general, I think they enjoyed the ride. We were back in the chamber, and it looked exactly as we last left it...except for one thing.

You can skip this part if you want. It's totally boring and will never be used or referenced in the series. So yeah...you can skip down a few paragraphs if you want and resume at "The five who hadn't yet seen the Sptoeretlael..."

The thing that I noticed I didn't even realize until weeks later. However, when I looked at the portal, I saw that, on the stony rim around the Sptoeretlael, there were eight odd symbols on the top. They looked like octagons with intricate little drawings inside. The truly odd thing about it was that two of them were subtly glowing a purple color.
Now, when I realized I had noticed this, I also realized that I noticed that, when we were sucked into the Sptoeretlael, only one was glowing. I don't remember seeing any glowing the first time we went to the ruins. This was supported by the conclusion I made when I realized that I had noticed this.
Of course, telling you when and why I realized this would inform you about future events, which is something I would never do. Thus, if you bothered to read this little sidenote, you can have time to ponder it for a while, because the answer won't be here any time soon.
Back to the adventure!

The five who hadn't yet seen the Sptoeretlael were amazed. Then again, I was as well. They looked around in sheer amazement and awe at the ruins. They were completely enthralled...well, not completely. I am sure that they had other things on their minds, like their powers, but not being them, I wouldn't know. Fabrizzio, JoHanna and Rachel were pointing out some of the cool things they had noticed.
Meanwhile, Tyler turned to me and asked "So, how exactly are we going to follow her?"
"Well," I said, "I think we should split into teams. We need a recon team, since we're exploring a brand new place. A larger rescue team will be stationed where we land, to rescue the recon team or help rescue Honey when she is found. That team can also use the portal to go back if we need reinforcements for any reason."
"That's not what I meant. I mean, how do we assure that we go where they went?"
"Well," I said, pulling out The Hero's Guide to Superpowers, Ancient Portals and Ultimate Evil, "this book might just tell us."
Tim looked at the book for a second. "Wow," he said. "I completely forgot about that, since you haven't used it in a few episodes."

I ignored him and scrolled through the book. However, much to my chagrin, I came up with nothing; I put the book back in my pocket (it was almost always there anyway, in case I ever needed to reference it). I sighed angrily.

Hey, Sethos, do you have any ideas?
You should figure it out yourself. Why do I have to be the knowledgable one?
Because...well, I don't know.
You'll figure it out. Just trust your instincts...well, in this case at least. Don't do that in real life - I would like to stay alive.

I then looked at the Sptoeretlael. "Sptoeretlael," I began, speaking to it directly. It got me some odd looks. "We believe that a friend of mine may have run in here earlier today or last night." The void of Sptoeretlael lit up, and we saw a picture of Honey going into the portal, dragging Reilly and being followed by Kathryn. "Great," I said, turning to everyone else. "She brought people with her, just like she said she might. How fun. Well, now we definitely need to rescue. Sptoeretlael," I said, speaking to it directly again, "would you please allow us to follow them?" It whirred affirmatively (at least I thought it did) and it lit up again. I turned to everyone. "We ready to go in there and rescue three silly girls?"
I got a bunch of nods (though I think Derek wanted to protest), and I then ran in. I guess everyone followed, because we all were being sucked to a new world, time, or both.

DANIEL
Hey, I get to narrate. Sweet!
Anyway...
Well, after I got back from class that Tuesday, I began looking for people. It seemed like half of our floor was missing, possibly because half of our floor actually was missing. I knew Ojash was at art, but I couldn't find anyone else...except for Paul and Eric. The three of us couldn't figure out where they went, until Eric noticed a note on Ben's door. It said "Hey guys, we went to rescue Honey. Be back in a while, Ben P.S. Tim, Fabrizzio, Derek and Tyler are with me, as well as a few others...talk to Murray if anything comes up. He's a robot, he can handle it. Ben"
We took his suggestion (after grabbing Hiro, just getting back from class), and went to Murray's room. We knocked, but got no answer.

"Where could he be?" Hiro asked.
"I bet someone tried to break the fourth wall and Murray went after 'im," I said.
"Sounds reasonable," Eric said. "Well, what do we want to do while waiting for them?"
"We should go and practice our powers," Paul suggested. It sounded like a good enough idea to me, so we departed. Michael found us before we even left the building.
"Where are you guys going?"
"We're headed to the prairie to practice our powers," Eric answered.
"I'll be there in a bit."

On our way there, we ran into Ojash, who had left class early after creating illusions of good artwork (he could never create good artwork in real life though), and he agreed to come with us and practice. Michael joined us shortly after (he had ran to follow us, though I can't imagine why he would think he had to). The six of us made it to the entrance of the prairie, where we met up with Jordan. "Hey guys," he said. "What are you doing here?"
"We came to practice with our powers," I said. "What about you?"
"I saw some odd stuff over here, so I decided to investigate it. Although, practicing does sound good too." We all continued along the path, heading to the outdoor classroom.

We got to the entrance of the prairie and saw that someone was already there practicing her powers - Meghan Raebel. I wasn't really sure if she even saw us at first. She was doing random things that I couldn't quite tell what they were. She did a few more random things that I couldn't quite understand (like throwing a ball that then returned to her hand), but I then remembered that her power was some kind of reversal thing - Ben had her reverse his power to cause the volcano to implode instead of explode. Happy I remembered this, I chuckled softly. I don't think she knew we were there until then, and she turned around and saw us.
"Oh, hey guys," she said. She then paused. "Where is everyone else?"
"We aren't quite sure," I responded.
"Yeah," Eric said. "Something about rescuing Honey and stuff like that..."
"Honey would need rescuing," she said in response. "So I take it you're all that he didn't take?"
"Well, we aren't quite sure," I said. "We keep finding more people...like Jordan and yourself."
"Ah."
There was a bit of a silence, and then we got to practicing our powers...for all of about ten seconds. After those ten seconds, there was a large explosion by the other end of campus, followed by another two in close vicinity.
"So," I said, "do you think Ben's back yet?"
"Probably not," Paul said, "but let's check anyway."

The eight of us headed back down from the prairie. I don't think any of us actually believed that Ben was back and causing explosions, seeing as he is the one who had wanted us to keep our powers below the radar. However, whether it was him or not, we kinda did have a responsibility to check on the situation. After all, if something was going down, we were the ones who had to stop it. Ben wasn't there to stop it, as was the case last time something went down.
I paused for a second, thinking about how Ben had been acting differently since finding the book, and even more differently since finding the portal. And then last week with the whole almost change of personalities when he fought that shadowy guy...he was acting different, that's for sure. I wonder if we just haven't ever seen these sides of him, or if it was something else. Then again, other people, like Ojash had also been acting strangely as well. It seemed he was becoming more mischievous than ever...

I put it all out of my mind though and tried to think of what could've possibly caused these explosions. Tries and failed actually. But it didn't matter. We got there (after a bit of walking, since none of us wanted to run and we couldn't think of a better idea) and could see that, along with Ben's sister and an army of squirrels already on the scene, there was a man in a red skull mask. The man saw us (at least I think he did, he was wearing a mask, after all) and an explosion erupted in front of us. This wasn't Ben. Ben made explosions by snapping. This guy didn't. However, again, that didn't matter. It was now nine of us against one of him. He stood no chance. I changed my arm into a sniper rifle and slowly took aim. Ojash was protecting me with an illusion and Jordan was preparing to transform into his defensive mode. None of this was necessary though. The man paused, turned, and then ran. An explosion at his feet shot him up and he shot through the skies via explosions.

"After him!" I shouted.
All nine of us ran after this masked man, and I had to wonder who this masked man was and how he had Ben's powers. Then again, I also had to wonder how this man got his powers too. Surely he didn't get them from the portal, but then from where did he get them? However, the most pressing concern in my mind was how the heck we were going to follow this guy!

BEN
We were in a somewhat wet climate. It felt a tad swampy. However, I saw only a few trees, and they were all dead. What I did see was buildings...buildings made of stone and crumbling. They were impressively large and intricate, and they very much reminded me of Mayan temples, or at least the images we had of them. I also noted that we seemed to be in an overly dead place. Excepting the trees, it seemed as if no life was here. In fact, there wasn't even vegetation on the ground...there was just rust-colored soil. I knew we couldn't be on Earth now. The two reasons for this were that there was a giant asteroid moving across the sky (rather slowly) and the soil wasn't just rust-colored, it was red. I paused for a second, realizing further where exactly we were. It all made sense...in a way. Red soil, wet and swampish climate, little life, giant asteroid that appeared to be orbiting the planet - we traveled through both time and space. I realized this because I realized we had traveled to Mars's past.

Watch where you step, for the monsters could be right behind you. Do you have a guardian angel? Our world has seven, all led by one man (who is currently indisposed due to undisclosed gall bladder troubles).
This is his story.

*o*o*o*
Ep. 11, Arc 1 (Psychic City Arc), Ep. 6: The Giant and The Accused
o*o*o*o

Finally getting Derrek off of Ben, Keith sighed. He turned to Essence. "Well, I guess your city will know about monsters now..."
"Yeah, they will. I'll probably leave with you guys. It appears as if that is where I belong."
Ben chuckled. "Like we even know where we belong...those damned walruses didn't really help us much. I hope they have better information when we get back there."

There was another cackle. It appeared Dr. Graffis wasn't quite done yet. She rounded a corner and came roaring at them, throwing an innumerable amount of flasks filled with questionable stuff at them. However, this time Ben and Keith were ready. They both stuck out their wings and shot. Keith used Twinkies to clog up flasks, while Ben shot throwing knives to shatter the others. Soon, there were no flasks left, and Dr. Graffis was left without a weapon.
She cackled again. "You think you've won? Really? Well let's see about this!" She took out another flask, but this time drank the liquid in it. She transformed into a...a llama.
"Damn it, wrong flask," she said...at least that's what they had to assume. She just grunted and made llama noises, and thusly she wasn't coherent. But she got out another flask (though no one is sure from where) and downed it.

This time she transformed into herself, but gigantic. She was almost as tall as a four story building. She got out her stirrer/staff, and began jabbing a giant end of it at us.
"Damn," Derrek said, "I had hoped she wouldn't turn into a giant. I hate those things."
"Then here's your chance to take out that aggression," Keith said. "Sic 'er Kermit!"
Derrek took the suggestion quite literally. He charged at Dr. Graffis, grasping onto the stirrer with his mouth and attempting to climb it. She noticed this and began spinning it quickly. Derrek was attempting to hold on by his mouth, but eventually the force was too much and he flew off, spewing slimy green vomit as he flew into a building and dropped.

"Eww..." seemed to be the collective sentiment. Keith shielded himself with his wings, while Ben pulled out an umbrella and Essence joined him under it. The slime fell and coated the ground. Ben's umbrella almost gave way, but was reinforced by Essence's wings. Keith's wings, on the other hand, weren't enough, and he ended up looking worse than Dr. Graffis, a giant now coated in slime as well. She tried to wipe it off, but that seemed to only make the situation worse. She stepped forward and slipped backward into a building. Shouting in agony, she got back up, wiped herself clean, and pulled out one last flask. This one, however, was empty. She pressed a button on the bottom and it sucked up the slime on her and on the ground near her. She pocketed the flask again, and then looked at the four of them. Derrek was back on his feet again, and Ben had put away the umbrella (after shaking it off of course). Keith was attempting to wipe himself off, and Derrek seemed to be apologizing for it.
"Pitiful fools. You'll never be able to defeat me with such cheap tactics."
"Yes," Ben said, "because we were truly trying to defeat you with sphinx vomit."

"Time Bomb, I should destroy you right now. In fact, I think I will."
She twirled her giant stirrer and stabbed it a Ben, who quickly pulled out a longsword and deflected the jab. Essence flew out of the way, and Dr. Graffis tried again, with the same result. "Fine then," she said. "Have it your way!"
She brought it back and then grabbed one end and slammed it down at Ben. He smirked. "Perfect." He brought his wings up and pointed them out. As the stirrer slammed down, he used his wings to slice it in half and then pull it in two, not only protecting himself, but effectively destroying her weapon.
"NOOOO!!!" screamed Dr. Graffis. The rest of the stirrer cracked and fell, returning to its original size as it did so. It was back to the size of an ordinary lab stirrer. She was visibly angry now. She started taking random swipes at Essence, who was easily floating around them. Running in to try and stomp on the other three, she almost stepped on Derrek, who rolled out of the way and then ducked for cover. Ben and Keith took flight and Ben passed his longsword to Keith. Ben then pulled out another, and the two of them rushed in.

There was a loud BZZZT sound, and Dr. Graffis's eyes went blank. She swayed a little, and then fell forward, causing the angels to dodge out of the way. Behind where she had been hovered Santana, who apparently shocked her unconscious with one shot. Dr. Graffis then returned to normal size.
"Santana," Ben shouted. "Great to see you!"
Keith looked at him. "Santana? I thought his name was Dak..."
"Shush! I changed it to Santana, remember?"

FLASHBACK
Ben, Essence, and Keith were sitting outside of the school one day a while ago when Dak...Santana came up to them. "Hey guys," he said. "I changed my name to Santana, just so you know."
"Why would you do that," Essence asked.
"Well...I kinda had to escape those charges..."
"Dude," Ben said, "I can help you fight them."
"That won't really help if the charges are true..."
Essence and Keith looked away for a second, but Ben just shrugged. "Have it your way, I suppose."
"That kind of thinking is what caused this mess in the first place!"
"Oh, right..."

PRESENT DAY
"Oh yeah," Keith said, "you totally did. How did that go?"
"Let's not talk about it. Anyway, I have some news for you guys, but first, I was wondering something. Why are you guys in the lower Appalachians?"
Ben looked at Keith. "Lower Appalachians? I thought you said you knew how to get back."
"I thought I did...I guess I didn't though. Good thing Da...I mean Santana came to rescue us."

At that point, Derrek came out of hiding and pounced on Santana. "Santana!"
"Derrek? My you've grown. Quite literally, in fact."
"Nice to see you good buddy. How've you been?"
"Good. I got wings made of lightning. How bout you?"
"Aw, nothing. I was just turned into a sphinx by a witch."
"A green sphinx though?"
"Don't ask me..."
"Wait wait," Keith said. "You mean to tell me that you weren't born a sphinx?"
Ben stared at him. "Keith. You were there when Derrek was kidnapped. You mean to tell me you didn't put two and two together?"
"Yeah Keith," Essence said. "I even figured it out, and I've only seen him as a sphinx twice."
"Shut up, okay? Let's just go to Orlando."
"OFF TO SEAWORLD," Santana shouted. And the five of them departed, headed in what was hopefully the correct direction and leaving a ruined city and an evil chemistry teacher behind them.

END OF ARC 1
TO BE CONTINUED...

FABRIZZIO
So, I decided to try to steal Ben's guitar and test my powers at the same time.
It didn't go well.

The first problem was that I can't quite stop time yet - I can only slow it down and speed it up.

The second problem was that I have a difficulty moving and maintaining the control at the same time. I mean, I look damn cool when I use my powers. The color drains from my body and I become a monochrome person...and in the right light I look actually chrome. It looks sweet (I got Honey to take a few picture of it for me too...)
Anyway, I went into his room, time slowed greatly, and I snuck in quickly and grabbed the case. I then got up and ran out. Ben noticed me and began to chase me...in slow motion.

This was where the third problem came into play. I stopped to laugh at his slow motion running...and lost control. Instead of returning time to normal, I accidently sped it up for him...and he hit me with a super fast punch.
I flew through the open door and hit the wall (in slow-mo again, thankfully) and then got up. Ben was chuckling. He said "Fabrizzio, I appreciate the effort you took, and I only have one thing to point out."
"And what might that be?"
"Next time you go to steal my guitar case," he said, "make sure the guitar is in it!" He pointed to his guitar, lying on his bed, right where Honey and I had left it before we went to take pictures.
* * *
BEN
It had been a few days since we had traveled into the Sptoeretlael. We had a fairly easy time keeping our secret just that - a secret. Amazingly enough, no time actually passed within the portal. We got out the exact time we went in...so to speak. I would figure that, if we were to stay in there for a longer amount of time, we would still age, but time wouldn't technically pass.

Large and difficult concept, I know.

Most of us didn't even try using our powers until late at night. Sure, many of us were curious, but we waited until no one else was around to experiment (except for Tim, who was shooting chains left and right. I wonder if he had any control...). The only one of us who could actually get away with using his power outside was Ojash, and he used it a lot. A few of us developed a knack for seeing through his illusions, but most everyone else at the college was fooled.
The only other person using her powers in broad daylight was my sister, who seemed to be organizing the vast legions of Ripon College squirrels into tiny little regiments and having fun with them. At first, one might think that a superpower that attracts cute animals and allows one to communicate with them would be useless. However, that quickly changes when one gets to Ripon and sees the massive squirrel army that my sister has amassed. Sometimes I wonder about her and her squirrels...

Speaking of powers, less than a week after our trip, everyone knew what their power was and had a descent grasp on it. Well, everyone except for Tyler. He still couldn't figure out his power for the life of him. However, he wasn't at a full loss. He was one of three people (and one robot) other than myself who knew what my power was, mainly because he was one of the few people who noticed that I caused the volcano to collapse (with Miss Raebel's help). In fact, Tyler seemed to be much more intuitive and much more observant than anyone else, at least since we got back from the future Earth. Not really a superpower, but helpful nonetheless.

I really felt we needed a place where we could all just practice our powers where no one would see and where no one could get hurt. I also felt that it would be useful to make some accessories to augment our new powers and abilities. However, the thing that I felt was most important (and on this, Murray, Tyler, Derek and many others agreed) was that we needed a way to control where the Sptoeretlael takes us. Being flung randomly from place to place may get a few things accomplished, but seems to lack any kind of plan. Now, I was sure that the Sptoeretlael had some built in mechanism for this (like its ways to easily get there and back and its cloaking ability) but I didn't really know how to activate it. For the time being, we wouldn't worry about it though. We had no need to go back into the portal. Still, I really wanted to control it.

"Shut up. You don't need to control it," Jenny said to me as I was thinking out loud on the fifth floor of Scott again. "The portal gave you powers to serve its needs. If it wanted you to control it, I imagine it would have given you a way."
"And what gives you so much insight on this matter?"
"I...I...I don't know. But I don't think you should be talking about controlling it."

For once, I agree with the girl. You shouldn't be acting like it is some thing to control.
You know what I mean. I mean control in the sense of not going to random places.
You go where the Sptoeretlael says you go. End of story.

I had to wonder why they were both so touchy on the subject. Then again, not actually knowing what either of them was, it was understandable that I didn't know.
I soon realized that, just like before, the secret of our expedition wasn't tightly sealed. And by soon, I mean as soon as I finished that little thought.

"BEN!!!!" Honey shouted, bursting in from the stairwell. If anyone was actually studying, they would have been noticeably shaken and irritated. "Why didn't you invite me to the portal?"
"Honey, shush please..."
"I should've been there," she said, as if I hadn't interjected. I actually doubt she heard me. "I could have been so helpful, and I would have made it so you got out much earlier."
Honey continued talking, but I tuned her out. "Ben," Jenny said while I was ignoring Honey, "you have some odd friends, don't you."
"Honey," I practically shouted to get her attention. Thank goodness no one was actually studying... "How did you find out that we even went somewhere?"

"Fabrizzio told me." She began talking again, but I heard none of it. I headed down the stairs and went straight to Fabrizzio's room...but he wasn't there. He was in my room, playing my guitar and wearing my sunglasses.
"It figures," I sighed. "Fabrizzio, why did you tell Honey?" I asked, with Honey just now getting to my room as well. I think she finally stopped talking.
"Well, after Tim told Kyle, I figured we were all allowed to tell someone..."
"And why would you...wait...Tim told Kyle? Damnitall!"
"Hey, if it makes it any better," he said, following me as I headed for Tim's room, "I only told Honey and I don't think anyone told anyone else." I then heard him mutter under his breath "and if they did, they'll have to deal with your wrath."
"Damn straight. I thought we were trying to keep this low-key." I entered Tim's room without even knocking. Sure enough, he was in there with Kyle, showing off his power. "I guess I was wrong," I said, glaring at Tim.
"Hey, you never said we couldn't tell people," Tim said, standing up while defending himself.
"Yes, I did. Quite clearly, actually. Murray can do a playback." Fabrizzio fetched Murray, and we plugged him into Tim's TV.

MURRAY
Video Playback...
We were in the ruins with Sptoeretlael again. Ben touched the hieroglyphic and we shot up into the message center of the Pub. We were about to disperse, then Ben shouted, "Hey, remember, keep this on the DL. We don't want to tell anyone about this, you hear me? Not until we know more. KEEP IT QUIET!"
Everyone made some sort of affirmative notion, than we went our separate ways.
End Playback.

BEN
"Told you." Tim looked at me.
"Okay," he said, "I guess you did. That doesn't mean I heard it!"
"So you just weren't paying attention when I said something important?"
"I guess...hey, don't turn this on me. I wouldn't have done it if..."
"Lemme guess, if someone else hadn't done it first."
"Yeah...I heard JoHanna and Lori told Ashton..."
"And how does that make it right?" I complained, leaving the room in a huff. I guess I had some business in Tri now.
As I walked down the hall, Fabrizzio's roommate Charles came out of their room. "What's all the commotion about?" he asked.
"You guys might as well tell him, not like it is that much of a secret anymore," I said, heading to my room to grab a few things and then heading out. Before I left, I leaned into Fabrizzio's room, where he, Charles, Honey and Murray all were. "I'm calling a meeting of EVERYONE tonight. Spread the word ONLY TO THOSE WHO ALREADY KNOW!" I headed down the stairs, muttering under my breath.

When I got to their common room in Tri, I wasn't at all surprised to see that - apart from Lori, JoHanna and Ashton - Tyler, Derek and Casey were in there too. "Hey Ben," Derek said, noticing me right as I walked in. "We were just about to call you and ask if you could come over here."
"Really now? And for what reason?" I responded, a small amount of anger in my voice.
"Oh, we just wanted to talk..."
Great, I thought, just great. Derek was up all night again. He always sounds like he is drunk when he goes without sleep.
"About what..."
"You know, the portal..."
"You mean the Sptoeretlael."
"Ben," Tyler said, "if you think Derek is going to pronounce that in his sleep deprived state [score one point for me, I thought], then you have another thing coming."

"True... So what about the Sptoeretlael did you wish to talk about?"
"Well," JoHanna said, "for starters, we accidently told Ashton." She waved innocently. "I hope you don't mind."
"Well," I started.
"Oh, great," Derek interrupted, "here comes a disapproving rant."
"You know me," I said. "Anyway, I would have been fine, if it was just one person. Quite frankly, 19 is an odd number." I paused. "Figuratively speaking, I mean."
"Wait, there are only 18 of us..." Tyler said.
Damn. I have to remember to leave Jenny out of my count.
"That's what I meant, 18. Anyway, I wouldn't have minded if it was just one more person, but because of this, we have at least four more, Ashton included, and maybe more."

"Really?" Tyler said. "How did we cause this?"
"Well, word got out that you informed Ashton, which led to Tim telling Kyle, which led to Fabrizzio telling Honey and Charles, his roommate."
"That," Casey said, "would be my fault. I may have let it slip to Tim that we told Ashton...but I never meant for him to tell Kyle!"
I paused. I didn't know if it was Casey's fault, chiefly because part of me believed that Derek, in his sleep deprived state, would have easily told his roommate Tim that they had told Ashton. However, I didn't feel the need to push it. "Anyway, we have four more for the group, maybe even more as well. Who knows who else told someone?"
"Actually," Casey said, "me and Rachel kinda told Becky about it too..."

I put my forehead in my hands and sighed. "Why do I have to be the one in charge? Why me, the one no one listens to?"
"Well," Jenny responded, "maybe it is because you are so smart, or maybe because you are the only one who can handle it."
"Somehow, I doubt that..."
"What was that?" Tyler asked, looking at me oddly.
"Nothing, I was just talking to myself." It was true, after all. I heard Sethos chuckle at the thought.
"Are you sure? You've been acting a bit odd recently..."

"Yes, well, that is partially because it is my fault that everyone now has superpowers that they can use to kill each other, and some sort of evil may be after us all soon, and all of this is my fault, but other than that I'm fine."
With that, I got up and left the room. "Hey," I heard Derek shout after me, "we still want to talk about more stuff." It was too late. I was ignoring them, on my way out of their room and toward Rachel and Becky's room. I then walked into an invisible wall that covered the door, created by Derek's power. "It may have been dubbed ultimate defense," he said, "but that isn't all it can be used for. This thick barrier will keep you in here."
"Thick barrier, eh?" I said. I paused and felt for it. I touched it. "Yep, it does seem thick. I wonder how sturdy it is..." I focused for a second and snapped, and the barrier, although invisible, shattered into tiny pieces. It was an audible shattering too, and then I said, "not very stable. You may want to work on that." I proceeded on my way to Rachel and Becky's room.

I knocked on Rachel and Becky's door and heard a voice other then one of theirs saying come in. I opened the door and, much to my surprise (in a sheerly sarcastic tense), Ashley was in the room with them.
"Hey exploding snap kid," Ashley said as I entered. I paused. "I take it that you," I said, turning to Rachel, "told them about the portal?"
"Well," Rachel said, "Casey told Becky...and I had to tell Ashley. You're lucky I didn't tell anyone else."
"Yeah, that's for sure," I muttered. Again, Jenny laughed at me.
"Hey," Rachel said, "you should be happy for me. I figured out your power. Normally, I'm not that observant."
"I knew you figured out my power. I knew that you were one of about five people paying attention when I made the volcano implode by having Meghan use her powers on me. I congratulate you for being one of the few people paying attention when everyone should have been."
"Wow," Becky said, "you really are sarcastic, aren't you."
"Yes," Rachel said, "he really is."
"Why no, I'm never sarcastic..."
That earned me another punch from Rachel. My arm started to develop a bruise...
I began to walk out of the room. "Feel free to tell them whatever Rachel. There'll be a meeting tonight, around 8ish, outside probably. We have around five or six new people, but it's not to explain things..."
"Aye aye captain."
I went back to my room, making sure everyone got the message.

Having no clue how long the meeting would last, I decided to take a nap beforehand, so that I had all the time we would need for the meeting and then homework afterwards. I quickly fell asleep after setting my alarm.
I was in a dark environment, and I was almost weightless. Other than myself and a lone figure a short ways away, there was nothing there. I thought it was a dream, but it didn't really feel like one.
The figure began walking toward me (which slightly confused me, seeing as I couldn't even begin to figure out how to move in this weightless space, let alone walk on a non-existent floor.

"Don't worry about it," the figure said. I recognized the voice in seconds - it was Sethos. "I don't have much time here."
"So you do have a body..."
"Only in your mind, which is where we are right now...well, in a way."
"My mind is an empty place of darkness?"
"Only this small portion. If you think of the mind as a Mansion, this is a closet."
"Oh, okay. Why have you brought me here?"
"I want to give you the little bit of insight I can. I have been reading your thoughts and I want to tell you that they are wrong about me. I am not an evil spirit, I am not a part of you, and I am certainly not the Sptoeretlael or one of its protectors, like yourself."
"Normally I'd ask how I could trust you, but this seems pretty believable, considering we are floating in my mind..."
"Yes, well...not really. You are asleep. I am just hacking into your dreams."
"Ah...fun..."
"Yes, endlessly so. Anyway, I cannot tell you what I am, for the rules I must adhere to forbid it. However, you are right to assume that I have your best interests and the portal's best interests at heart, not one or the other."
"What are you?"
"When time comes, it will be revealed. Don't worry. Next time you visit the portal, I am sure you'll see a clue."
"One last thing...what exactly is Jenny then?"
"The girl? She is not what I am...and while I have an idea, I am not sure enough to convey it..."

His voice was getting very faint, and an odd beeping was heard in the background. I recognized it immediately. It was my alarm. I woke up. I sighed and reflected on what he said before grabbing my coat and heading out to meet the others.
* * *
Being that we had such a large amount of people, we were outside on the union lawn. It was around 8 pm, and it was just now getting fully dark in the sky. Everyone had made it on time (which I was very happy about) and so I began. I addressed the group in a quiet but assertive voice.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I am a tad annoyed right now, but I am going to put that aside for the moment. We have been granted a large responsibility here. We have knowledge that other people may never get, and why? Because we were lucky enough to stumble across this portal."
"Well," Kyle said, "some of us didn't stumble across this portal. Some of us don't have these amazing powers the rest of you have."
"Having these powers is indeed a great thing Kyle," I responded, "but it is also a burden. We have to use our powers responsibly, be sure we don't hurt anyone with them, and all the other things that come with being super powered in a world that isn't used to that.
"Besides," I continued, "the portal granted us these powers and who's to say it won't take them away? It granted us these powers to defend itself against some sort of ultimate evil that was going to manifest itself. We are truly lucky this evil hasn't appeared yet. I'd feel horrible if something happened to any of you because of a discovery I made..."
"Ben," Tyler said, "we all made the choice to come here, and we all made the choice to be a part of this expedition. We all realize the risks, so you shouldn't feel like it is on only your shoulders."
"I know, but it just feels as if a foul wind is blowing."

Almost on cue, a foul wind did begin to blow, figuratively speaking of course. There was a thump behind me, and I heard Jenny shout in my ear. "Watch out!" Luckily, I jumped back right before a cage came up and ensnared everyone but myself. This was no ordinary cage though, for it appeared to be made of shadow.
"Missssster Ranesss, I take it," hissed a voice from behind me. I turned and saw a humanoid being. I say humanoid because he obviously wasn't a human - he was made of shadow.
"Who wants to know," I asked.
"My name isss unimportant, for I am merely a ssservant. I have been sssent here to kidnap you and you friendssss, but obviousssly thisss will be a more difficult tasssk than antisssipated."
"A servant for whom?"
"That doesssn't matter. Now, sssurender, before your friendssss pay the prisssse."

I looked at the cage. I doubted it could hold them for long, but there was a lot I didn't know yet, and I didn't want to risk it.
"That cage," said the creature, noticing my eyeing of it, "draninsss the powersss of thosssse behind itssss barssss. They cannot essscape, and neither can you."
I sighed. "Of course," I muttered, "now the crazy people have to appear."
"Yep," Jenny responded, "That'ssss life."
"That's not funny..."
"Really? I thought it was."
"Ssssilence," the shadowy creature hissed. "Now choossse - sssurender or die!"

I looked at the cage again. "Just run," Fabrizzio shouted. "Well get out of this."
"Don't listen to him," I heard Tim shout. "Rescue us!!!"
I then heard him grunt, as if he was elbowed. "Just run," Fabrizzio shouted again. "Live to fight another day."
I sighed again. I really didn't like these situations. I didn't like all the pressure being on me. It made me feel like everyone was depending on me, whether true or not. I just didn't like it.
"Don't even think about running," the creature hissed. "I'll kill your friendsss if you even try it."

I glared at the creature. "Don't even threaten that you filthy putrid sack of crap," I said, my mood changing immediately. I think everyone noticed. "When you threaten my friends, that puts you in a place you don't want to be."
"Jussst try me," he hissed in response. He ran at me, but I just looked at his steps, and timed it properly. At the right moment, I snapped, and the ground beneath where he was stepping exploded and he shot up into the air, a surprised look in his sockets. With another snap, the ground beneath my feet exploded too, and I shot up into the air as well. However, I was prepared for I had planned this. I aimed myself properly and shot above him. I brought my foot down to kick him into the ground, snapping as I did to fuse my kick with a micro-explosion. He shot into the ground with ten times the force he shot up. There was a sickly crack as he hit the ground. He got up, shaken but still able to move, amazingly enough. I snapped to cushion my fall with a soft explosion. He ran at me again, but I had had enough. I snapped on last time, and caused a large explosion inside of his chest. The shadows that created him splattered everywhere, revealing nothing more than a few dark organs that I guess were a heart and a brain. His shadows slowly crawled back to his barely there figure, and they recreated his body, though it was barely together and grotesquely misshapen.

"I sssupossse you won thisss round, Missster Ranesss. Be warned - my massster will sssend me back, and othersss as well." His voice then twisted into a deep dark bellow, and the hissing of the s's was gone. "This is not the last of us..." he said, disappearing with the shadows of the cage going with him.

Everyone ran out of the now non-existent cage, some thanking me, some asking if I was alright, some telling me I was stupid for fighting, and some complimenting my powers. "Everyone," I said, making my voice boom in the night, "this is why I said to keep it on the DL. Look how everyone was just all put in jeopardy tonight. All because of what..."
I was cut off by Rachel, who punched me in the arm and said "Shut up Ben. We don't want to be lectured at this hour."
Tyler chuckled. "She has a point there, Mister Ranes. Can't we just call it a night?"
I sighed. "Fine." I turned to everyone and shouted "Dismissed!"

If any of you have been keeping up with Sptoeretlael, I congratulate you. I apologize if it is a bit odd...or not what you are used to...or written weirdly...or anything else like that, but let's face it. By now, no one is actually reading this anymore, are they? I don't think any of you have even read more than a paragraph of my most recent story, and, quite frankly, I don't blame you. You aren't a part of it, and I see that. So, I've got two things I'm gonna offer. Read the first three (or four, depending on how you look at it) parts (and 4 will be coming out tomorrow night or Sunday) and tell me if you would like to be a villain. You can't be a hero and you can't be a voice in some one's head, but you can be a villain. And wouldn't that be fun. I'll even let you come up with ideas for your own powers, as I did for most of my friends in the story. And if you can draw (or have a friend who can), you can even give me some sort of concept art. That brings me to my second point. I am looking for an artist, one who isn't doing that much currently and would be willing to just draw a few pictures for me, knowing that they probably won't get any compensation. If you just love to draw and don't care about getting paid (and if you have the time...that's an important one), then please contact me, or just read the story and show me a few cool pictures. I'm open for anything here. I like writing this, and would love to make it larger...I just don't have the means.

That is all. If you read all of that, thank you. If you read it and are going to act upon it, I thank you even more. If you didn't read it, I understand.