Kyle:
"Get to the pass- those two big trees to the west- go-go-go," Jessica's voice came over my wrist device. "You are not gonna believe this Ky!- You either Ow!"
"Is that really gonna be my nickname now?" Asked the teenage Xao over my shoulder. I chuckled and engaged my electric powers, sending a pulse of energy to my small legs, causing me to jet towards the two largest trees in the forest so fast everything around me turned to a blur. I stopped, Xao now about ten feet from me, both of us looking at the two huge birches.
The ground beneath us started to shake as tremors started shooting out. I tapped my wrist device. "Um Jess, what exactly is it I won't believe?"
"What's um... chasing me... you'll see, then... you won't believe... this is so coooool!" she said between breaths as she was obviously running. I looked ahead as the tremors started getting louder, the earth beneath me shaking harder and harder. My eyes went wide.
"No..." I said. Jessica was really booking it, probably sporting the biggest grin she could manage as behind her a monster was running. Jessica was already a small person, just slightly bigger than me- but how badly the creature dwarfed her was almost hilarious. It had a massive head, small arms, and massive back legs, with a long tail to balance itself- I could have guessed it was thirty feet tall... no way.
Xao's eyes went wide, jaw dropped. "That's a Tyrannosaurs... what?"
"Get ready boys!" Jessica shouted over my comlink. "Oh crap!" Approaching us her form disappeared into a blue blur of electric energy, first left, then right, then right again, firing away from the dinosaur, but not getting too far ahead so it kept its eyes on her.
Finally, Jessica's form appeared between me and Xao. She rolled- because it was necessary I guess. "Leprechauns... boy do I like fighting these wackos! Never know what's coming next!" There... there was a part of me that had to agree. She yanked her two scimitar swords out of her scabbards, electricity surrounding her small body and swirling around the blades, snow flying out from her as water. "Boys, I tried, but not even my shocks can get past that thing's hide- Xao, iron stake- nail that thing!"
I pulled a metal tent stakeout of a satchel on my side and tossed it to Xao. I then quickly turned and aimed my wrist device at the incoming monster's eye and clenched my fist, a small magnet firing out and impacting just under the creature's eye- which it didn't have the decency to even pretend affected it.
The monster was now much closer than just being visible, nearly on top of us in fact. Only a few meters out it stopped, opened its mouth, and roared, the area around us shaking with the force of the sound. Jessica and I grabbed our ears as Xao pulled the stake back.
An electric pulse traveled up our teen friend's arm and he threw the stake, nailing the monster directly in its left eye, right on the magnet (probably guided a little by it, as was the idea).
Xao stumbled away. "Okay, I'm gonna go be deaf for a bit- be sure to save my life if that thing runs at me."
Jessica shot to the side of the creature where the stake had gone in, holding her swords out. The monster turned again, pulling its head back, its neck inflating- it looked to be gathering air for another roar.
The side of its face exploded as a bolt jumped off Jessica's right sword and impacted the metal stake in its eye. "This might get a little gross boys, look away-" Bolt after bolt of electric energy fired off Jessica's swords and tore into the monster- it was not a pleasant sight- I had to watch anyway in case the creature tried to snap at one of us, but I sure wanted to look away.
Needless to say, Jessica was able to "kill" whatever this creation really was. Headless, the body of the dinosaur fell to the ground.
Jessica walked over to me, saying over and over, "That was so awesome, that was so awesome..." Finally about two feet from me, she looked up. "Guessing they gave up after sending that thing, but to be sure..."
I tapped my wrist device looking at a small screen on it. It was a grid display showing electronic signatures in the area, including those generated by living creatures. "Yep, just you, me, Xao, Jaden, and the kid- best I can tell anyway." Jessica turned from me and waved in the air at one of the trees.
A teenage boy jumped down from one of the large branches, carrying a preteen boy on his shoulders. "OW!" The child screamed. "I crushed my arm remember?" he snapped.
The teen cringed. "In my defense, if I climbed down that might hurt more," the preteen gave him a lazy-eyed stare. "Might have..."
The kid sighed. "Thanks for saving me guys and, of course, the obvious question- what was ANY of that?"
I shook my head. "Well, Leprechauns- the aliens that attacked you- yes aliens-, they use biological creations over technological ones. Not as much of an advantage as they seem to assume but it's always a weird fight gotta give em' that... With us... where do we start?"
"What's your name?" Jessica shot in.
"We already know his name," I said.
"Hush, I'm introducing everyone- custom dictates I ask him his name first," she shot back. I shrugged.
"I'm Bart," he said. Bart was a brown-haired preteen. He was dressed in white pajamas with different balls from several sports decorating them. Well, his pajama bottoms anyway, the top was missing. We had given him a red coat which had helped him stop shivering. Best I could tell he was around five feet tall so a little tall, given I knew he was only eleven. Poor kid did have early acne though, there were more than a couple zits on his face.
Jessica stuck out her hand and they shook. "Yeah, that's probably a better nickname for Bartholomew than what I came up with," she admitted.
"What... what did you come up with?" he asked.
"Bartholly!" Jessica said. "You like it?!" Her eyes went wide with hope.
Bart blinked a few times. "No," he just said simply.
"You'll always be Bartholly to me," she mumbled in response, a little dejected. "I'm Jessica," Jessica began anew, pointing a thumb at herself. "I'm the muscle of the group!" Our resident goof opened her arms and bowed.
Jess looked about seven years old with raven black hair, pale skin, and freckles on only one side of her face. Jessica decided to wear her now I guessed iconic red shirt and bright green pants that made me wonder if I had missed Christmas coming up. She continued. "Myself, Xao, and Kyle are all from another world. We're from a race called Pharaohs that can command electricity in our own bodies and we age super slow- explains why I'm so mature right?"
Bart shook his head and rolled his eyes.
"The most mature person you've met I'm sure," I said, shaking my own head.
"Kyle here is my former employer, but a lot of stuff happened, and... now he's just kinda my brother slash best friend. Figure out how that works and you get a prize." I bowed, the motion helping me keep warm, instead of small amounts of my electricity.
I looked about five, pale, and my own hair was raven black too, but I had no freckles. I dressed more normally, a blue open vest, red shirt, and blue jeans. Jess continued her introduction. "He likes to tinker. Finally got that wrist device of his working like a month ago." I held up my wrist showing him what looked like a large metal bracelet with an over-sized watch face. "Looks like a watch I know but no matter how hard Kyle tries he never can get it to tell time." I had never even wanted it to do that... "Go ahead explain your baby," Jessica said, jumping back because jumping was needed.
I happily obliged as Jaden crouched down. Bart stretched his neck to see the device. "I call it the "magnatron"," I said.
"We've all tried to tell him that's a dorky name but he won't listen," Jessica noted.
"Enough from the peanut gallery," I said rolling my eyes. But of course, Jessica took that as her cue to pull out a bag of trail mix and toss a few nuts at my head. I stood there taking it for a few seconds as it made Bart smile. "Don't waste food."
"Wasn't a waste to me," she said with a shrug and a grin.
"Anyway-" I said. Bart enthusiastically reached toward Jessica and her trail mix, eyes wide and pleading. With a smile, she surrendered the food, which he scarfed down as I continued. "The thing started as just a magnetic weapon. It can attract metal towards itself or fire some small sticky magnets that can do the same. It also has a repel setting, but not sure how useful that is."
"Pretty useful if you're bigger and heavier than your opponent," Jessica noted. "Which almost never applies for Ky."
"Can't deny it," I admitted. "The magnets can be super powerful, especially within a certain range and I can control them remotely- I also have a sensor display that can detect electric signatures within a kilometer, even signatures like those from a living creature-though it gets kinda iffy around plant life- and it's a little imprecise beyond a mile- kinda useless really. Also, it can't give a full live feed, it pings, giving me an image every half second, so you really can't use it in combat- then finally it has a comlink that I use with these little earplugs over about thirty feet and-"
"E-hem!" Jessica finally said. "I blew up... a dinosaur. Why is the kid only interested in your toy?" She was right, Bart had gotten as close as he could to my wrist device, apparently engrossed in my explanations.
"So can it-" Bart started, pointing at the device.
"I blew up- a dinosaur," Jessica asserted again. "How are you not paying attention to me?"
He grinned up at her. "Okay, how did you do that?"
Jessica nodded. "I have incredible power that even I don't understand." She proclaimed. "Think my max range is around a hundred feet to kill a full-grown person... Most pharaohs max out at around six feet without an amplifier, and even that only has the effect of a taser."
"Cool," the boy said. "What can you do with it?"
"Fly, move people around or shock things- really anything that doesn't involve shocking someone tends to be a bad idea though, kinda burn myself and others and all... all I got," she said shrugging.
She pointed to Xao saying, "This is Xao. He has a device of his own that can use his electric powers to fire a pulse of variable strength. It's meant to absorb electricity and fire it back as kinetic energy, but we don't generally have enemies that attack us with electricity so it only fires based on how much energy he personally can put in it. If he takes his time he can make it pretty powerful." Xao bowed.
Xao had brown hair and looked about thirteen. He was wearing a plaid overcoat with a red shirt and brown khakis. He stood up and aimed his right arm to the side. The device on his wrist, which looked sort of like a watch itself, charged for less than a second and then fired. A pulse of energy tore out and sent the snow in front of him flying out like it was hit by a sudden wind, trees shaking in the distance, and a few branches breaking.
"You guys really are cool," the boy said.
"We know," I couldn't resist saying.
Jessica finally pointed at the teenager who carried Bart. "That's Jaden. He's actually a werewolf, something else entirely. A mutant race twice as fast and strong as a normal human. He's like a horse. Go ahead, kick his flanks to make him go faster!" Jaden shook his head. He was actually fifteen and a white kid, almost six feet tall with brown hair and eyes. He dressed in a blue shirt and blue jeans. He also had a handgun resting on his hip.
"Or I'll just kick back," he replied in monotone.
"Horses don't talk!" Jessica replied.
"If I didn't have to carry an injured child-" he said.
"We're the Finders!" Jessica said, spreading out her arms in excitement, Jaden sighing and shaking his head with a small grin at her antics. "We just go around looking for lost kids."
The kid relaxed and sighed. "So you're getting me home?"
Jaden reached up and messed up his hair, "yeah buddy, we got ya. Don't worry about a thing."
At that moment, Bart's happiness was contagious, I even felt his relief myself.
I never felt the eyes watching us from afar...
(***)
Approaching the road, Bart, who had been quiet for a bit, decided he wanted more information. "I've never heard about guys like you before..."
"We're top secret- but let's face it, no one is going to listen to the wild tales of an eleven-year-old about almost being abducted by aliens and superheroes fighting dinosaurs," Xao said.
The boy sighed. "So you're telling me because you know no one will listen to me anyway huh?" Jessica nodded. "Kind of a jerk move ya know."
"We could explain nothing," I noted.
He just gave a growl in reply. He looked up to the sky. "So what was hunting me?"
"Leprechauns...but after a display like that, they'll probably move on. Alien race and-"
"You said something about them earlier... Leprechauns?" the boy said with a chuckle. "You're right, no one will believe me."
"Pretty terrifying if you don't know how to handle them- hmmph" Jaden started before a dark-skinned girl jumped at him from the side, giving both him and the preteen a big hug. "Hey, Judith."
She let them go and Bart looked at her curiously. "Who's this?" he asked pointing.
Judith shrugged. "His girlfriend." She said giving a small curtsy despite that her blue jeans didn't fit the gesture. Judith was a black, five-foot, hazel-eyed teenage girl with short braided hair. She wore a long blue denim dress with big red socks. Behind her was our rendezvous, two small cars.
"But she's black," Bart pointed out.
"Sure you think you have a point and all, but I don't care, she's amazing," Jaden said, elbowing the kid in his leg.
Two cars came up to us as we stood by the road.
The lead car was blue with a wood stripe running down its sides. It was boxed at both ends and had a roof that came up in a near box as well. I had been told the model was a Rambler Rebel. The other was also blue with a wooden stripe, but this one instead was a car model called a "hatchback"- it had a box front but the passenger area and back was a single larger box. I was told it was a Ford Fiesta.
A man got out of the one in front, putting a book he had been reading down on the dashboard. I waved. "Hey, Allen- dad." Even after six years, I was still getting used to calling him that. I had adopted him as my father, not the other way around, still, he was technically only in his forties and I was around one hundred eleven years old by this point.
Allen was... similar to his son Jaden, save that he was a husky individual with a beard which he had grown into recent years. He wore a plaid shirt and brown jeans.
"You guys got him quick," the large man said. "And I only heard a few lightning bursts- like twenty."
"Leprechauns," Jessica said with a shrug.
"Oh-so it wasn't excessive," he said with a smile.
Jessica took this opportunity to grab the side of the back of one of the cars, roll over the trunk and drop dramatically on the other side spreading her arms and bowing. "You know me if it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing."
Allen's wife Nadine got out of the rear car. She was a heavy-set brunette dressed in a red blouse and a blue skirt. Both of my "parents" were armed, Nadine carrying a large knife where her husband carried two handguns on his sides. Nadine waved for part of our group to join her in her car.
We all piled into the vehicles. Myself, Jess, and Xao in the lead vehicle, Jaden sitting with Bart in the back of Nadine's car. Judith joined her boyfriend, but in the front seat. We were off.
(***)
The other Person:
They had no way of knowing. Kyle, Xao, Jessica, the boy, the parents, the friends, any of them. There was one person with them, none of them were aware of. I was there, but no one saw me.
I had been there, with her, for a while.