by Lucas Flint
“Well, yeah,” said Mr. Space, nodding. “I know it’s hard to believe, but—”
Rubberman’s arm extended and snatched the touch screen device off of Mr. Space’s arm. He retracted his arm back to its normal length and began turning the dimension hopper over in his hands, muttering under his breath, “If I can just figure out how this thing works, I might be able to mass produce it and get a head start on this whole dimension-hopping business. I could found a whole new industry of interdimensional travel. I’d make all of those Silicon Valley nerds look like peasants in comparison to the wealth I’d get.”
“Hey, give that back,” said Mr. Space, walking over to Rubberman and snatching the dimension hopper out of his hands. “It’s not for sale or profit. It’s meant to be used to help IEA agents defend the multiverse.”
“Sorry,” said Rubberman sheepishly. “I didn’t mean I was going to profit off it. It was just a joke. Right, Beams?”
Beams frowned. While his boss was a genuinely good man at heart who valued justice and righteousness above all else, he was also an excellent businessman who cared about making a profit. Rubberman wasn’t as bad as some superheroes, but every now and then his inner businessman would make him forget his priorities. “Yeah. And it’s not like we have time for that, anyway, what with a literal alien invasion occurring and everything.”
“Beams knows what’s up,” said Mr. Space. “Of course, he was just attacked by an alien, so of course he would know what’s up.”
“So those things are actual, honest-to-God aliens?” said Rubberman, glancing at the monitors around the Control Panel. “This isn’t some kind of hoax?”
“They’re one hundred percent real,” said Mr. Space. “They really are not of this Earth, or any Earth, for that matter. They’re from another world, but they don’t come in peace by any definition of the term.”
Rubberman nodded. “I see. I guess it makes sense. We’ve encountered aliens before, or Beams has, anyway.”
“Boss, these aliens are the same ones I met in West Texas six months ago,” said Beams. “That’s what Mr. Space says, anyway.”
“It’s true,” said Mr. Space. “They’ve finally returned to Earth after the six month period of grace Beams got from them in a deal.”
Rubberman looked at Beams. “Wait, you told them to stay away from Earth for six months? I don’t remember you telling me that.”
Beams smiled sheepishly. “Guess I must have forgotten when I got home. See, I threatened to destroy the brain of their dead god, the Rubber Ball, if they didn’t leave Earth alone. I told them to stay away from Earth for at least six months if they didn’t want the brain of their god to be destroyed, but I honestly forgot about that and didn’t think they would actually come back.”
“If you had known more about the Darzens, you would have realized that they never forget deals or promises,” said Mr. Space. “They may sometimes take a long time to fulfill their end of the deal, but they’ll never let the other side forget their own end of the deal.”
“Meaning this alien invasion is Mr. Fry’s fault, then,” said Adams in his usual sarcastic Scottish voice. “Why am I not surprised?”
Beams shot Adams an annoyed look, while Rubberman stepped forward and said, “These Darzens, they’ve come back for the Rubber Ball?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Mr. Space, nodding. “They’re on a religious quest to resurrect their dead god, who you guys might know as the Dread God. And, from what our intel suggests, they will stop at nothing to do it.”
“Can you tell us more about these Darzens?” said Rubberman. “We don’t really know much about them. It would be easier to fight them if we knew the basics about them.”
Mr. Space folded his arms in front of his chest. “Okay. The Darzens are a space-faring interdimensional alien species whose home world is Jinkopa, which is located about as far away from Earth as possible. They’re an extremely advanced civilization, much more so than Earth. You know how your Earth hasn’t gone back to the moon since the sixties? They’ve had multiple colonies on several different worlds for millions of years now.”
“Dang, that is advanced,” said Beams. “Didn’t they rule Earth once, too?”
“The Dread God did, yeah,” said Mr. Space, nodding. “Before, of course, he was killed by one of your ancestors. Most likely, Earth was a Darzen colony world at some point, which I assume is one of the reasons they’re back.”
“How did one of our ancient ancestors kill a god?” said Rubberman in amazement.
Mr. Space shrugged. “It’s just a legend, so there’s probably a lot more to it than that. All I know is that Earth is one of the very few Darzen colony worlds to have successfully thrown off the yoke of the Darzen and drive them off the planet. My guess is that they’re just as interested in taking over the world as they are in resurrecting their god.”
“But why are they attacking Golden City?” said Beams, scratching his head. “The Rubber Ball isn’t here. Nightbolt sent it away to a friend of his a while back. He even gave us the promise that the aliens would never be able to find it even if they combed the whole Earth.”
Rubberman suddenly gulped. “Well, uh, Beams, about that—”
He was interrupted when the door to the room Beams stayed in while he worked here opened and a woman Beams had never seen before stepped out. She seemed to be in her thirties and wore a skintight pink and white body suit that left little to the imagination. She was slightly shorter than Rubberman and had the letter A stitched into her chest, but what really caught Beams’ attention was the thick metal box she carried under her right arm.
“Dennis,” said the woman, yawning and scratching the back of her head. “I thought I heard people talking. Is your sidekick finally here?”
Beams looked at Rubberman. “Who is that?”
Rubberman scratched the back of his head. “Oh, uh, you remember the visitor I told you would be stopping by the base today? That’s her. Angel Wings, who is the superhero of Blinders, Indiana. She’s another student of Nightbolt and the two of us met during my training. We’ve been friends ever since.”
Angel Wings suddenly waved at me. “Oh, hello! Are you Beams? I like your costume a lot better than Rubberman’s last sidekick’s. Colors don’t really do it for me, but your helmet is pretty cool.”
Beams normally would have been happy to meet a new superhero, but his eyes were drawn to the metal box under her arms. He couldn’t see through it, but he sensed that same malevolent intelligence reaching out to him, trying to draw him near it. It had been six months since he’d last felt that intelligence, but there was no mistaking it for what it was. And, while it was terrifying in its own right, under these new circumstances, it was downright horrifying.
“Boss …” said Beams slowly. “Angel Wings doesn’t have what I think she has, does she?”
Rubberman nodded, although he looked very sheepish. “Yes, she has the Rubber Ball, which she brought with her to here when I invited her over for a visit.”
Beams whirled around to face him. “But why would you do that? Don’t you remember how dangerous the Rubber Ball is?”
Rubberman opened his mouth to respond when, all of a sudden, all of the screens in Mission Control went blank at the exact same time. They were blank for only a brief second, however, before they turned back on, though this time, they didn’t show the news.
Instead, each screen showed the same vision: The face of a strange-looking alien humanoid. It seemed to be wearing some kind of thick metal armor, its glowing red eyes peering out from between the glass eye holes of its armor. Thick spikes rose from the back of its helmet, while its eyes observed Beams and the others with a distinct, alien coldness unlike anything Beams had felt before.
“What the heck?” said Rubberman, whirling around to look at the screen. “What happened to the monitors? And what is that?”
Mr. Space’s eyes widened in horror. “Uh oh.”
“Uh oh?” Beams repeated. “What do you mean by ‘Uh oh’?
”
Mr. Space gulped. He now looked like he wanted to be anywhere else other than here. “That’s the Dread God’s Avatar. He knows where we are. And he’s going to kill us all.”
CHAPTER SIX
Bolt had never lost control of his body before. He felt like a prisoner in his own flesh, unable to move his limbs or even just feel any part of his body. He felt like he was both a prisoner in his own body and a spirit floating outside of it, watching its movements like he was an outsider looking in. He watched in horror as the Darzen turned his hands over, inspecting his new body.
“Interesting,” said the Darzen, its voice sounding exactly like his own, though the words weren’t his. “This body is softer than my old one, but at the same time, it is far stronger. And the power flowing through it is unlike anything I have ever felt before. I wonder if this is how the Avatar feels.”
Give me my body back, said Bolt, who spoke through the Darzen’s mind rather than aloud.
“Sorry, but I can’t do that,” said the Darzen. He breathed in deeply and smiled. “This is what we Darzens do. Break open our armor and we emerge and possess the body of whoever attacked us. Perhaps you should have listened to the Pokacu who warned you against fighting me, though it’s too late to regret your mistakes now.”
Bolt felt panic rising in him. What are you going to do? If you hurt anyone—
“What will you do?” said the Darzen with a chuckle. “You can’t stop me. I think I’ll just use this body of yours to find the Crown. Should be easy.”
The what? said Bolt. What Crown?
“You’ll find out soon enough,” said the Darzen. Then he paused and a devious smile spread across his lips. “On second thought, perhaps I’ll kill the Pokacu first. Finish what I started and all that.”
The Darzen turned around to see Nicknacks walking toward him. Bolt was shocked that Nicknacks could walk at all, given how serious his injuries looked. Nicknacks was half-staggering, half-walking, clutching his chest and wearing an expression of pure pain. Despite that, he didn’t seem to be afraid of the Darzen. If he was, then he was doing a good job of hiding it.
“Let Bolt go,” said Nicknacks, his voice more strained than ever. “Let him go now.”
The Darzen chuckled. “Tough words coming from a weakling like you. You couldn’t kill me back when I was in my normal body. What makes you think you will be able to kill me now that I’m in this very strong and very fast human body?”
The Darzen fired a lightning bolt at Nicknacks. Bolt screamed at him to dodge, but Nicknacks apparently didn’t need to be told what to do. He jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding the blast, and pulled something out of his armor and threw it at the Darzen. Bolt had just enough time to see that the thrown object was a small, disk-shaped item before it landed at the Darzen’s feet and exploded, creating a massive, blinding cloud of smoke in every direction.
“Damn it,” said the Darzen, holding his hands up over his eyes. He suddenly began coughing and hacking. “What is this?”
“Smoke bomb,” came Nicknacks’ voice from somewhere in the smoke cloud. “Your body-stealing technique is impressive and deadly, especially in Bolt’s body, but you don’t realize that it also leaves you with the same vulnerabilities as him.”
“Vulnerabilities—?” the Darzen hacked and coughed. “What vulnerabilities?”
“Smoke inhalation,” said Nicknacks, whose voice seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. “Humans can’t inhale too much smoke, especially over a long period of time. It interferes with their breathing and can even kill them outright if they inhale too much.”
The Darzen suddenly closed his mouth, but then a slam in the back of the head made the Darzen open his mouth and inhale smoke again. Coughing and hacking, the Darzen whirled around and tried to punch Nicknacks, but his fist only hit more smoke.
Go get him, Nick! Bolt said. He hated feeling so powerless, so it was nice to see Nicknacks getting in a few good blows, even if it was on his own body.
“We Pokacu don’t handle smoke very well, either,” said Nicknacks, “but thanks to the Mother World’s modifications to our bodies, we can inhale a larger amount of smoke over a longer period of time than humans can without suffering any ill effects. Our eyes also don’t water, which means that we don’t have to deal with poor visibility, either.”
The Darzen’s eyes were watering intensely now. He kept whipping his head this way and that, desperately searching for Nicknacks, when all of a sudden something struck his knees and he fell to the ground. He gasped again, inhaling more air than before, breaking into another fresh round of coughing and hacking.
I just hope that my body doesn’t get lung cancer because of this, Bolt thought. Not sure if that would be worth killing the Darzen.
“But I know that you Darzens can leave the bodies of your victims any time you like,” said Nicknacks’ voice again. “I also know that if your victim dies while you’re inside it, you die with it. Given how Darzens have as strong a will to live as any human, all I need to do is push you past the breaking point to make you give up Bolt’s body.”
The Darzen scrambled back to his feet, but Bolt could tell that the smoke was already taking its toll on him. He was sweating hard and breathing even harder, covering his mouth with one hand to keep himself from inhaling anymore smoke. He still kept looking around, but now it was obvious that Nicknacks had the upper hand here.
“C-Clever, Pokacu,” said the Darzen. He coughed. “B-But this new body of m-mine has more tricks up its sleeve than you do. Observe!”
The Darzen launched straight into the air and Bolt flew with him. They burst out of the smoke cloud, but almost went past the Justice Statue before they came to a stop a few feet above it. The Darzen was hacking and coughing, but not as much anymore, and he was also taking in big gulps of clean air in between rounds of heavy coughing.
“By the Dread God, that was torture,” said the Darzen, whose voice was very hoarse. He looked down at his body in interest. “But being able to fly … it will take some getting used to, but I am already enjoying it greatly.”
Don’t get too comfortable, said Bolt. I’m going to get my body back soon and then you’ll really feel sorry.
The Darzen looked over at Bolt, a devilish grin on his face. “Didn’t you shoot red lightning bolts at me during our fight earlier? I wonder if I could use those same lightning bolts myself.”
The Darzen looked at his hands and furrowed his brows. Immediately, red bands of electricity began dancing between his hands and his devilish grin grew even more devilish than before.
“Amazing,” said the Darzen. “The power I wield … this must be what the Avatar feels.” He suddenly looked down at the smoke cloud below. “Time to smite the unbeliever, as the Dread God himself would do in this situation.”
The Darzen immediately began hurling lightning bolt after lightning bolt down at the smoke cloud below. Bolt shouted at him to stop, but all he could do was watch as the Darzen threw lightning bolt after lightning bolt at the ground, laughing all the while. Chunks of earth flew into the air as the lightning bolts struck the ground below. One of them even struck Nicknacks’ escape pod and blew it up, while others dissipated the smoke cloud. Bolt realized that the Darzen was trying to overwhelm Nicknacks through sheer power and, given all of the lightning bolts he was throwing, Bolt feared that he would succeed.
After several seconds of throwing down lightning, the Darzen stopped and waited as a powerful gust of wind blew through just then. The gust of wind dissipated the last of the smoke cloud, allowing Bolt to see the fruits of the Darzen’s attack.
The ground looked awful. Blackened craters dotted the landscape at the base of the Statue, with wisps of smoke rising from within. The charred remains of the escape pod were scattered in every direction, while chunks of earth that had been blown into pieces lay here and there. There was no sign of Nicknacks anywhere, which made Bolt fear that Nicknacks had been utterly obliterated during the initial onslaught. Even the Darz
en’s original armored form was burnt to a crisp.
But the Darzen wasn’t smiling. He lowered to the ground, landing lightly on the charred earth, and looked around, a deep frown on his face.
“Where did you go, Pokacu scum?” said the Darzen, turning his head this way and that. “I know you’re still here. Are you hiding? If so, where?”
Bolt had no idea how the Darzen could have known that Nicknacks had survived, but then the Darzen heard a slight footstep behind one of the chunks of destroyed earth and fired another lightning blast at it. The lightning bolt exploded the earth chunk, revealing Nicknacks, who was hiding with his hands over his head behind it. Nicknacks rose to his feet, but before he could do anything, the Darzen rushed toward him and kneed him in the gut before punching him in the face, knocking him flat to the ground where he lay with a dazed expression on his face.
The Darzen coughed a bit before he said, “Nice tricks, Pokacu, but know that in a contest of strength, the strong always wins. The Dread God teaches that tricksters and deceivers will fail, while the strong and forthright shall always stand true.”
“You aren’t forthright,” said Nicknacks in a strained voice. “You are monsters. And your god is even worse.”
The Darzen’s face contorted with rage. “Did you just insult the Dread God? You really do want to die, don’t you? Not surprising. You Pokacu were always weak even with your precious Mother World to guide you. Now you’re hardly even worth the bother of killing.”
The Darzen raised his hand, electricity dancing along his fingertips. “One solid blast of electricity and you should die in an instant. Then, no one will be able stop me from—”
Bolt never got to find out what the Darzen was going to do, because at that moment a dimensional portal opened before them and a young woman with dark hair and wearing an odd uniform stepped through it. She grabbed Nicknacks and, before the Darzen could respond, dragged him through the portal, which closed with a slight pop.