Gar watched two screens that displayed the ongoing battles in the giant, orbital arena. Heroes fought each other with incredible displays of powers. Holographic screens floated around the stadium where fans on Earth cheered as one hero scored a point.
“I don’t like this.” Gar muttered as he continued to pace.
A robot said, “If the optical display is not set to your preference, it can be changed. We have one hundred and seventy-seven active visual feeds to display the current League Wars, they range from...”
Gar interrupted this, “No, not the League Wars. I don’t like that we have all the heroes up here, playing games, while Chase is still down there, captive.”
“Please, rephrase objective or need,” the robot stated.
Gar had a sudden realization. “Oh, um, I know. I know Chase better than Director Nova. Maybe I can help.”
“Please state objective or need.”
Gar spent a moment thinking. “Um, we know where Chromatic was. Send many drones to scan for Chase there.”
The robot stated, “Poveglia, Italy is under close examination by four hundred and twenty-five BADGE sensor devices. No current indication of operative Chase or criminal Krampus detected.”
“Oh, I didn’t know.” Gar thought as hard as he could. “Um, scan for Chase’s stuff.”
“Please rephrase inquiry.”
Gar let out an annoyed grunt. “Chase uses knives. Scan for knives.”
“Metallic objects found on island. Determination of origin in processing.”
Gar grumbled to himself. “Not those stupid knives she threw at Fort Knox. Magic knives..um...what did she call them. Shore...share...um...” He grew frustrated, “Robot, what is a throwing blade that looks like star.”
“Throwing blades shaped like stars are known as Shuriken to the Japanese, they are also known as...”
“SHURIKEN!”
“Affirmative.”
“Okay, scan for magic shuriken.” He smiled, sure of himself.
“Arcane sensors have not detected any known energy signatures from that island at this time.”
Gar said, “I don’t care. Keep scanning for them.”
Dr. Hostetter held a computer tablet in his hand, flat. It projected a holographic representation of three different energy signatures as graphs. He laughed as he looked at these. “What I wouldn’t give for this kinda stuff at the University. Do you know that there is a department that still has a DOS system operating to keep up with stuff?”
Dr. Henderson said, “I know. I’ve been working for BADGE for four years and I still catch myself marveling at the stuff they have.”
“So, how’s the patient?” Dr. Hostetter looked at Strange Quark still laying in the bed.
Dr. Henderson ran a sensor over Quark. “Not changed, if that means anything. This person is not human and, well, I just don’t know what to do for him.”
“What did you need my scans for?”
“Oh, just thought you might have found something that could help me connect dots over here.”
Dr. Hostetter looked at his holographic graphs and then at her sensor readings. “There is one spike there that resembles this here. Does that mean anything?”
She looked at the one energy reading he pointed to. “It could mean something. But, what to do with this information, I’m at a loss.”
“Why don’t you give me your readings and I’ll check them against all my other data.”
“Sure thing. This...oh, hello.” She stopped at the sight of two people standing in the doorway.
Chromatic Death and Chaz Hamilton stood there, both a little bewildered.
Chromatic said, “Uh, where am I?”
Dr. Hostetter said, “Hey, aren’t you the hero that met me in my classroom? That means you have the other shards for me.”
Chromatic looked down at his box, “Oh, yeah, right here.”
“Come with me. I need to see those right away.” He excused himself and led Chromatic out of the room.
In moments, Dr. Hostetter led the other two into his lab. He took the box and used a glove to set the shards into the machine. “Oh, I count twenty. I know there has to be more than this. Are you sure you found them all?”
Chromatic looked around the lab, “I’m not even sure how I got up here. I can remember finding these, talking to Nova. Then I...I was...I...I don’t remember exactly. I can remember getting on the shuttle and flying to the station, but it’s like a dream I had.”
“Strange.” Dr. Hostetter commented and then turned to his work. “Might see Dr. Henderson, she’s the person for that sort of stuff.”
“Might do that.”
Dr. Hostetter held an eye loupe and leaned over to look at a shard. “Who is your friend? I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Chromatic turned and looked at Chaz, “I don’t know this dweeb. He’s been follow’n me since I got here. Wait...no, he was on the shuttle.” Chromatic approached Chaz, “What’s going on? Why can’t I remember anything?”
Chaz’s wicked smile grew, “This is going to be fun.”
Chromatic sneered, “Dweeb. Hey, doc, what d’you say about those shards?” He walked over and looked at the collection.
“Oh, that I expected twice as many. This can’t be all of them. See this here...” They both stopped looking when Chaz suddenly slumped over and then crashed to the floor.
Chromatic frowned, “Hey, dweeb, you alright?”
Dr. Hostetter put down his equipment. “Sir, do you need help?”
All at once, the lights flickered, and the monitors fuzzed off and then on. The room went dark, then the lights came on. A distant, strange cackling laughter rang out.
Chromatic flipped his guitar around into his hands. “That can’t be good.”
The Wizard let out a deep sigh and plopped down on a bench behind several protective energy barriers. He grabbed a towel from the nearby pile and wiped the sweat from his face. He watched as two heroes blasted each other in the center of the enormous stadium. Both heroes could fly and were using energy beams from various body parts, in attempts to knock the other one out first.
“YOU GOT THIS ZAN!” The Wizard cheered and then jerked when a beam of energy hit one barrier near him. A massive green explosion created a wave of heat that washed over him. “HEY, WATCH IT!”
The announcer called out, “Timer is running out! The score is still seven thousand twelve to Six thousand, nine hundred and ninety-eight.”
The Wizard was about to conjure up a nice bottle of cold water when he shivered. “No, that can’t be.” He paused and looked around. All at once another green energy explosion made him fall off the back of the bench. “Those two are not hold’n anything back.” He muttered while getting back up.
He snapped his fingers, and a bottle of water appeared next to him. He picked it up and went to drink, but paused again when he felt something. “What’s that?” He stood up and scanned with his eyes. To him, everything gained a purple haze. Through this he could see eddies in the flow of magic. This far above Earth, he shouldn’t see anything outside of this arena. In the middle of the massive battle ground, there were several destablized vortexes of magical energy, leftover from recent arcane attacks used during the League Wars. He just about dismissed this as him being overly tired from his last round, but then the BADGE space station flew by and he felt something unusual.
“I think I need to warn Nova.”
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