A shiny sphere hovered over the Gateway Arch National Park, with the famous St. Louis Arch casting a shadow over it. People were out and resting on the park grounds, enjoying a picnic provided by BADGE aids. Volunteers from a local church were helping hand out the box lunches.
Coach Thrasher, normally the athletics coach for the BADGE school of heroes, carried four gigantic boxes of supplies in his four massively muscular arms. His face twisted with a fierce snarl. He placed them with a loud grunt near the volunteer station.
“Oh! You scared me.” A woman held her chest as she looked up at the terrifyingly muscular superhero teacher.
Thrasher cleared his throat and tried to relax his face. “Sorry. A bad habit I developed. I always look angry.”
“Why?” she asked while tearing into one box to get out the food supplies.
He said, “When you work with kids who just gained superpowers, you have to deal with bloated egos. A little fear helps keep them in line.”
She said, “Humility is a bitter lesson to us all. Now, why don’t you grab some lunch and join the others? This is time to rest.”
Coach Thrasher spent a moment considering his response, but then grabbed a lunch box with one of his four hands. “True. Who knew just a few weeks of everyone being in that virtual world would leave the real world in such a mess?”
She checked off a list of supplies as she counted them out. “I know, and we all thank you for your help. Getting the water and power working right again was a big job.”
“It was nothing.” He said.
She asked, “So... what about that sphere?”
He gave the sphere a long look. It hovered over the park at a good distance in the air, yet no one was under it. Everyone gave it a wide berth. “BADGE is still working on that. They seem dormant for now.”
“Is it true?” She whispered.
“Is what true?”
“Someone is inside that thing?”
Thrasher nodded. “That is entirely possible. But I don’t know. We only.... wait... what is it doing?”
She looked up as people screamed and scurried away from their lunches. The sphere moved toward the ground as a split appeared across the middle. In the gap of the newly formed divide, a bright light shone that made a high-pitched whistling sound.
Thrasher swore under his breath and then yelled, “MOVE, MOVE, GET OUT OF THE WAY!” He waved his arms around. The people needed little encouragement as they fled the sphere’s proximity. Thrasher ran toward it as he slapped his comm unit on his second left wrist. “BADGE, the sphere in St. Louis park is opening. Get me help! Tell Nova! I will engage whatever comes out of that thing!” He turned off the comm.
Skidding to a stop in front of the sphere, Coach Thrasher readied his four arms for combat. He trained heroes for years in both athletics and how to kick butt. It was going to be a pleasure to fight.
The sphere flashed a brilliant light as the two halves opened. A strange fleshy creature fell out and hit the ground. It was muscular, had purplish-dark skin, and what appeared to be tentacles on its back. This thing held the ground and breathed deeply as if it hadn’t breathed in months.
For a moment, Coach Thrasher allowed hope and common sense to fill his raging mind. Perhaps a mutated person escaped. It could need help, not combat.
“Hey! Are you okay?” Thrasher didn’t move toward it yet.
It remained still, breathing and adjusting. Its tentacles shuddered and slowly moved more.
Thrasher took a step closer. “Hey! Look, I’m with BADGE. We can help. If you surrender to me, I can...”
It suddenly turned and looked at him with a demonic, fang-filled face and screeched. If there had been a human in this, it was hardly visible now. It launched itself from the ground right at Thrasher.
***
“Oh, my God.” Chase watched the monitor in Nova’s room. Thrasher and this strange creature were battling hard.
Nova called into his comm unit, “Where are the other heroes in the area?”
Gar answered, “They are on their way. We are spread thin.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Nova barked and then softly said, “Sorry, didn’t mean to get angry.”
“Understood.” Gar replied, though his tone sounded like a kid unfairly scolded by his parent.
Chase said, “Look at him go. Thrasher has slammed that creature into the ground five times. He is really holding his own against it.”
“It won’t last long. Those things are Legion-born.” Nova said, “They are fierce warriors.”
Santa frowned. “Something is... off. Thrasher shouldn’t be fighting it so easily.”
At that moment, the creature grabbed Thrasher by one of his arms and spun him around, throwing him across the park toward the Mississippi River. Thrasher’s enormous body left a sizable gash across the park’s greenery.
“Good, he didn’t hit the arch.” Santa whispered.
Chase said, “This is hardly the time to worry about public art.”
Santa said, “I know it sounds uncaring, but it isn’t. I want that creature defeated, and I want the people safe. That is the priority. But the collateral damage from combat can leave scars in culture that never heal. If that arch is destroyed by some villain in a conflict, every time anyone looks at a photo of it in the past, or the remains of where it had been, the pain of memory will haunt them.”
Nova nodded, “Santa is correct.”
They all cringed when they saw Thrasher slammed repeatedly against the pavement.
“Gar! What is the ETA of hero support in St. Louis?” Nova yelled into his comm.
“Zeta Squad is almost there.”
“Tell them to move it. I don’t want to have to replace our head coach.”
***
Justin and EB stood on the deck of a boat in the middle of the ocean. Both were looking at a sensor device held between their hands. The boat was a supply ship carrying medical supplies to a BADGE station in Europe. The BADGE people running the boat did not know why Justin or EB were present, other than as observers.
“The signal is changing,” Justin commented.
EB heard a beep and pulled Justin’s arm over to look at the comm. “Aw crud, crud, crud. We’ve got a problem.”
Justin yanked his arm back and looked at his comm. “No, this isn’t good. A sphere opened in St. Louis. They’re calling for hero support.”
“We gotta go. I know how to fight Legion. Did it a lot back on my homeworld.”
Justin said, “No. We have to stay focused.”
“But a Legion monster will rip St. Louis and drown it in the Mississippi. And besides, we are just going in circles out here. I’m getting seasick. And finally, I really, REALLY want to throw some exploding eggs at a Legion jerk. I’d shove one down Drocha’s throat if we could find him. You know, maybe not an exploding one. I should make the hottest possible egg with hatch pepper concentrate, scotch bonnets, oooh, there’s this new pepper...”
“Look!” Justin pointed at the scanner.
EB was still tabulating various hot peppers in his arsenal when Justin grabbed his attention by shoving the scanner in his face. “What are you... hey, looky, the signal’s waaay stronger.”
“Yeah, whatever is happening in St. Louis just pushed the signal to seven times stronger for a moment. It’s leveling off, but we have a trace again.”
“Awesomesauce!” EB hopped around. “Now, I’ll get the chance to shove a hot pepper egg down Drocha’s throat.” He ran to the pilothouse of the boat and yelled, “Mr. Sulu, warp nine!”
Justin approached the BADGE pilot of the boat and said, “We’ll be going. Get these supplies to Amsterdam, meet Dr. Henderson, she knows you’re coming.”
“Understood, sir.”
EB hopped up and looked at the scanner, “So, we need to get to...Canada.... OOOOH CANADA....” As he poorly belted out the national anthem of the Great White North, his magic scooped them up and sent them zipping across the planet toward their next destination.
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