Disclaimer: Don't SLOZAC, but many characters are mine

Chapter 1: The Fight

Zachary Martin awoke from his slumber to the loud noise of gunfire and explosions. Quickly rolling out of bed he pulled on his jeans, black hoodie, and his pair of black sneakers. Breaking into a run he sprinted towards the command room. As he rounded the first corner he ran into Shade, or as Zack preferred to call him, Cody.

"We need to get to the command roo…" Zack started to say.

"No time, you're needed to help cover the retreat." Cody stated.

"Damn it! We're still running," Zack swore, "Fine, take me there."

Nodding, Cody transformed himself into Shade. Everything except his shape disappeared, leaving pure black nothingness.

"You should change too before we go." Shade's raspy voice seemed to come from nowhere. Shaking his head in agreement, Zack allowed the power inside of him to come out, changing him into the figure of clear diamond, Gem.

Now the Zack had become Gem, Shade walked forward and grabbed his brother's wrist, and then walked into the nearest shadow.

As the twins walked out of a shadow near where the fighting was taking place, the noise was deafening. Gem could barely hear his brother as he explained that he was going back to the evacuees, to teleport them out of here. Before Shade walked back into the shadow, Gem pulled him into a brotherly hug.

"Be careful," Shade rasped before pulling away and disappearing into the nearby shadow.

With his brother now gone, Gem turned his attention to the matters at hand. Walking quickly around the corner, he took stock of the situation. There were four other "evolved" covering the retreat beside him: Booster, Torch, Barrier, and Brute. Currently, Booster was pinned down with Barrier behind his shield, while Torch was hurling fireballs and Brute was using his near invulnerability to protect Torch. Running as fast as he could, Gem got down behind Barriers shield, next to Booster.

As Gem sat down next to them, his longtime friend turned girlfriend Max, a.k.a. Booster, looked towards him. "About time you got here, things aren't looking too good," She said, "there are just too many of them this time, for every one we take out two more show up. We have to get out of here as soon as possible." Gem looked around and the situation and had to agree. Thinking fast, he explained his plan to Booster and Barrier, seeing as it was all they had, they agreed.

"Get down!" Barrier shouted to Torch and Brute as he used all of his power that he could to fling his shield into the front ranks of the Agents, knocking them down and creating confusion. Using the distraction, Booster fired a few energy beams out of her palm towards the Agents. The she quickly wrapped her arms around Gem's waist. Feeling the increase of power from Booster, Gem began to create a wall of solid diamond. Before he could finish, an Agent lobbed a grenade through the gap in the wall. As the frag grenade bounced toward them, Barrier jumped towards Brute and Torch, creating a shield around all three as he went. Before the grenade went off, Gem had just enough time to knock down Booster and cover her with his body, and then there was a bright flash, a loud noise, and then pain.

The fragments of hot steal flew out of the grenade and into Gem, causing chunks of diamond to be violently ripped from his back. Drawing upon all his strength, he shakily stood up and turned toward the diamond wall, and finished the job. Looking at the wall in satisfaction, he collapsed.

Watching Gem in horror, Booster could do nothing to help him as he collapsed. Luckily, Brute caught him before he fell and gently lifted him into his arms. "Booster, get Shade as fast as you can," Brute ordered. Booster however, was caught up in indecision, she didn't want to leave Gem, but at the same time Brute was in charge. "Damn it, get going if you want to save him Booster!" Brute screamed. This shook Booster into action, but just as she turned to leave, a patch of darkness appeared out of the shadows next to her. "I heard the fighting stop, so I came to see what happ…" Shade started to say before he saw Gem, "Give me him Brute." Shade said quietly, yet with authority. Without an argument, Brute carefully handed Gem over to Shade. Struggling under the weight of the heavy crystalline man, shade wrapped them both into shadow and then they were gone.