The four minds as one were investigating the disruption to their plans. For while they could calculate out to the smallest degree of this reality, intrusions from beyond even their senses were something that were, in essence, impossible to calculate, as their probability was diminishingly small. But not impossible, just improbable. They once again took a moment to remember that even though they were vast and powerful in the intellect, they were not infallible. Their enemies that had appeared before still had to be adjusted for, as they were near equals in power and intelligence.

Unfortunately, it appeared that they would have to be blatant and subtle, making this new entity not quite understand that limiting yourself to even one world, even almost infinite variable was a limitation. So one of their number would have to travel to a far off reality, to send the Lens of Power from an Alternate Earth that was useless to the entities, as it was composed entirely of anti-matter.

Such a matter was a moment of adjustment, but did require a different sort of understanding of how the universes all worked. Such knowledge would have to be made available through the Lens, if someone were to think of it.

Mentor of Arisia came to the agreement. It was decades early, but the holocaust destruction by nuclear weapons was now considered a minor issue to the people of that Earth. Now small decisions would be changed. The primitive biological 5th dimensional connection between humans and the entities could be tweaked by direct mental manipulation.

People that would have been worse choices for powers were deemed unsuitable by the precognitive sensitive connections between the aliens were now proper. New people were now chosen. People that that could be suitably manipulated with no physical evidence. The Entity may look for them, but would look in the wrong direction.

And in a far off antimatter alternate universe, the first Lens of Power was created.

Taylor Hebert had finally found all of herself after a week of fighting to understand the senses and feelings were coming from insect minds around her. To her doctors and nurses, she just started to become more lucid. Fighting through the tranquilizers had been a bit hard.

They called her breakdown hopefully temporary, but there was a strange tightness about that when they talked. That had started to loosen up when she started to talk, fitfully even as she twitched from someone stepped on a bug in the basement.

But she had just had a nice talk to her dad. Danny Hebert had been unhappy to find out that she had been bullied, but he told her that he had used that information to get the Brockton North School District to pay for their medical bills.

But now that the horror of all those feelings and sensations swamping her mind, she realized that she had a superpower. Bugs, of course, but at least it didn't mutate her like she seen some people. (Though she would ruefully admit, she would not have minded any improvements in her feminine looks.)

'Taylor Hebert, you will be the first. You know of injustice, corruption and evils of humanity. Know that if you have the will and the strength, that you can turn your world away from destruction, to save your civilization. Into your hands, we place a powerful item; The Lens of Power. No toy, this lens only works for you. Any other life form may find itself dying or in serious pain if they attempt to take it away from you. It is not immune to being picked up by the things you call superpowers and their projections. This is, in fact, a mere secondary security feature,' a mental voice said.

And now she had fallen down the nutso slide again, Taylor thought to herself. The weight on her lap made her look down at the large circular crystal and dark; it seemed unnaturally dull for some reason.

'Such simple thinking is to be expected after your trauma and limited treatment, but this line of reasoning should be abandoned. You will need to train up your body and your mind, learn how to fight and how to make peace and overcome many obstacles. This, Mentor of Arisia, has entrusted to me and then to you. You have infinite worlds that you must learn of. Are your ready, Taylor of Earth?'

Sure, why not, she thought to herself.

'Then take up your Lens and keep it in contact with your skin. It's power of amplification, that you will have to learn of yourself, will assist you. You may be the First Lensman, but by no means the only one. And only by all working together will you succeed at the grand task.'

Taylor picked up the crystal, only to blink in amazement as it started to shine with an inner brilliance, far nicer than any diamond she had ever seen.

And in the back of her mind, she felt a wounded being flinch at her awareness. It was not truly sapient and barely comprehended pain and death, so not really sentient. But it had a knowledge of itself and its kind, which were alien beyond belief. Dimly, beyond it was the sense of its entire self, many that are one but always at war with itself.

Belatedly, Taylor realized that was the source of her bug control powers. That was entirely shocking, that her power came from some thing, not just existing. It was feeding and expanding, already the size of a small hill.

A lens was something to amplify light, but Taylor was sure that this was nothing so mundane. It seemed to allow her to feel feel emotions and beings. So perhaps it was an amplifier of thoughts? She did not feel smarter, of course. Perhaps try to sense her bugs through it?

Instantly she felt a shift, a perceptible shift as she felt her bug control range more than triple. She whistled softly to herself. Suddenly Taylor looked up at the door as she realized she felt that someone familiar was coming to the open door. The Lens went under the sheets of her hospital bed.

"Hey, kiddo? Are you ready to try and go home?" her father asked, looking more pale and older. He finished walking up to her and gave her a hug.

"Yeah, I think so." Her hand gripped the Lens under the covers tightly. She could feel her father, dimly. His emotions, the sense of what he was about to say, if not the words.

The Lens amplified mental powers.