But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!

—Robert Burns's "To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough"

Chapter One

After spending several dangerous nights in the formless-infested jungle, whimpering and searching for Antauri, Chiro experiences a horrible emptiness when he wakes up one morning and realizes that he is fully coherent. He exhales loudly and only hears his own voice within the sound, not a forlorn whine. Cold, wet, his clothes ruined and his face caked in dirt, the boy fights back the terrible notion that he's darted in here for absolutely nothing.

But he cannot remember how he got here. Chiro sees images, smells dust and slick fur and dried blood. He inspects his arms and legs. Shallow scratches mark his limbs, but nothing is of an immediate concern. Chiro presses his palm into a fresh wound in the crook of his arm and inspects that same hand.

It rains. The boy hunches over and shivers, refusing to let his exhaustion render him unconscious. It's as if he's been asleep for days, yet he's still out of energy. He can't tell how long it's been since his thoughts were not his own. He's lost and settles himself uneasily against the low-hanging tree he woke up under; Chiro's skin crawls.

He's not supposed to be here. His feet dig into the soil, and it's a deep, damp black. The rain skims the surface of a small pond in front of his weak form. The boy leans over and searches for his reflection amidst the wet hair in his eyes and the drops disturbing the water.

He hardly recognizes himself. Unkempt. Large eyes like a stunned animal. The boy takes one glove off and feels the contour of his face. Yes, it's him. He's normal again. Chiro moves his hand in front of his eyes and inspects the crusted mud and small scabs. Resting back and ignoring the awful, gnawing hunger in his belly, Chiro pats his uniform and realizes that his tiny communicator is still attached to the fabric.

Chiro wonders how far the hyperforce is from him. Closing his eyes and concentrating on memories of their voices and faces, a shroud of distance encompasses his vision. Miles and miles of dense briar patches and ravenous beasts.

He taps the communicator twice with his eyes remaining closed. "M-Monkey team?" The hyperforce leader strains his ears against the thumping of the heavy rain and his own frantic heart.

Nothing.

(Failure. You've failed your world.)

No, Chiro refuses to give into his own crippling despair, the concentrated emptiness in his chest and the pressure in his throat.

(Dead. Never coming back.)

Softly, he says, "Team, come in." The young man says it again with more force. He's thirsty, but something tells him to avoid drinking the water at all costs.

A faint crackling. His heart races even faster, so unused to rest after these past few days of endless wandering and searching while scavenging for nothing.

"C-Chiro—you?" a voice answers, the reception cutting out most of the response. Pulling the fabric of his shirt closer to his face and rubbing a thumb against the smooth surface of the communicator, Chiro detects that the voice is female.

Someone else says, "Kid, you there?"

"I'm here," Chiro croaks.

Silence punctuated by the noises he mutes with the thudding of his heart—and then, "Chiro, w-where are you?"

"Nova, can—can you guys track me?" He waits, and more voices come into focus. He imagines them in the control room with its dents, talking in hushed voices.

"Chiro," she replies, "we're coming for you. Stay with us. Please."

The boy waits for another moment, he hears Gibson say, "Chiro, are you injured in any way?"

"No, nothing that'll kill me."

"Are you in a safe location?"

Chiro covers his mouth as he coughs. "N-Not really."

"Come again?"

Another voice emerges. "C'mon, Brain Strain. I don't think the kid really needs the third degree right now—"

"This is critical information, Sprx. We need to make sure that he's all right."

"Somehow," Sprx replies, "I doubt that."

"I suggest that if you want to be useful—" The boy sighs and looks around at the myriad trees and the darkness looming underneath them. It's as if he's gone back in time, before light and darkness knew just where to go.

Leaning forward, Chiro says, "Antauri."

The rain begins to die down. "Antauri! Where are you?" His mentor's name echoes throughout the gray and black jungle, growing almost ghoulish and mocking Chiro's calls.

No, nobody's supposed to die. They've made it this far. Surely, surely . . .

Chiro listens closely for any rustling, pushing his knees close and curling his arms around them. He makes his breathing even. After hours of waiting, of watching the murky sky grow darker, Chiro peers upward. The environment creeps toward him as if it wants to consume the lonely boy.

After many episodes of weaving in and out of consciousness, he sees a bunch of figures flying toward him. He stands slowly and begins to make his way past the pond.

"See him?"

"Yeah, there—"

"Chiro!"

"I'm here!" The boy pushes back the disappointment inside of him Because they're here, because something inside of him told the boy to try to find a way to speak with them, that means he will have to go back to the concrete world. Without Antauri. No more searching—yes, that's why he's here, isn't it? Antauri saved him, so—in a just world—shouldn't he save Antauri?

The monkeys land, and Chiro attempts to mix himself in their relief and typical dynamics. Nova's hug; Otto's smile; Gibson's protests as Sprx takes credit for pinpointing the exact location of his leader.

"Are you okay?" Nova asks.

"Yeah," the boy replies hoarsely. "What happened to me?"

She blinks. "You—I don't know."

"C'mon kid, let's get you home."

"No, I can't," he says. Despite the physical pain after hardly sleeping and scrambling a long distance for nothing, their leader states this as a blunt, unwavering fact. He's honestly too exhausted to argue back with any true force.

"Why?" Nova asks.

"I need to find Antauri."

"Kid . . ." They all give him sympathetic looks, and the blood rushes to his face. Even if he's technically the least experienced on the team, that doesn't mean that he likes it to come to the forefront of his attention.

Nova says, "Chiro, he's—Antauri's gone."

He's dead. That taboo word that's everywhere. (The grass is dead. The robot has no juice, so it's dead as well. You're killing me. I'm dead serious.)

Oh, and Antauri's dead. Dead, and the word hurts this time.

Death. His actions, any lack of care, can cause others to die. With all of their intense battles, that's never occurred to him before in such a hurtful way. And that should make him more resolved to be stronger. Even with all of the pain he's endured while only being fourteen, he promises himself that he won't let anyone else die. Maybe he's pushing himself too hard; maybe he's full of hubris to think he can fulfill such a goal, but he needs something to keep himself going.

"Trust me, Chiro," she says softly, "you're not the only one who misses him. We all want him back."

Antauri's death doesn't truly hit the boy until his fourth day back in the Super Robot. The team's making repairs on their giant robot and helping out the city. They need to find the Dark One's head and, by now, it could be anywhere. Chiro tries not to dwell on his faults and failures. Now's not the time to feel sorry for himself. Gibson runs tests and test, and he determines that there's nothing abnormal about Chiro's state of health or mind. With all of his infinite knowledge, he cannot explain what happened after Antauri died.

But one morning, shortly before the sun rises, he turns around and it's right there: Antauri's old helmet floating in his transportation tube.

And the images come surging back. Not just images—pure emotions. The anger seething, the terror jolting his heart when Antauri's eyes dimmed moments after Mandarin attacked him.

That knowing, calm smile as Antauri sacrificed himself. Killed himself. For everyone. If Chiro hadn't let the Skeleton King and Mandarin best him, then maybe, maybe—

"You left us," Chiro says to the helmet he cradled as a strange monkey hybrid. But that's not fair to Antauri. It was for the sake of the team and the entire world. Not to hurt anyone. He took the mantle given to Chiro.

Chiro. He's the Chosen One. He went to the pit alone. It was supposed to be him fighting. Antauri was never supposed to get involved. And there the boy goes again, judging his mentor and friend as if the black simian was meant to act according to Chiro's wants.

"I've failed you."

No final words. Only screaming. That sound punctuates Chiro's dreams. Even with the calm smile, the certainty and silent assurance, Antauri died in sheer agony for Shuggazoom. A hero. The one Chiro's supposed to be. And he can't even repay his friend by saving him.

He's had this talk before with the others, and his inner Gibson remarks that Antauri's no longer suffering, that they shouldn't interfere with whatever comes next. It's unnatural. He's gone, at peace; and it should stay that way, Chiro.

The boy's inner Nova then asks that, Chiro, if there was a way to get Antauri back, don't you think we would have already tried everything we could? She says this right along with that stare the boy hates. Those genuine, pitying eyes that tell him that he can't deny her words.

Chiro sits on his bed with his legs crossed.

"Kid, you don't fool me."

The boy looks up. Sprx stands at the entrance of the room. Chiro expects a wide grin, but he only smiles mirthlessly and shakes his head.

"It's crazy. You're so much like him."

Chiro's forehead bunches up. "Who?" He pushes one of his legs off of the bed. As wrong as it is, the first thing to come to mind is when Mandarin wanted Chiro on his side because they were both powerful and ambitious.

"Antauri. You didn't really fall for the floaty, stoic act, did you? You can't imagine the temper on that guy—but he just bottled it up all the time. Couldn't let his teammates see him falter."

Chiro lifts his chin. "Antauri wasn't like that."

"Kid, you're more like Antauri than you think. Trust me, I've known the guy for awhile."

"No, he was . . ."

"What, some bigger-than-life thing—perfect? No, he was stubborn, kid. One of the worst. Couldn't ever tell that guy he was wrong because he sensed it. Because he was Antauri. Look around here, and tell me if there's anyone on this team who would doubt him if he said that we're all made of swiss cheese."

"He—he wasn't a joke."

"He wasn't made of stone, Chiro." Sprx taps the side of his noggin. "He had the same fancy doodads as the rest of us."

The boy looks down. "Antauri wasn't weak."

"You're right, he wasn't. And neither are you."

Chiro sighs. "You don't get it. I could have saved him, Sprx."

The red simian frowns. "How do you figure that?"

"He was right there. I could've stopped Mandarin somehow."

"Mandarin didn't kill Antauri, kid. He made that choice for himself. For you and us and Shuggazoom. You know, that hero thing."

"He would've died anyway—'cause, 'cause I didn't stop Mandarin from hurting him."

"No—you know, kid, you're not perfect. You won't save everyone."

"I'm supposed to."

"You're supposed to protect them. The bad guys are supposed to interfere with that. If you think that you're gonna win every time, then you're just as blind as Antauri was."

"Stop it." Chiro clutches his head. He can't think that way, even if it's the truth. He can't tell himself that his efforts might be for nothing, that it's not his fault if he wakes up to a corrupted world that has no concern for his efforts. The teenager stares at Sprx desperately. "I need him here. I don't know what to do."

"As weird as it sounds, you're in luck. Because nobody else knows either."