Orchid Bay City, 1986
I'm getting too old for this, thought Max Tennyson as his van crossed the Orchid Bay city limits. This is a young man's game, and here I am, pushing forty, with twin boys at home who don't see their dad nearly enough.
When asked what he did for a living, Max Tennyson would tell you he was a plumber, and would get a polite nod before the questioner moved on with their lives. What he neglected to tell them was that in this case, "plumber" referred to an elite branch of the CIA that dealt with things that weren't supposed to exist; in fact, officially, the Plumbers themselves didn't exist.
"What's the scenario this time?" asked his partner, Phil Farquhar.
" Depending on who you ask, it's either ghosts, zombies, or aliens," replied Max.
"And I thought this was gonna be boring," Phil commented.
"Ha," scoffed Max. "'Boring' would be a pleasant change. I'd give my Christmas bonus for 'boring.'"
"Please," Phil retorted. "You run on excitement."
"Not any more, I don't. As a matter of fact, as soon as we bring in Vilgax, I'm putting in for early retirement. It's time my family came first for a change."
Phil smirked. "I always knew getting married made a guy soft."
"Don't knock it 'til you've tried it, Phi-" He stopped short as a sensor went off on his dashboard. "We've got a reading."
Phil groaned as they pulled up. "Why is it always abandoned warehouses?"
"Could be worse. Could be sewers again," Max quipped as the two geared up.
I'm getting too old for this, thought Jasmine Lee as she slogged her way through the Orchid Bay sewers.
Though now nearly fifty, the middle-aged Asian woman maintained a healthy physique. Said physique was encased in enchanted armor forged from mystic violet metal, set with stones of various arcane abilities. She carried a staff of gold tipped with a read orb, and her hair, just beginning to gray except for the single streak that had been white since her teens, was tied back in a long ponytail.
Sadly, none of this negated the smell.
At least it's over for now, thought Jasmine as she located the ladder leading out of the subterranean nightmare. In her role as the te xuan ze, mystical intermediary between the worlds of the magic and the mundane, she'd been called upon to deal with a mob of sewer trolls who had developed a craving for lead, leading to burst pipes everywhere. She'd persuaded them, gently, to rethink their eating habits.
Pulling herself out of the sewer now, her thoughts turned to what she'd do when she got home. There'd definitely be a hot bath involved. A LONG hot bath. Maybe some rocky road ice cream. Possibly get Harold to give her a foot massage…
She caught herself. Harold was gone, she reminded herself. Two years now. Harold was gone, and Michael was off at college. She was alone, and loneliness was making her mind play tricks on her.
All she had now was her role as te xuan ze. A role that was as much a prison sentence as it was an honor. And Michael's complete and utter lack of mystic abilities meant that it was a role she'd be stuck with for quite some time.
She was tired. Very tired. She wanted to sleep.
But a chime coming from her wrist told her that sleep would still be a long way off.
Max and Phil slowly crept into the warehouse, weapons at the ready.
"Stay frosty," Max whispered to his partner as the two inched their way around the corner of a large stack of boxes. "We could be dealing with anything here."
"Well…" a raspy, almost cadaverous voice whispered from the darkness. "It appearssss I have uninvited guesssstsss."
"Show yourself!" Phil demanded, as he rounded the corner and aimed his weapon. "Give yourself up and there won't be any trouble!"
"Foolissssh humansss…" answered the voice, "You posssesss no weapons capable of harming one sssuch asss myssself… however, you have provided me with two very ussseful weaponsss of my own."
An indistinct form rose from the ground. "Stop where you are!" demanded Phil again, firing his weapon. The beam passed harlessly through the apparition.
"Phil, get clear!" advised Max, but it was too late… the hazy entity quickly lunged for Phil, seeming to flow into his body. Phil stiffened, then slowly turned toward Max. Max raised his weapon's barrel, keeping his partner squarely in his sights. "Let him go," he commanded, "or I'll shoot."
"No," Phil said, his voice now eerily identical to the phantom creature, "I don't think you will."
They now faced each other. Phil's eyes were now framed by branchink black veins, the whites had turned an unhealthy pink, and the pupils had shrunk to tiny specks; the telltale signs of Ectonurite possession.
"I, however," Phil, or rather the thing now inside him, said, "am perfectly willing to do ssso." He raised Phil's weapon and pointed it at his own head. "Ssso, unlessss you wisssh to sssee this vessssel'sss brainsss decorate the insssidesss of this facccility, you would be wissse to allow me to go on my way."
Warily, Max maintained his bead on Phil. "What do you want?" he asked. "What are you trying to accomplish?"
"What I want, flessssh-thing, is this pathetic world. I am not here by choiccce, but I ssstill desssire conquessst."
"You know I can't let you walk out of here. Take one more step, and I WILL shoot."
"You would harm your own partner?" the ghoulish alien asked incredulously.
"He'd do the same if it was me. Both of us are expendable. The world isn't."
"Then by all meansss… do ssso. Know that you will accomplisssh nothing other than killing your own friend For no matter what… I sssshall sssurvive." He lowered Phil's weapon. "Well? Go ahead. Do it."
Reluctantly, Max lowered his weapon.
"Asss I thought. If you are an exxxxample of thisss world'sss bravessst, then I ssshall have an easssy time conquering it."
"I wouldn't count on it!" The skylight shattered, and a figure crashed through. It looked to be a middle-aged woman of Chinese descent, clad in some kind of ceremonial armor and wielding a staff.
So, Max thought to himself, the te xuan ze does exist.
"Do not interfere, female," the Ectonurite warned.
"Sorry," the woman said. Max noted she had a mild accent. "It's my job." Aiming the staff, she fired a beam of light at Phil. He convulsed, and the Ectonurite was forced out of his body, forced to manifest fully.
Max suppressed a shudder. He'd seen many aliens in his day, running the gamut from beautiful to hideous, but none quite disturbed him as much as the Ectonurites did. Maybe it was the way their bodies resembled rotting flesh, or the bony arms, or their habit of growing writhing masses of tentacles from their abdomens. But if he had to pick one above all, it was the fact that their heads resembled skulls with a single eye and yellowing, uneven teeth… and worst of all, upside-down.
"Wow. Uglier than advertised," the woman said. "Doesn't look like any ghost I've ever seen."
"That's because it's not," Max said. "It's an alien."
"No. Seriously?" the woman said, eyes widening.
"You," the Ectonurire hissed, turning toward the woman. "You are a sssuperior vessssel to the male. You will ssserve me well. And once I possess the Eye, I will be invincible." It lurched for the newcomer.
"This thing have a weakness?" she asked as she vaulted upward and over the ghoul's lunge.
"Sunlight kills them," Max said. "Unfortunately, we're about ten hours from dawn."
"That's a shame," the woman said. Guess I'll just have to use this." She aimed her palm at the creature; Max could see something shiny embedded in it. A blast of concentrated yellow-white light issued forth, engulfing the ectoplasmic alien. It screamed as it crumbed to ash.
Max smiled. "Jasmine Lee, I presume."
The woman's eyes narrowed. "How do you know my name?" she asked suspiciously.
Max held out his hand. "Max Tennyson. I think we should talk."
"Yes," Jasmine said warily, taking it. "I think we should."
Orchid Bay City, Today
"Finally," muttered Gwen Tennyson to herself, "some beach time." After five days in an RV with a busted air conditioner (not to mention an obnoxious cousin), it was nice to actually get a chance to cool off in the bay.
Leisurely, the ten-year-old girl backstroked her way across the bay, blissfully unaware of what was taking place underneath her.
The creature lurked beneath the waves, stalking his prey as it crept above. Gracefully, his massive tail propelled him along as he prepared to strike. Finally, a smile crept across its massive, toothy jaws as it launched itself upward. Gwen screamed as the beast erupted from beneath the waves.
"HA! Gotcha!"
"BEN!" the girl snarled.
"I so totally got you that time!" the sea monster crowed, laughing in his deep, alien voice.
"You are SO immature," Gwen fumed.
"And yet I managed to fool you," Ben said.
"You got lucky," Gwen said, half-irritated at her cousin, half-angry at herself for falling victim to such an obvious gag.
"Hey, what's the point of being able to go Ripjaws if I can't use it to annoy y-oww!"
Ben had suddenly been silenced by four feet, eleven inches, and ninety-five pounds of fury.
"All right, Jaws, back to the briny, 'cause tourists are off the menu!" The attacker, a young Asian girl of about 11, had Ben in a headlock… an imptessive feat, considering how strong Ben's Ripjaws form's jaws were.
"Hey… c'mon, leggo!" Ben whined, struggling. "I didn't do anything!"
:"Bull! I saw you ready to chomp that girl's head!"
"Ew! If I was gonna eat someone, it wouldn't be GWEN!"
With a mighty effort, Ben threw the girl off. Rather than get caught off-balance, she easily went into a backflip, landing back on the shore and in a fighting stance, ready to leap back out.
"Sorry!" Ben said.
"You will be when I get through with you, Sharkboy!" she said, getting ready to leap again.
"Hey!" Gwen said, getting between them. "I don't know who you are, but knock it off! Ben may be a jerk, but he doesn't deserve to get beaten up! Well… except by me."
"You sta- wait, you can see him?" the girl asked, confused.
"Duh!" Gwen retorted. "Why wouldn't I? He's right there!"
"I, uh… I have to go now!" the girl stammered, running off.
"Hey!" Gwen shouted. "You get back here right now! Nobody slaps Ben around except me!"
"Heh… like you COULD," Ben jeered, not noticing the telltale sound of the Omnitrix timing out until a bright flash returned him to his normal ten-year-old human self.
"You were saying?" Gwen said, grinning evilly.
"Uh… hey, what do you think was up with that girl?"
"I don't know… but I have some ideas." She headed back to the area they'd claimed on the beach, and Gwen, after toweling off, reached into her carry-on to remove—
"You brought your LAPTOP to the BEACH?" Ben said, trying to choke back laughs.
"It's okay… it's waterproof."
"Yeah, but… you brought your LAPTOP… to the BEACH." This time, he didn't bother to stifle his laughter.
"Dweeb," muttered Gwen as she booted up the machine.
Route 5, somewhere in central California
"You checked on the prisoner, Smitty?"
"Nah, Earl… gonna wait 'til we hit the next rest stop. Only so much o' that guy you can take, y'know? All day long, it's nothin' but 'Your soul shall burn in the eternal pit of torment until the end of time,' and 'demons shall feast on your entrails.' Guy seriously creeps me out."
"Yeah, I know what you mean… he tattooed a freakin' skull on his face. That ain't normal. I tell yah… this is the last time I'm drivin' some crazy voodoo freak."
The armored van barreled down the highway towards its destination, a high-security prison upstate, when suddenly:
"What the hell is THAT!!!??"
"That" was a young woman of about fifteen., with platinum-white hair and a long magenta overcoat. And she happened to be right in the middle of the road.
"Obstructus," she said. The van suddenly slammed to a halt, as if it had crashed into a wall.
Not bothering to check on the drivers (not really caring, either), the young woman known only as "Charmcaster", floated over to the back of the van.
"Metalus sunderum!" The entire back end of the van tore open, revealing its prisoner. His mystical robes had been taken from him, but the skull permanently tattooed on his face marked him as Hex, the criminal sorcerer.
"YOU," he said angrily, when he saw who had rescued him.
"Now, now… is that any way to greet the person who's setting you free?" she said innocently.
"I have nothing to say to you, traitor," Hex spat. "Not after you tried to cheat me out of the Charms of Bezel."
"Well, gee, can you blame me? It's not like you ever treated me well. But… I'm willing to let bygones be bygones."
"There is NOTHING you could offer me that would EVER make me trust you again."
"Really? Nothing, like… immortality?"
Hex's eyes widened.
"Talk," he said, irritated, but curious.
"Have you ever heard of the 'Eye of Merlin?'"
"Bah… that was lost centuries ago."
"Not THAT lost, apparently. It's on display in a museum in Orchid Bay City. Which, by the way, is pretty close to where we are now."
Hex began to smile.