Chapter 1: A New Beginning

"Are we there yet?"

"No"

"Mum! Zachary keeps kicking my seat!"

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are!"

"No I'm hitting it!"

"Stop it you two!"

Same as ever, we go on a car trip and none of them can keep their mouths shut for five minutes. I didn't understand why they found it so difficult, I was pretty much silent for the whole journey, just trying to drown out the noise with my music but even that couldn't put up a strong enough wall to protect me from their chattering. I sighed and turned over to face the window before closing my eyes and trying to picture myself somewhere else. I slowly opened my eyes once more unable to concentrate and pull something from my pocket which brought my thoughts back to the other day…

"Phew, finally a week off!"

"Year ten is a lot more difficult than year nine"

My friend Niamh and her friend Olivia had persuaded me to come shopping with them to let off some steam. We were in the middle of October so it hadn't been too long since school had started again but I still felt happy that we had a week off. I had been enjoying my studies since dropping most of them and being left with ones that were both useful and enjoyable.

"What do you think Robin?" Niamh asked me.

I came back to my senses at this question and looked over to her.

"Hmm…well I think year ten is more fun since it lessons we like"

"But we still have boring stuff like Maths and English" Olivia retaliated.

"Well Maths is necessary and I like English so…"

"Yea well you would…"

Like I said, Olivia was Niamh's friend not mine. I tried to get along with her but I always felt rather outcast. I swear Olivia thinks I'm just a big nerd but I'm really not. I just enjoy certain subjects more than other like any other person. Olivia just seems to dislike a lot of the subjects I like.

We continued walking along when we came along a figure wearing a long black cloak, covering his face. He was sitting agenised a wall coughing and wheezing. He sounded pretty sick but nobody seemed to be paying any attention to him. I looked around the shops until one caught my eye.

"Mind if we go into here?" I said pointing to the shop.

"A pound shop? Sure, I could do with a drink" Niamh replied smiling.

We walked in and I grabbed a bottle of water and a ham sandwich.

"Ham?" Niamh said quizzically. She knew I was very fussy with my ham and rarely ate it.

I nodded quietly before quickly paying and heading out with them following behind me. I slowly walked over to the clocked figure and kneeled down to face him.

"Here" I said holding out the sandwich and water.

"You're giving this to me?" Said a deep voice, clearly owned by a man.

"You don't sound very well. You need to keep your strength up to get better"

He looked at me for a moment still hiding his face before quietly accepting the food and drink. "Thank you" He said pulling something out of his pocket "Please take this, as a token of my gratitude"

He held out some kind of strange mobile phone about the size of my hand. It was black and white with two red parts on the side which looked as if to light up and a small grey button on the top.

"What is it?" I said taking it in my hand.

"A special device that is designed especially for you. Use it in your time of need"

"My time of need?"

"You will know when the time comes"

I stared at him for a moment before standing up and nodding slightly "Thank you, and I hope you feel better soon" I said before walking back over to Olivia and Niamh

"Why did you go over to that weirdo?" Olivia said confused.

"He wasn't a weirdo…He just seemed ill so I wanted to help…" I said hiding the devise he gave me behind my back.

"Whatever, let's go" She said walking off and me and Niamh following close behind

That was three days ago and I still hadn't opened it. I'm a big believer in these sci-fi kind of things and didn't want anything bad to happen if I opened it at the wrong time. I put it back in my pocket and closed my eyes once more. Not too soon after the car began to spit out of control forcing my eyes to shoot open and grab onto my chair. I pulled my earphones out to find that everyone was screaming and my dad frantically trying to gain control of the car. We soon managed to stop on the side of a large open field not too far off the road. We quickly got out of the car and saw that we weren't the only ones who had lost control and crashed, there was at least twenty other cars that had also come off the road.

"What happened?" I said looking at my dad.

"I don't know, all the cars ahead started going crazy and we got hit by one and ended up like this!" He said looking confused.

"Is everyone ok?!" My mum said checking on the younger ones.

We then heard screams coming from the other direction and turned around to find people running away from what looked like…a giant monster. It looked like a giant shark thing stomping around and using its fins to cut things down.

"RUN PUNY HUMANS!" it roared causing everyone to panic even more.

We all began to run for our lives away from this creature but it was bigger and faster and was soon gaining on us.

Another scream sounded but this time it was a familiar one. I stopped and turned to find my mum who had somehow tripped over and was frozen with fear on the ground as the monster came closer.

"MUM!" I shouted and began running towards her through the crowed. Once clear from the crowed the monster was inches away from crushing her with its giant foot.

(I'm not going to make it) I thought to myself but continued running towards her.

The image of the cloaked man then returned to my head.

"What is it?" I said taking it in my hand.

"A special device that is designed especially for you. Use it in your time of need"

"My time of need?"

"You will know when the time comes"

I instinctively pulled the device from my pocket and pressed the button on top holding it out in front of me still running. A strange sensation then came over me as a sensation of power filled my body. I shouted the words "Shining Ranger!" instinctively and put the device away. My speed suddenly increased and I was running at the speed of sound towards my mother before grabbing her and pulling her out of the way. Once in the clear I looked down at my hands to find white gloves covering them. I stood up and looked at my body to find a suit covering me. It was white with black zig-zag pattern on the left of my body outlined in gold. A gold belt with a star shaped symbol and black, white and gold striped trousers. The top half acted as a sort of short dress that I was freely able to move in. I wore large white boots with a black and gold rim and the same symbol as on the belt in the center of each boot. I placed my hands on my head to find I was also wearing some kind of helmet.

"Thank you!" my mum said.

I realized that she clearly didn't recognize me due to the helmet and I had seen enough superhero movies to know that I shouldn't tell her who I was. I also knew my mum and she would freak at the thought of me being a superhero…well, that's what my instincts told me I was; a superhero.

"Erhh no problem, you should get out of here!" I said helping her up before she started running away.

I looked up at the monster and knew that I wouldn't be able to beat something that big but I had an idea.

"Oy! Monster thing! Why don't you come down here and face me!" I shouted up to him as loud as I could.

It then looked down at me and began to laugh.

"HAHAHA, YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN BEAT ME PUNY HUMAN!"

"Yea! So come and face me!"

"YOU ARE AMUSING! I WILL COME DOWN THERE AND CRUSH YOU!" It said before suddenly shrinking down to human size.

He then began charging at me and a swiftly dodged him before throwing in a few punches.

(Wow! I'm really strong now!)

We continued our fight which I was clearly winning.

"I admit! You are strong human! But you cannot beat me!"

"We'll see about that!" I said pulling a sword out from the side of my belt "Shining Katana!"

I swiftly jumped up and gripped it tightly with my hands as it seemed to be charging some kind of energy. I struck at the monster, slashing through him before explosions appeared around him.

"Arghhhhh!" It cried out before collapsing and another large explosion appeared from him. When it cleared the monster was gone, destroyed.

"I-I did it!" I shouted out happily jumping about. "I beat it, yeah!"

After celebration I quickly ran into the nearby woods and thought how to get out of this outfit.

"M-Maybe there's a code word…urghhh" I thought to myself before a few words came to my mind "Power down?" I said and the suit disappeared from around me.

I looked at my hands still amazed by the power I held within me.

"Robin!? Robin?!" I heard people calling from nearby.

I began to make my way over to the voices to find my family.

"Robin are you ok?! Where were you?!" My dad said rushing over.

"S-Sorry, I kind of got separated in the crowd" I lied.

"Come on, a rescue team has arrived" They said leading me over to another open area.