A mass of living something sped through the endless coldness of space. It was on a mission and was following a faint heat trail, and feared it may already have failed. Yet the blue dot that came into view still appeared habitable, despite the trail undoubtedly having lead on a collision course with the planet given its recent movement patterns, and this brought the something disbelief first and hope second.
Allan Kidman was cleaning up after himself. He'd made quite the mess of saving the world and, although he was certain the authorities would remove the shards of the mysterious sea stone he had tapped into two nights ago from the reserve they were scattered in, a part of him did not want them to study it and believed it belonged in the ocean where he had found it. Of course, he was not alone as his allies insisted on helping, and while they were getting together the smaller pieces that could be carried by hand, Allan gathered the larger ones. The bronze-looking stones were made from the same material as his trident and, like his trident, he could charge them up by touching them and focusing his will. The energy that would build into them had aquatic properties, therefore the stones would now be subject to Allan's hydrokinetic control, which made them easier to transport.
Moments later the team was at the beach close to where the stones belonged. It was low tide, and a fairly level section of the rocky shore was exposed. Edward, Zoë, Vicky and Nate Beta-Unit stood in the half-light of sunset watching as Allan dragged the net holding the stones, shining with energy, along the surface while using his powers to keep them afloat.
When he was finally floating over the correct spot in the abyssal plane, Allan undid the net and poured the stones out, gently discharging them and letting them sink to the bottom. He decided to follow them and make sure they regained their natural glory.
As the bronze chunks of latent power drifted into the depths, Allan saw the water around him grow brighter as he neared their resting place and the others like them. But the stones did not seem to react to the power that surrounded them. They undauntedly sank ever deeper and a pang of guilt shot into Allan's heart as though he had taken something from the mysterious recesses of nature that he can never return. Not on my watch, Allan decided, and he gathered every last sinking shard, powered them up, and raised them back to the same depth as the others. When Allan alleviated his psychic grip on them, they once again began to descend, still unaffected by the energy they bathed in, and Allan brought them back up. Allan did what could best pass as putting his foot down given that he was drifting in the ocean, and began charging the stones even more using his own power. He felt veins bulge in his neck and the sheen of the rocks grew ever brighter until they nearly matched that of their brothers. When Allan felt as though he was squeezing his very superpower out of his body, he bundled the stones together and pushed them forward, so that they collided with one of the others drifting in their place unassisted. Sharp blue-green sparks and a shockwave sent Allan reeling, flipping him over twice, and when Allan composed himself again he realized that the stones were now back where they belonged, the way they belonged.
When Allan returned to the surface he looked up at the sky where he had had his cosmic clash just a few days ago. "I sincerely hope I never need to borrow this power again," he said to himself under his breath.
And that's when he saw it: The unmistakable flash of something entering the earth's atmosphere. Under any other circumstances he would have dismissed it as a regular old shooting star and maybe even made a wish, but he found it all too suspicious that this object entered over nearly the exact place where he and the meteor had faced off.
"Did you guys see that?!" Allan asked with alarm in his voice when he got back to the shore.
"What could be going on over there?" Edward wondered
"We had better find out!" Vicky replied. "It's obviously not another meteor like the one we stopped, but something odd is almost certainly going on!"
It landed. It didn't look like anything yet, but the creature had a polite code of conduct when meeting new life forms which was, in essence, to get to know the locals and fall into their customs. Doing so was always a simple task for the thing, as it was amazingly adept at analyzing new creature's means of communication and their ways of perceiving the world. This was further helped by the fact that this fluid mass had unimaginable sensory abilities, far more than just the five senses humans generally recognize, and had total control over how it wished to perceive them, such that it could detect traces of chemicals as shape and colour, or experience light and heat as vibrations on its outer surface. For example, the first life form it became aware of was tall and mostly brown, with a few fading hints of green. After sampling, analyzing, reverse engineering and testing out a number of plant hormones in a mere instant, the creature deduced that to the current collection of locals the most important details of existence were sunlight, rainfall, nutrients in the ground and the movement of other beings in the vicinity. These were obviously something called "primary producers" and would not prove too useful in its quest, except that it had just learned that this new planet is also home to more animate beings, of which their spectrum of sentience would be more likely to fall in a range that could aid in the cause. However, until such beings were able to be interacted with, convention dictated that the visitor followed the customs of these primary producers.
Fortuitously, five sentient beings were just about to approach.
"Am I the only one seeing a purple tree...?"
The purple tree detected five figures and thoroughly analysed them in little more than a flash. One would generate waves in the air that vibrated delicate structures in what was evidently a sort of main sensory centre of all the other figures, then another would follow suit. It concluded that this was their primary means of communication. Two objects these sensory centres of each figure also appeared to possess parts that reacted to various intensities and wavelengths of light. In addition, there were countless chemical messages darting about within any single figure. In this fashion the tree continued to analyze the new beings until it could practically read their minds to learn and adopt their social conventions. It was essentially learning all there was to know about human biology and behaviour from these individuals. But the more it analyzed the moving creatures, the more perplexing it found the fifth one. It was almost nothing like the others aside from one or two obvious similarities like its physical shape and its use of waves for communication. It was cold, except on the inside, and had no form of chemical messaging taking place inside it despite how many were present within its cohorts. Instead its inner components were riddled with subtle electrical charges bouncing around to and fro. Yet it could evidently communicate with the other four as effectively as they did with one another. The purple tree searched around in one of the libraries it had discovered and decoded at the core of the "sensory centre" in one of the others (which it learned had names which were "brain" and "head" respectively according to these creatures' communication methods) and finally learned that the fifth figure was in fact not even a life form at all, but something called a "robot" or "android". When at last the invader had enough to go by, it shifted into a form that the newcomers might identify with better than a tree. It also began to speak, learning each word anew before speaking it.
"Greetings… humans… and robot"
The reaction that followed was not what the alien had expected. Further investigation revealed that humans are generally comfortable around other humans, but not if they are deep violet and, two seconds ago, looked like a tree.
"Please… do not be alarmed. I… am… an extra-terrestrial," it saw it good to add "and I come in peace."
The earthlings calmed down after a while and cautiously approached the purple figure.
"You… speak English?" Zoë managed
"Yes. I have learned it from you all. I thank you for imparting your knowledge." Came the reply
"What do you mean you learned it from us?" Vicky asked "We've only just met."
"Yes," It said again "I apologize for the delay, but I needed to first decode your brains before I could read them. I have assumed a shape that I believe best suits your kind given some parallels I have drawn with mine.
"You're not wearing any clothes," Allan pointed out awkwardly.
"My kind can survive the vacuum of space. We have no need for thermoregulation at lower temperatures. My cosmoplasmic structure would soak into most fabrics, anyway. I have observed that your android companion is unclothed as well."
"Nate's not human," Edward explained. "He doesn't really have anything that needs… er… covering up."
"The same can be said about me," the creature replied.
And this was true. Although its shape was now decidedly human and unmistakably feminine, it more closely resembled a store mannequin or a children's doll.
"What's your name?" Zoë asked
"And what brings you to Earth?" Vicky chimed in.
The two questions needed some research to be answered.
"I have no name," the alien began. "My kind has no need for them, as we are fluid and do not really function as…" it searched for the word "… individuals. We are all part of a whole that can easily combine into one or separate into many. As you see me here I am a monomer of our people, female by your conventions, but I can easily replicate and form another. However, as I must follow your customs, I will take a name."
"Flo!" Vicky seized the opportunity. "It suits you perfectly since your body is liquid!"
"I will accept the name Flo," She replied. "I detect a… "she paused again as she processed a new concept" play on words which is something some of your kind are fond of, and am honoured that I may incorporate it into my identity."
"Your second question perplexed me until I learned that 'Earth' is not only the collective term for substances that make up your planet's lithosphere, but also the name of your planet itself. I will answer that momentarily, but first allow me to make a small investment into our safety."
Flo sized up Nate for an immeasurably short moment and moved toward the robot in a manner that almost seemed affectionate but more importantly, had anyone considered her knowledge of human customs and that Nate was a machine, suspicious.
"I believe my intentions would be best illustrated like this," she said innocently before placing a hand on either of Nate's shoulders and drawing close. Her lips touched Nate's mouth and in an instant a small chunk of her came loose and disappeared into his insides. His powerful arms pushed her way immediately and with robotic force, a reaction Flo clearly expected because she merely absorbed the force and returned to her humanoid shape.
"A portion of the creature's mass has infiltrated my bodywork," Nate said with an automated calm that meant mild panic. "Liquid damage may be imminent."
"You should run a quick diagnostic and check if all your functions are still operating normally," Edward encouraged.
A moment passed.
"I have detected no hazards to my operation, but something is certainly different," came the result of Nate's scan.
"Can you elaborate on that?" Edward was still concerned
"The specific nature of the effect is difficult to determine," Nate began. "The effect is…" he attempted to formulate a description. "It feels… I feel… I… … feel?"
Edward and the others turned to Flo. "What did you do to Nate?"
"I read an understandable level of alarm from your vitals, but I assure you there is no need. I merely implanted a fragment of myself within his bodywork for the sake of your and my own safety."
"I don't understand."
"I have recognized him as a potential threat but still an ally, and not one I wish to terminate, even if necessary."
The puzzled looks stayed unchanged
"While your robot is indeed benevolent toward our company he remains undeniably weaponized, and being manmade he may be susceptible to human control. The fragment that resides within him now has occupied a cavity within his torso and is establishing partial control over the processors that dominate his decisions. Even if his system is compromised he will be unable to bring me, or any of you, to harm."
Moods changed from puzzled to impressed.
"You gave him a heart?" Allan deduced
"Not a heart per se," Flo answered. "His parts do not require oxygen and he cannot circulate blood. But by the metaphors of your language that is a rough approximation, yes."
There was a brief silence as Nate looked at Flo and learned how astonishment felt
"I am afraid further pleasantries will need to wait." Flo began to answer Vicky's question. "I have come in search of something called the Dark Stone, and by my calculations it ought to have landed in this vicinity, but I cannot be certain because some way into your stratosphere I detected there was a collision and a violent exchange of heat."
"Could you mean the meteor that landed here the day before yesterday?" Vicky ventured what, given the absurdities they had experienced in the past few minutes, was a fresh breath of logic.
"That is possible," Flo answered. "By design its intention was to combust and reach a temperature great enough to destroy your very planet. The signs of interaction that I detected was evidently what saved you all from a fiery death, but you are not out of danger yet!"
"Back up!" Allan wondered if he had heard correctly. "Did you just say the meteor had an intention? Like, it was alive?!
"Yes," Flo continued to stretch the boundaries of the word "unbelievable". The stone houses a gaseous being of sorts. It is a bare, formless unit of life. By your conventions it might be sufficient to refer to it as a disembodied soul. On its own it is capable of doing little more than propel its vessel through space, and under the effects of your planet's gravity and friction forces, it is totally immobile."
"Where did it come from?" Nate queried
"It was designed by an evil invader to our home planet who was inspired by the malleable consistency and changeable appearance of my kind. The creature within the dark stone is engineered to value nothing above destroying planets that other beings call home. Its creator was dealt with but not before it was able to send the stone into the depths of space. I was tasked with the mission of tracking it down and ensuring it does not bring harm to any being in the universe, but staying on its trail proved a challenge. I was afraid that I may have failed but you and your kind appear to have neutralized the threat, and I cannot describe my relief by your means of communication."
"You said your changeable appearance inspired the creation of the Dark Stone and its inhabitant. Is it like you in a way?" Allan enquired
"Not exactly. It can create itself a form once it can get a sample of living substance from a being with sufficient capable strength. It will then assume a warped appearance based on that of its benefactor and use its frightening power to bring the planet that it finds itself on to ruin! For this reason we must secure the Dark Stone before a creature from your planet comes into contact with it!"
Flo detected a dramatic change in the neurotransmitter levels of her new acquaintances, along with the observation that suddenly none of them were able to make eye contact. Nate, who was new to the concept of emotion, was the first to speak, and reacted quite heftily.
"Allan touched the meteor! He was cold, so he warmed himself on it! Allan, you've doomed us all!"
Flo already knew everyone's names.
"How long ago was this?"
"Yesterday morning."
Flo sensitized her consistency to more accurately detect acceleration and changes in light intensity and measured the rate of the Earth's rotation so that she could know the length of an Earth day. From this she was able to calculate more or less how long ago the Dark Stone had obtained a sample of Allan's skin.
"We haven't a moment to lose!" She added what she had learned was a desperate tone to her voice, which she knew would convey the seriousness of the matter. "Take me to the Dark Stone immediately!"
A being was forming from the meteor and was just about complete. It delighted in its new body, not only because it meant freedom from its vessel, but because of the nature thereof: This new form was made up of trillions of tiny units and within these units were something like tiny energy reactors. It relished as it felt combustion in every one of these cells, as though fires were the very basis of its existence. It cherished fire with every part of its being as that was what it used to carry out its sole purpose: making entire planets heat up so intensely from their core that they disintegrate, killing every living creature that would call them home.
It walked up to the Dark Stone, the meteor that it had been confined to for what seemed an eternity, and ran its hand across the surface. The outer layer of its new body was quite adept at sensing fine details of an object's texture, and sure enough it detected an irregularity that was not there before; there were three indentations in the Dark Stone that seemed to have been created by… something. There was a sudden flash of a memory of a blue-green light, and of pain and coldness. Of being jabbed by… a weapon. A long, slender object with three prongs. It took a simple deduction to conclude that this was a weapon belonging not only to the one that had thwarted the creature's first attempt at incinerating the planet it now found itself on, but also the one who had gifted it with the blueprint for its new body. The dark entity decided to follow suit, and create a weapon of its own.
Using its bizarre heated touch, it softened and broke off a large piece from the Dark Stone. From this it moulded a long, slender object with three prongs, not entirely unlike that of its past assailant.
At that moment the creature heard a rustling behind it. It flung itself around and saw six figures, five of which stopped in awe.
The heroes were stunned to see something like a replica of Allan, but with deep red skin and flames for hair, and a figure lacking in certain details of a fashion similar to Flo, and wielding what looked more like a black pitchfork than a bronze trident.
"This thing will destroy your planet if we don't extinguish it!" Flo exclaimed as she stormed the dark duplicate of Allan Kidman. She stretched out an arm, which continued to stretch until it was near her target's head, and made fist into which she fed more of her cosmoplasmic material, but at the same time she condensed the consistency of her hand so that it did not enlarge, but instead hardened. The creature calmly turned its face toward Flo and raised a hand from which a ball of fire burst and travelled a short way as it expanded. Flo's arm returned to normal as she flinched and the fireball shot through her shoulder, singing off a piece and turning the edges dark brown, almost black. Flo collapsed and was immediately caught by Nate Beta-Unit, who found himself unable to do anything else despite all his processors' first priority being to face up to this Dark Allan.
Next, Allan stepped forward, confidently charging power in his trident. "Let me give you a very basic lesson about how some things work here on earth: Water puts out fire."
Allan pointed his trident straight at his opponent's face, but the cyan light it generated stirred a painful memory in the alien and it quickly ducked to the side. The beam just barely grazed the side of its head and the effect was as though a part of it went bald. Its face turned vile with rage and it raised its pitchfork. A bright red beam of fire shot from the centre prong and Allan just barely dodged it. The smoke stung his eyes and he could not keep them open, and Allan fell back into a sitting position. The thing swept another stream of flames across the floor between them, separating him from his attackers in a burning wall and badly charring Allan's foot, and rocketed away on a fiery jet of energy.
"We have to go after him!" Flo insisted. "If we give him enough time he will charge up enough heat in his weapon to fulfil his purpose of destroying your planet!"
"Are you going to be okay?" Nate asked. The level of concern in his voice was almost frightening to his allies who knew him as a cool and calculated machine.
Flo walked to a nearby tree, broke off a few leaves and absorbed them into her body. "I will recover in due time as long as I don't alter my shape for a while. I do not fare well at high temperatures. It is one of a few weaknesses my otherwise resilient composition possesses."
"You said you followed a heat trail to find our planet. Could you pick it up again?" Edward asked while Vicky was healing his brother.
"Yes. We must give pursuit immediately! Once he is satisfied that he has is isolated, he will begin storing energy in his weapon. When he has gathered enough earth will be a mere jab away from bursting at its seams!"
As Flo's shoulder slowly grew back and pinched off the blackened fragments which fell to the ground one by one, her strength steadily returned and the speed of their chase gradually increased. And as their movement speed picked up slowly from a hobble to a jog, the humans tried to properly introduce themselves to the newcomer in the little time they had to talk, and tell her all about their abilities, their enemies and their other allies, but they found she had already learned the long and short of it all when she read their brains on their first meeting.
Allan proactively gathered every bead, film and droplet of moisture he could sense as they ran, building up an orb of water that grew in size as they followed the trail. There was no way his dark duplicate was going to take him by surprise again.
When the intensity of the heat trail reached a certain level Flo held up a hand and everyone stopped. The earthlings winced as a protrusion popped out of Flo's head and grew like an antenna, snaking along the last few feet of the trail. When it came back, the humans and the robot felt words being written by Flo's telepathic equivalent to handwriting on their brains.
"He's in a clearing just beyond these bushes. His back is turned and he possesses only the same senses as you four humans, so if we're silent we might be able to sneak up on him. He has nearly built up enough power so we need to act fast. Once things get too hot I will be of no use to you, so I will need to keep my distance. All you need to do is put out the fire on his head and he will retreat formlessly back into the Dark Stone."
The six allies crept silently at their target. There was not a throat without a heart in it and everyone was waiting for the right moment, which they were certain they would somehow know when it arrived. Considering the state of everyone's nerves, it would probably just have been the moment that the first one of them cracked.
But the first crack was not that of a human. Or of a robot, or of a purple liquid alien. It was a twig. As these things go, you could be sneaking up on someone in a meadow completely devoid of trees, surrounded by two hundred square miles of desert, and a lone, dry twig would somehow find its way under your foot at the very moment you are about to make your move.
In a split second Dark Allan turned his head and unleashed what power he had built up in an expanding dome with explosive force. Despite how long it had taken Dark Allan to muster all this firepower, he knew that it would be much easier to build up again from scratch than it would be to spare any expenses terminating the incessant nuisance that would not cease to pester him. When the dome covered nearly three quarters of the clearing, it stopped expanding and remained in place, a burning shell of flames that would baffle any scientist that laid eyes on it.
The burst of energy had knocked back all of Dark Allan's assailants, and they found themselves singed and separated from him by an impenetrable wall of fire. All except Allan: The section of the explosion that had crashed toward him was absorbed by the watery shield he had built up on his way there, which had vaporized at the same time. Nate had dived in front of Flo at the very moment the dome burst forth and protected her from the heat.
So it happened that Allan was alone, face-to-face with his evil opposite, and at a grave disadvantage. In the burning inferno-dome Allan was literally and figuratively out of his element, with no water in the grass, no water in the air, not even any water in the soil. Allan could even feel how the moisture in his body was rapidly forsaking him through his pores, not even bothering to show up in liquid phase and moisten any of his skin. Allan felt light-headed, his vision was blurred by the smoke and the heat haze, and his movements were sluggish. Every breath Allan took felt like he was inhaling hotsauce, and he actually found himself wondering if he might survive longer if he didn't breathe altogether. He had to squeeze out every ounce of his coordination to just barely dodge any of Dark Allan's attacks, and even so Allan could only gain enough momentum by intentionally stumbling around and letting gravity and his balance reflexes do most of the work. With the great effort that even the most basic movement seemed to require, it was a tall order to do so much as raise and point his trident, let alone charge it up or fire a beam. Allan decided instead to try and draw some of his own dwindling moisture from his skin and try to attack with that, reasoning that using his hydrokinesis would take less effort, but he immediately regretted trying, as any moisture he managed to pull out simply fizzled away.
Allan's loved ones were sick with worry. They could barely look in the direction of the flaming inferno without feeling like their faces were being grilled off, and even if they strained enough to face it, they could not see through the flames. The first thing Edward did when he realized what was going on was dart straight for the dome, but he was quickly snagged and pulled back by the wrists by Vicky's rope and Zoë's chain. "We want to help him, too!" Vicky comforted "But you'll be of no use to him as charcoal!" Zoë reassured.
Nate Beta-Unit returned from the nearby lake. He had pumped all the propane in the sub-tanks for his wrist-mounted flamethrowers back into his main propane tank, and filled the sub-tanks with water. He was trying feebly to douse some of the flames, but to no avail.
"Flo!" Edward pleaded, running out of both time and ideas and growing desperate for a new perspective. "I only just met you earlier today, but I know your intelligence is far greater than any of ours! Please! Don't you have any idea how we can get in there and help my brother? I don't even know if he's still alive!"
Flo calmly considered the situation and stated the obvious. "Your problem is that your brother is stuck behind a wall of fire with the Spirit of the Dark Stone."
"Yes!" Edward replied, deciding to see where this went. "And it's not like any of us can move through walls! Well, that's not entirely true. Zoë can pass herself and others through walls, but only if they conduct electricity."
"Then why doesn't she?" Flo asked
"Why doesn't she what?"
"Move through the wall that conducts electricity."
Edward could not believe how obvious the answer had been. Fire is nothing more than a form of ionized plasma, which is a particularly effective conductor of electricity, which means that Zoë could simply convert all of their bodies into electric current, and pass them through the flames to the inside like any other conductive wall.
Zoë, Edward, Vicky and Nate stood in single file with their hands joined. They started running towards the fiery enclosure while Zoë swung her chain in a circle. When the heat became unbearable Zoë lashed her chain forward and the four of them disappeared in a bright light. One edge of the chain touched the flames and the path was clear for the three humans and one robot, who had taken the shape of an electrical current, to surge through the otherwise impenetrable barrier that separated them from what was so far turning out to be an unfair, one-sided clash.
Allan ducked a swipe from Dark Allan's pitchfork and fell over sideways to dodge a stream of flames similar to a flamethrower. Dark Allan plunged his fork at Allan from above and Allan's only escape for it was to roll away. He struck his hip on a protruding rock and instinctively curled up like a millipede from the sudden pain. After wrenching his fork from the dry soil, Dark Allan boldly marched toward his exhausted, temporarily immobilized opponent and gripped his weapon. It was time to end this.
Zoë gritted what could pass for her teeth while in electric form and boosted the current as far as she could. She had been able to charge along her chain to get through the hottest area on the outside of the wall, but she did not have this luxury on the inside, on account of having left her weapon behind. When she felt her last few nanoseconds as electric current approaching she activated a static blast behind the train of allies that pushed them forward a few more inches, and they cleared the flames without too much harm coming to them save for getting their shoe soles scorched and the edges of their clothes singed. When they materialized inside Dark Allan's self-made enclosure, the three humans nearly collapsed from the heat. But they didn't have time to give in to the limitations of their physical capabilities, especially when they saw what was about to happen to Allan. The four new challengers acted quickly. Vicky flung her grappling hook and it dealt a sharp blow to Dark Allan's phalanges, making him lose his grip and fumble awkwardly at his weapon, which discharged in no useful direction. With a well-timed tug of her rope, Vicky managed to snag his wrist, but this was a mistake as Dark Allan sent a pulse of heat from his shoulders to his fingertips which melted the rope in less than a second.
While this was happening, Edward was preparing to turn the tide of the battle. He sent a fine spray of liquid nitrogen in all directions which immediately and drastically lowered the temperature back to a bearable level. It felt to Allan as though life itself was creeping back into his body and he sprang to his feet. He was immediately met by Nate, with two sub-tanks filled with lake water which he sprayed directly at him. The relief was indescribable. Allan hydrokinetically directed the water at his own face, drinking up as much as he could and cooling himself with the rest. It tasted awful, and was probably poisonous, having been contaminated with propane, oil and who knows what else, but Allan didn't care. He could get Vicky to fix up any ill effects he sustained later.
When Allan had had his fill, he redirected the stream at Dark Allan, surrounding him in a vortex. At the same time, Vicky came to his side and healed all his burns and bruises. When he was satisfied that Dark Allan was surrounded by enough water, Allan brought his palms together swiftly and the airborne whirlpool clamped inward. There was a moment of silence, and in a violent hiss the vortex burst into nothing but steam and smoke.
Dark Allan was still standing, and his eyes were burning with wrath, but with the team regrouped he was suddenly outnumbered, and he had to put his anger aside to be on the evasive. Dark Allan used a few rocket bursts in his feet dodging lightning bolts, a diamond sword and a trident beam, and threw a few quick fireball attacks from his fingertips that did little more than scramble his assailants around. But all this was done merely to stall for time as he was charging up another powerful attack in his pitchfork. He knew his best chance would be to pick them off one by one, and he took a guess at which one would go down the easiest. As he ducked, dodged and scrambled, the heroes thought they were gaining the upper hand, but in fact Dark Allan was guiding their movements. Watching them. Herding them. Soon enough he found himself facing Zoë, with the rest surrounding him. Dark Allan unleashed another expanding dome, but this one was different from the previous one. Because he did not have enough time to store as much energy, it was short lived, serving only to knock his enemies over and stun them for a few seconds. It also wasn't a full circle, and it left Zoë standing, facing him alone.
When Edward regained his senses he saw Dark Allan holding his pitchfork in front of his face and pointing it at Zoë, breathing fire into its handle. Zoë stood motionlessly, displaying a brave face. Edward saw the pitchfork light up and he knew Dark Allan was about to unleash a massive blast of fire on his beloved. He sprinted to her aid as the next few events appeared to take place in slow motion: As sparks began to form on the prongs of the fork, Edward dived at Zoë. It was at that very moment he caught Zoë's eye, and as she turned toward him her expression changed from determination to alarm to pre-emptive remorse. She raised up a hand and Edward saw her mouthing the words "I'm sorry" as a small orb of ball lightning formed between her fingers. She tilted her hand toward Edward and the ball detonated, creating a shockwave that pushed Edward back. His eyes forced shut as he landed on his backside, and the last thing he saw as they closed was Zoë disappearing in a cloud of fire.
And the first thing Edward saw as he opened them again immediately was Zoë materializing, foot first, on the other end of Dark Allan's pitchfork. At the sight of the girl he had just underestimated flying towards him at lightning speed, Dark Allan could not help but flinch, turning his face away, and a kick to the side of the head knocked him out cold. The fire dome vanished, the heat haze dissipated, and the smoke cleared. Allan stepped forward, raised his trident, and drowned Dark Allan's flaming head in the harsh blue light of his weapon. The fire died in a billow of smoke, which gathered and retreated into the pitchfork.
Flo came running up to them as Vicky was tending to their injuries. "It is done. The evil being has been confined to the Dark Stone once again, or at least this small piece of it, and your planet is safe. Thank you for aiding me in my duty."
"If you're done, does that mean you have to go back home?" Zoë asked, and noted to her awe how Nate's face appeared to fall at the question
"My work is not finished," the alien replied. "The Dark Stone will remain a threat to all life in the universe. I am to stay in its proximity and ensure the villain is not released for the entirety of my existence. As long as it remains on this planet, as will I."
"Well, I think I can help." Edward carefully coated the black weapon in a thick layer of titanium. "I know an archaeology head who's keeping a dangerous relic safe for us. I'll ask him to keep this with it."
Nate bashfully approached Flo. "Ms Flo, if you need a place to stay, I live in a garage of sorts with plenty of space. We can get you a tank to sleep in… or a vase if you prefer…"
Flo was getting the hang of human neurotransmitters and gave a delighted chuckle. "I would love to! I haven't had a home for more of your Earth years than you would care to guess!"
"Well, Nate," Vicky smiled "You're basically starting a whole new life now that you've got a heart and feelings and stuff, and a cute new roommate... Are you nervous?"
"A little. But I think I'll just go with the Flo."
