As it turned out, riding on the back of a lion was pretty fun once Cody got used to it. Who knew? Cody couldn't judge how far he rode; that lion was so fast that he couldn't estimate its speed. He did have an idea of time somewhere around ten minutes, though. And he was probably making quite the disturbance because the lion was making no effort to stay out of sight. It was probably pure chance that their destination was in some out-of-the-way wood that Cody didn't recognize. But he knew he had arrived at the place when he saw it.

In a little clearing, some skilled pilot had managed to land a craft with a very long, narrow nose; a high, sharp tail, and what looked like powerful thrusters on each flank. "Un-friggin'-believable. He actually is an alien," Cody muttered. He felt like he was walking - well, riding - into something he couldn't return from as he went up the white ship's ramp, made a quick right, and rode down a very wide elevator to the lower deck, at which point he dismounted.

When the bay doors opened, Cody found the stranger waiting for him with crossed arms and an unamused countenance. "What took you so long? You're so sweaty you look like you walked here!"

"That would have been less physically taxing," Cody grumbled, "Alright, lesson one: on Earth, we don't use jet packs to get around. We don't have jetpacks at all, actually."

The stranger scoffed. "What, seriously? I know I saw some spacecraft on the way. Are you telling me you have space travel but not personal jetpacks?"

"Believe me, we've all been wondering the same thing for decades," Cody remarked. "Look, it's been a crazy day. Can we skip to the matter of what the fuck is going on here?"

The stranger scoffed again. "Is 'fuck' your system's idea of profanity? It doesn't even sound profane." He cleared his throat then. "My name is Lykan. I'd say it's nice to meet you, but so far you've been a real mailo."

"Now who doesn't sound profane?"

"The only reason I'm even still talking to you is because they like you." Lykan nodded his head in the direction of the lion. "He's a Leopuba. The other guy's called a Hapaxion. I assume you don't have Spectrobes like them on this planet."

"Umm... No we don't." Cody didn't know what a Spectrobes was, but he knew he didn't have them. "...uh, I have a cat."

Lykan actually perked up then and looked kind of interested. "And that's a Spectrobe? I didn't think Sol Three had Spectrobes!"

Cody looked uneasy. "Uh... I don't think she's a Spectrobe. Just a cat."

Lykan looked half disappointed, half satisfied. "That's what I thought. So that makes it even stranger that there's a Spectrobe master here." Lykan pointed to Leopuba. "And before you get excited, the word 'master' doesn't mean the same thing as normal in this case. It's just the word for a person with the natural ability to command Spectrobes. These two heard the sound of your whining and ran to help despite my commands." He shrugged then. "Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, but let me tell you it really made my life a lot harder than it needed to be. I had to deploy replacement Spectrobes just to fight my half of the Krawl."

Lykan gestured for Cody to follow, and he did obediently. He was lead into some laboratory area, where Lykan continued to lecture. "How much I tell you now depends on how a little experiment goes. I don't need to drag some soft kid into a war."

"You're not gonna shove a probe up my ass, are you?" Cody quipped. "And am I not already dragged into it?"

Lykan stopped in front of a table above which some kind of rock was suspended by a force Cody couldn't see and being hit by three colorful lasers: blue, green, and red. "It's nothing strenuous or gross. I just need a voice sample." Lykan tapped a microphone then that was sticking out of the same table. "Just say something into it."

"And what do you want to know from my voice?"

"If the experiment goes a certain way, I'll tell you." Cody stared the alien down to try and see if he'd give up anything else, but he kept stone silent.

"And if it goes another way?"

"You'll get off my ship." Lykan hit a button on the table then.

Cody was getting real tired of that cold treatment. "What the hell is with you, man? Is it because I'm from Earth, is that it? Because around here we don't judge people by where they were born... sometimes. And whatever the fuck is going on, whatever just happened, thanks a lot and everything, but you could be putting a whole lot'a people in danger being so tight-lipped, and I'm not gonna take it! I'm also not gonna put up with all your condescending bull!" At that Lykan's eyes went wide in shock and surprise. "Oh, now it's finally getting through your thick skull!"

"Do you ever stop talking?" Lykan growled, "Turn around!" Cody stopped when growled at and peered over his shoulder. He turned completely around to face the table, though, when he noticed something off; the floating rock from before. It was gone.

"Puh?" asked a voice that reminded Cody of the cutesy-wutesy character of every anime ever. Looking down a little, it seemed that comparison wasn't far off; the creature before him indeed could have been exactly that. At first glance it looked kind of like an aqua colored, two-and-a-half foot tall gecko with little webbed hands and feet that matched. Its cream-colored ears, however, were both very thin and very, very wide. They reminded Cody of old Asian fans and even looked like they could fold the same way.

"That's a Senpu," Lykan introduced, holding some little gizmo up to it. "You're the one area on the planet that uses the imperial system, right? See... 2 feet, six inches. 30 pounds. Search rating, 3 out of 7." He put the phone-sized beeper thing away then. "Real strong in combat, not that he's any use in a fight in this form. As far as finding minerals, he's as average as average gets. All in all, pretty nice. Wish my first was a Senpu." Lykan crossed his arms and smirked. "Congratulations. You have your very own Spectrobe."

"No way," Cody mused, "Tell me I didn't do that. He came from a rock?"

"Fossil," Lykan corrected, "Spectrobes are technically extinct, but being extinct didn't really work out for them. After the first Nanairo incident, we got the tech and the knowledge to revive fossilized Spectrobes from a survivor of the Giorna invasion. Now, it's like they never left." Cody noticed that Lykan's unfriendly attitude seemed to diminish just a little. "Not just anyone can wake them up from slumber, though. It takes a Spectrobe master... though nobody knows why some people are Spectrobe masters and some aren't. But it is really, really rare - and you're the first I've heard of from a system that never even had Spectrobes!"

"Does that mean I passed the test, then?" Cody asked the foreigner. He held out his arm for the little Spectrobe, expecting it to sniff him or just get a closer look. Instead, though, fast as the scorpions from earlier it scurried up his arm and sat on his shoulder, making itself perhaps a little more at home than seemed appropriate. "Yeesh, are they all this friendly?"

"Only to the person who awakens them," Lykan explained, "or so it usually works. We think Spectrobe masters have some unique voice frequency because it's a master's voice that awakens them and commands them. Normally a Spectrobe doesn't obey someone who isn't a Spectrobe master." He made to speak to Senpu then. "Hey, Senpu. Hop off. The new kid probably doesn't want to get all snuggly with you right now."

Senpu just stared blankly at Lykan momentarily before giving the same one to Cody as if asking if he should obey. "Nah, you can stay," he assured, "But sit on the other shoulder. That one's getting a little tired." That wasn't true, but Cody just wanted to see if that indeed worked. It did. "He's cute." Cody scratched him under the chin a little to Senpu's delight.

"Wait until he grows up. Won't think he's so cute then," Lykan snickered. "Looks like you're officially a Spectrobe master." He let his smile drop, then. "Here's how it goes.

"What we saw at your school - at least, it looked like a school - were Greeps. Greeps are one form of many that the Krawl can take. And the Krawl, most of them, are mindless virus-like creatures who survive by thriving in darkness. Since light is antithetical to darkness, the Krawl have to destroy it for their own survival."

Cody interrupted, "Are we talking about light and dark as some metaphor for good and evil?"

"No. It's just literal light and darkness, so don't overthink it. Now, in pretty much every star system, it takes a central star to provide light and all the perks that come with it to support life. So if it's gone-"

"I get the picture."

"The good news is they're working their way from the outside in, so if they win, all life on Sol 3 will be exterminated before they can get to the sun."

"Lovely."

"Don't ask me where they came from or when; nobody knows. Someone probably did, but their star system is a dark, empty void by now. They're so efficient that they might have destroyed the universe if a hundred years ago-"

"Years? Earth years or... Wherever years?"

"Kollin is closer to its star than Sol - you call it Earth? - Kollin is closer to our star than Earth is to Sol, but it also revolves more slowly, so the year is about the same. Give or take an Earth week per year. Anyway, a hundred years ago the Krawl almost completely wiped out the Giorna system. Think about that for a moment. Over a hundred billion people-" Lykan snapped his fingers. "Gone. Goodbye. No warning, no advance notice. You know how many survivors there were? One. An old man escaped to the Nanairo system and brought with him the knowledge of the Krawl and, equally important, the Spectrobes. Only Spectrobes can even do any harm to them."

"Why?"

"Krawl are the agents of darkness. Spectrobes, on the other shoulder, are creatures of light."

"Geez," Cody remarked, "When you put it like that you make them sound like some ultimate saviors of the universe. And... Other 'shoulder?'"

"Well, they kind of are. And I don't make fun of your expressions."

"Yes, you do."

Lykan shrugged. "Good shot. So the old man escaped to the Nanairo system, and we found him just as the Krawl were targeting us. We beat them back because we discovered Nanairo, like Giorna, possessed old fossils of Spectrobes, and a member of the Nanairo Planetary Patrol also turned out to be a Spectrobe Master." Lykan crossed his arms then. "Now that I think about it, you're kind of in the same position that guy was. A stranger from another system come to warn you about the Krawl, an enemy you never knew you had, thrust into the role of a Spectrobe master to defend your system."

"You're jumping the gun, don't you think, man?" Cody recoiled a bit. "I can't even defend my lunch from my cat. And I sure as hell don't know how to fight with Spectrobes." He waved his arm toward outside. "Besides, isn't the fight over already? We won. Isn't it time to say ''Kay, thanks, bye?'"

"A single black vortex means nothing," Lykan grumbled, "The Krawl have trillions of them. Maybe even quadrillions, and there are always more being made. What just happened at your school - that was the Krawl saying hi. Take a look at this." Lykan pulled up an image on a screen of the moon. In the night sky "Earth, Luna 1."

"We just call it the moon," Cody corrected. "And what about it? It looks fine to me." The image was apparently of the moon in its waxing state, almost a perfect half moon.

"Do you not follow your own moon's light cycle?" Lykan scolded, "This was last night. At this time of the month you should be able to see exactly half of it; Sol should be shining enough light on it that in this spot it looks like a perfect circle, as the entire half of it that directly faces earth is reflecting light. But even though the sun is shining on parts that should be lit, parts of it isn't lit. Imagine turning on a light in your home to find it's only lighting half of your home; that's what's happening."

"Krawl?"

"They've essentially made every planet so far a nest, and they're doing the same to Luna."

"The moon."

"Whatever! It's not my fault you're out of touch with the rest of the Galaxy. How even is that, anyway?"

"Uh... Well we don't get out much," Cody replied, "We went to the moon, like, once. I think. After that we've orbited the planet a little and sent unmanned stuff."

"You've seriously never even been to another planet?"

"...shut up. So I'm caught up with the story so far, right? What comes after that? What do I do now?"

Lykan sighed. "If you're a Spectrobe master, I..." He grinded his teeth and scowled. "...apparently need your help."

"Say 'please.'"

"Be quiet. So you're gonna need arms, a prizmod, battle Spectrobes, and of course some training so you don't get yourself or, more importantly, me killed. So, shall we begin?"

Cody crossed his arms skeptically. "If my answer is no, then what?"

Lykan sighed again, exasperated. "I think we covered that already. You walk away and leave me on my own, an option I'm sure you're considering heavily. But will your curiosity let you retreat now?"


As it turned out the answer was no. In the next few moments, Cody was strapped to a chair with electrodes all over his body. He didn't see that, though. What he saw was a wide and flat grassland that extended as far as the eye could see. "Stay there," Lykan's disembodied voice echoed from every direction, "I'll send Senpu now."

"Where would I even go? There's literally nothing here!" Cody shouted back just before Senpu appeared at his side.

"Most of what you see is just virtual reality. This is just a basic sky and land environment so far. But I can add whatever I want there from here... so don't be sarcastic with me."

"Does that mean this isn't really Senpu?"

"No, that's really him. Spectrobes can change at will between being digital entities and flesh and blood, and right now Senpu is the former so he can join you where you are. It's also good for storage in the prizmod or lab computer system. First you have to learn how to feed a Spectrobe, since something tells me they aren't selling Spectrobe chow at your local pet store. Lucky for you, they can find their own food, provided it's actually available. Spectrobes eat a steady diet of minerals straight from the ground to their bellies."

"You're kidding," Cody remarked, "They eat dirt."

"They eat minerals," Lykan corrected. "And they're minerals that are pretty much never above ground. And you're extremely lucky that Earth has a few of the right minerals. This training room, though, is absolutely full of them. Tell Senpu to look around for minerals. Most likely he'll find Flashium, since that's his favorite food."

Cody shrugged. "Well, you heard the man, Senpu. Are there any minerals around here?" Senpu took off running, but Cody was really amazed as he completely unfolded his ears while he sprinted. "No way..." Cody mumbled as he watched it unfold, but his prediction came true: the Spectrobe lifted right off the ground and used its ears to glide over the ground about six feet high, and for a minute or two it looked like it was having great fun. Actually, Cody enjoyed just watching for a little bit, too.

But suddenly Senpu perked up and nosedived right into the ground. "Senpu!" Cody called out concernedly, but it turned out he slammed into the ground for a reason; he created a little crater - wow, he had to be strong for that! - and started rapidly clawing the dirt to get even deeper down. As Cody approached and looked over the hole, Senpu emerged with his ears unfolfded wide showing off... a shiny blue rock.

"Flashium. C grade. Not a very impressive find, but it didn't take very long. Gotta give him that." Cody wasn't really listening because he was captivated with the fact that the little thing actually had strong enough teeth to bite parts of the rock off and consume it! "When you get adult Spectrobes they'll have to eat minerals, too. Don't let him eat it every time; they have bottomless stomachs."

"Are you sure this is flashium?" Cody challenged, "My dad's a geologist, and this to me just looks like blue azurite."

"Maybe it's just the same thing with different names. Wouldn't be new. Anyway, congratulations on beating level one."

"Do I get a prize?"

"I'm sending it now." Senpu, still eating, didn't even react as he began to disappear. When he was gone, Cody then found a hexagonal shaped object strapped to his arm, only the two sides that ran up the length of his arm were much longer than the rest. Congratulations: it's your very own prizmod. You can have it in any color you want as long as it's blue." The device opened, then, from it some white and green metal spread over Cody's forearm. He couldn't see his hand anymore, but he could feel that his fingers were forced to curl around some rod. "I think you're gonna like this part: weapons training."

"Oh, hell yeah!"

"Most of your weapons aren't gonna do anything against the Krawl. Most of ours don't do much, either, but at least they do something. Your metal launchers can't do anything to Krawl, impervious to anything but light. This is a standard photon class blaster. Slow rate of fire, powerful payload. Try it out... But don't aim it straight up. And for the love of all things good, please don't aim it straight down."

Cody aimed the weapon by holding his arm straight out, and despite the light weight of it, it was bulky, so he used the other hand to steady it. "How the hell do I shoot this thing?" Cody asked at the same moment he unconsciously squeezed the bar inside he was holding. He felt it give a little, and in that millisecond he realized that was where the trigger was. In the next millisecond there was a bang little different from that of an ordinary gun, but its projectile was much more so: it was some bright glowing white ball the size of basketball. Pointed straight ahead, it apparently didn't have a long range, only about 50 feet, before it hit the ground - at which point it exploded. "Whoa! It's a friggin' grenade launcher!"

"I thought you'd enjoy that." The blaster retreated back into the prizmod, but a similar weapon reformed around his arm. This one was blue where green was but felt the same, even with a trigger inside. Cody held it down, but rather than a barrel, out shot a blade - and he was stupid enough to point it right at his head when he pulled that trigger! Luckily the sound of metal grinding on metal warned him soon enough to avoid stabbing himself and ending his journey there, because it shot out just as fast as the blaster ball. "A sword. Easy enough. Even someone like you knows how to use one of those, right?" The blade was blue, though, and not shiny metal.

"Well I've never been formally trained with one!"

"It's not hard. You cut with it. Really, that's it." Cody didn't feel very secure with that answer. "Like that Krawl behind you."

"Yeah, very funny!" Cody refused to turn around at first, but then he thought he felt something slithering up his back. Hastily he twirled and swung out with the blade, clumsily slicing right through what looked like a single cell organism if it were the size of a Great Pyrenees. "Jesus! Did you put that there? That ain't funny!"

"Then why am I laughing so hard? Here, have some more!"

Lykan cackled as a whole horde of those things - Are they they Krawl? Cody wondered - spawned out of thin air all around him, at least a dozen. "Now that's definitely not funny!"

"Don't worry! I got one more weapon to show you!" The sword retreated into the prizmod, but outward from it grew a new weapon that formed a vague ball shape around Cody's hand. Turning his palm up he found it resembled a red metal glove the size of his head curled into a fist, but his real fingers were once again around some kind of bar with a trigger instead. So he pulled it, and...

"'Ey! I think this one's busted!" Cody called out.

"You have to hit something, jeshi," Lykan scolded.

"Oh, silly me!" Cody groaned. As one of the giant cells lunged at Cody he instinctively punched it. It didn't even move back, but some padding within the glove spared his hand this time.

"You have to hit something while pulling the trigger!"

"Oh, give me a god damn break!" At least he managed to slug the one in front of him again the right way. To his surprise the hit generated a shock wave that pushed the creature back a good twenty feet when he felt like he had barely tapped it. "No way..." Experimentally, he then punched straight down at the ground, and he felt it tremble under his feet as the wave now travelled outwards from him and pushed all of the blobs back. "That is too awesome!"

"That device doesn't do as much damage as another weapon, but it's excellent for crowd control. You can consider yourself trained in weapons now."

Cody actually didn't like that. "What, that's it? No advanced maneuvers? No battlefield tactics?"

"'Don't be stupid' should be your basic mantra for that stuff. Moving on!" The glove retracted, too. "To think we haven't even gotten to the fun part."

"To be clear," Cody preempted, now more cautious, "You mean you think that part will be fun for me, right?"

"Probably, yes. You enjoy sitting back and letting others work for you, right?"

"I'm an expert at that!"

"Then this'll be a piece of cake." The wind around Cody began to pick up. "This is called a black vortex." It spun in a circle and started collecting dust. "Most Krawl can't survive outside of it." The wind was really picking up, now; spinning like a small tornado. This was certainly familiar. "Fortunately for them, they bring it with them wherever they go." The air was spinning so fast it was starting to block out light! "And they can trap others in them, too. If you end up in one, the only way out is to fight your way out." The column around Cody began forming a cage of darkness that made his stomach fall. "You could use your pebble shooter and pocket knife as defense, but you'll never destroy bigger Krawl in black vortexes with those. You'll need some backup." A couple more of the scorpions - did Lykan call them Cree? - they spawned into the vortex, and they filled Cody with fright all over again. "Easy, kid! It's just a simulation. They can't hurt you."

Cody's fear was neutralized by that; his nerves were not. "Yeah, thanks a lot!" he groaned. He wished he still had his blaster handy, but when he did he found it wrapped around his arm. Huh, it seemed he equipped his weapon just by thinking about it? He'd have to ask about that, but later. "Where's that backup, then?"

"Patience, guy," Lykan scolded just as Cody twisted to avoid a sting. "By the way, don't get stung. That poison will have you dead in five minutes if you're tough and one if you're not." Cody deftly sidestepped the other's sting, but instead of retracting its stinger, that Cree instead swung its tail like a club and decked Cody hard. The tornado wall felt more like a smooth concrete wall, only he bounced off it harder.

"Ah, shit!" he exclaimed. Well, that definitely hurt. "You said this wouldn't hurt me!"

"Oh, yeah. I did. I guess I lied." As the beast was about to lunge again, it disappeared.

Cody waited some moments for it to return. Was it a glitch? Maybe, because the other one and even the vortex itself also vanished. "Hey, what gives? Not that I'm complaining!"

"Good news, bad news!" Lykan spoke fast and a bit higher like he was urgent. "Good news, I'm pulling you out and letting you skip this part of the training. Bad news, your field test starts now."

"Are you kidding me?" he whined.

"I've got three vortexes barrelling straight for us. There's no time to run, so your choices are staying in there and hoping I survive to come get you, or get out here and make yourself useful." Honestly that first option was tempting, but even Cody's low moral standards and high sense of self-preservation couldn't get past the logic of that. "That's why I thought. Standby for extraction!"