Vert woke with a start to the sound of a loud popping fizz, and immediately knew that something was wrong. He reached for the light switch, wasn't surprised when he flipped it and nothing happened, and instead stumbled across the room to the dresser he knew would have a flashlight in it somewhere. With this in hand he crossed the room again and pushed open his bedroom door. It offered little resistance, which informed him that the Hub's whole power grid had gone offline – every door in the building was on an electric hinge system that was a pain in the neck to try and open by hand. Across the hall another flashlight beam met him, and he was faced with a bleary-eyed and messy-haired Zoom.

"Dude, what happened?"

"I don't know, it woke me up too. Come on."

Vert led the way through the corridors that seemed even longer in the dark, but perhaps they were just moving slowly in their fear of what might await them. In Vert's mind this fear was justified; the Hub was never this dark. Before now, he hadn't thought it was capable of being this dark. The emergency lighting should have come on in the event of a power failure, but even one of those was unlikely – it wasn't like they got their electricity from the National Grid or something. He followed his memory to the Hub's central room, and froze when he heard voices. Zoom carried on and walked into his back.

"...are unlikely to get lost if you don't move anywhere," came Tezz's voice, rather wearily, through the blackness.

"Seriously, where are you? I'm about to panic," Lucinda squeaked.

"For someone who wears black leather with such consistency as you, I would not have assumed you were afraid of the dark."

"If you tell anyone I swear I will cut your tongue out," she threatened, and Vert smiled to himself at the image her words conjured. He clicked his flashlight onto a higher setting and shone it further into the room, where its beam picked up Tezz crouched in front of the main computer console. The Russian squinted and held his hand up against the glare, and Lucinda audibly sighed in relief.

"Vert? Please be you."

"It's me," he confirmed, and made his way towards them.

"Oh, good. I thought you might be some freaky alien thing trying to kill us."

Vert frowned. "Why would I be something trying to kill you?"

"Well, Tezz thinks this power cut is sabotage, but I don't really know what's going on anymore."

"Luce, calm down," Zoom instructed, pressing his own flashlight into her hand. The beam danced around the Hub wildly, moving from corner to corner as if searching for something before finally settling down. Vert left them and knelt down beside Tezz.

"What happened?"

"We were issued with a warning," he replied, not looking Vert in the face but instead concentrating on removing a series of wires from Tromp's midsection. "My theory is that the force that took your family is aware of our attempts to trace them, and have attacked our power unit in order to prevent us from doing so. Tromp was connected to the core at the time the virus was implemented; I am uncertain how it has affected him."

New fear suddenly gripped Vert. "Zoom, check on Sage," he instructed. If she had been recharging when this happened, if she had been connected to the Mobi...

"I am unharmed," her clear voice pierced the darkness, and Vert looked up relieved to see her luminous form rising into the Hub. As she spoke she began to cast orbs of soft blue light into the air. "Although, I did experience a strange disorientation at first."

"Do you know what happened?"

"I believe so," she confirmed, but the way she said it made Vert's heart sink. "I recommend that you rouse the rest of the Battle Force Five and prepare yourselves for a long, hazardous mission."

Vert cast a glance at Tezz, who returned the gesture before standing up.

"Will our vehicles function if the Hub is offline?"

"The only way to be certain is to try," Sage directed. Vert crossed the Hub to the Sabre and screwed his fingers together behind his back, hoping that it would respond. As he pressed the power key, the display screen briefly flickered into life...

And then died. He tried again to the same result, and the third time not even the brief flicker graced him with its presence.

"Anything?" he called across to Tezz.

"Negative. It would appear that whatever entity we are dealing with also drained the power supplies from our vehicles."

"So our first priority is getting Hub power back online," Vert reasoned.

"I will begin preliminary investigations into the damage caused immediately."

"Good. In the meantime, Zoom and Lucinda wake the others and get lights up in the hallways we're going to use in the next few hours. Sage, you'll need to fill us all in on what you know, and then it's all hands to the pump to get this place up and running again."

He pushed away from the Sabre and followed Zoom back to his room to don his shock suit. They would need to be ready for anything at a moment's notice; the longer they spent putting themselves back together, the less chance he knew they had of finding his family.

Legs dangling off the edge of the table she had claimed to sit on, Lucinda listened to Sage as she narrated an explanation of who she thought to be responsible for the Wheeler family's kidnapping, and why they were an extremely dangerous adversary. She stressed on more than one occasion that everything she was saying was pure guesswork, which only succeeded in confirming, to Lucinda at least, that she was almost certain of what she was telling them.

As Sage talked, Lucinda watched the Battle Force Five. Most of them stood in a circle around their Sentient friend, listening with varying degrees of understanding and intent. Stanford, it amused her, was more interested in the lay of his hairstyle than in what Sage had to say, and Agura threw him no fewer than five irritated glances throughout the course of the discussion. Sitting beside her on the table Zoom kept glancing at her and sending her reassuring smiles, and the Cortez brothers frequently whispered to each other for clarification or private discussion on Sage's point. She could tell that AJ didn't really know what was going on; he kept scratching the inside of his ear and staring up at the glowing blue light orbs distractedly; but Vert was hanging on her every word as if the fate of the world depended on it. To be fair, she realised, the fate of his world really was depending on everything she said. Only Tezz was outside of the little circle, opting instead to lie on the floor and rummage around beneath the central computer console with the alien version of a spanner and investigate the state of the electrics while she talked. Lucinda couldn't see his face, but she could hear the occasional inputs he voiced. And he still didn't sound at all upset. She kicked at the air harder at the thought.

"They are called the Pathgral," Sage informed them. "The Sentients encountered them eons before the first war between Reds and Blues began when they kidnapped several members of our race in a similar manner, leaving behind only these strange particles in the air. It was decided after a long series of skirmish attacks that war between our species would only result in the annihilation of both parties, and as such our people were returned and the Pathgral never seen or heard from again. This is ancient knowledge that nobody has needed to consider for countless centuries, which is perhaps why I did not realise the possibility earlier."

"What makes you so sure that it's them?" Vert demanded.

"I am not. I am simply postulating a theory based on their preferred methods of attack, and the fact that their symbolic colour appears to be orange. They once shut down the Red Sentient home world's power core in much the same way they have shut down yours."

"What interest could they have with humans?" AJ asked, "and why Vert's family?"

"That I do not know," Sage admitted, "although it could be the case that they have identified residual signs of travelling through the Multiverse on Ronnie and sought to confirm why humans have been utilising Sentient transport technology. If they discover the current vulnerability of my people, I am certain that they will seek to destroy both the Red and Blue home planets."

"If they're after traces of Sentient technology, why Ronnie and not us?" Agura frowned.

"Because the Hub is most likely shielded from their view," Sage clarified. "When I constructed the base I installed complex cloaking devices that masked the advanced technology from outside scanners, specifically designed so that no human government or military would discover it. There is a likelihood that my shielding has proven similarly affective at deflecting the Pathgral."

"I hate to be the one to ask," Lucinda piped up, "But what happened to the people they kidnapped? I mean, what did they do to them?"

Sage considered the question for a long time. Too long, really. When she did speak it was with great sadness in her voice.

"I do not know. The Sentients the Pathgral took were returned to us as empty shells."

In the silence that followed, Lucinda had time to seriously regret asking that question.

"I believe I have discovered the source of our power failure," Tezz called to the group once he had decided that the silence had become awkward enough. Lucinda fumed quietly.

"Report, Tezz," Vert ordered. Tezz pushed himself out from underneath the console and wiped his hands on the leg of his shock suit.

"A simple overload in the system," he declared, "although it suggests that the Pathgral, if they are the culprits, have an enormous power to be able to achieve this with our computers."

"So... so you're saying that all they've done is the Sentient equivalent of blowing the fuses?" Spinner couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea.

"Affirmative. Unfortunately the method of repairing their damage is significantly more complicated than replacing some wires."

"Can you do it?" Vert demanded.

"I can, but it will take time and I will require assistance."

Sherman and Spinner looked at each other again and nodded, while Sage seemed to glow brighter. "We shall begin immediately," she announced, and Tezz gave an accepting shrug before sliding back underneath the console.

Lucinda sighed and stretched; the whole conversation, added to the fact that she hadn't slept in two days, was taking its toll on her brain. Zoom glanced at her again.

"I don't suppose there's any way of getting to these Pathgral people, is there?"

"Probably not," he confirmed. "Definitely not without power; our rides don't work either."

"Mine does," she muttered, briefly allowing herself to feel smug at the fact that once again, simple engineering had outsmarted advanced technology. Beside her, Zoom grew quiet and still as he thought.

"Hey, Sage" he called after a moment. "I guess it would be too convenient for us to have a Battle Key to the Pathgral homeworld, wouldn't it?"

"None was ever made, but I do know the location of a Quantum Flux Tear, similar to the one connecting Earth to the Red Sentient home world, that exists in a distant Battle Zone. However, it has not been required for use in several million years, and this knowledge is useless without a functioning vehicle."

"We got one."

Vert, who had caught the tail end of their discussion, frowned and crossed the console room to their table. "What's your plan, Zoom?"

"Well, I was thinking that since Luce's bike is still working, I could take it through and scout out the area..."

"No," Vert cut in. "We have no idea what's on the other side of that thing."

"Yeah, exactly, so we need intel. And I'm the scout, I know how to not be seen."

"As reluctant as I am to endorse any member of this team risking their lives," Sage's voice was quiet as she turned to Vert, "The Pathgral are unlikely to detect technology so primitive."

"Thanks," Lucinda muttered.

The whole Hub seemed to go quiet while Vert considered the plan. He set his jaw in that defiant square, and Lucinda was afraid he would say no.

"I don't like this," he said slowly after the longest time. "But alright. You know what you're doing, Zoom. You have thirty minutes before we come to get you."

"Is that okay with you?" Zoom glanced at Lucinda, the look in his eye suggesting he already knew she would let him go. She hated to disappoint him.

"I'm gonna be a pain in the ass and say no, it's not." She held up a hand to stop Vert's objection before carrying on. "Look, call it basest sentimentality or whatever you like, I have never let anyone else ride that bike, and I'm not about to start now. If it goes, I go too. That's the deal."

"What? No," Zoom protested, leaping off the table. Wearily, she uncrossed her legs and stood.

"Zoom's right, Lucinda," Vert stated. "You don't have the expertise to go into a Battle Zone on this kind of mission, even if you're not going alone."

"I'm not four years old, you know," she argued. "And trust me, that bike is more complicated than it looks." Zoom raised an eyebrow at her. "It has quirks," she clarified, "that make it tricky to ride fresh out, okay. Think about it, if it's your only ride, don't you want its most experienced rider at the bars?"

"You're not going to back down on this, are you?" Vert asked.

"Nope."

"Okay. Fine."

"Vert, hang on..."

"No, Zoom, she's right, you need her to do this. Your mission is to scout out the area, find as much as you can and report it back. If you see where they're keeping my family do not engage unless you think it absolutely necessary; we still have the element of surprise and we are going to need it if we stand a chance at all."

"Right."

"You have thirty minutes from when you cross that portal."

"It would be advisable to remove all Sentient technology from your person," Sage suggested, "which unfortunately also includes your communicator. I am uncertain how sensitive the Pathgral are at detecting it."

"Better not to take chances, I guess," Zoom muttered. "I'll go change."

There was no joy in his voice or body as he strode through the dim blue lights and out the other side of the Hub. Lucinda didn't want to discuss the issue further; she had a guilty thought that she'd just aged Zoom by several years; but Vert turned to her regardless.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

"I want to do something, and you'll notice that I'm not exactly a vital necessity in the repair shop. I'm good at riding my bike, so let me ride it." She forced her glare to soften before adding, "Please."

Vert nodded grimly. He turned away from her and stared absently across the Hub to where the rest of his team were gathered around Tezz and Spinner, still on their backs underneath the console. The two of them were deep in technical discussion about their task, and every so often one or the other would throw out a request for some tool, or for one of the team to stand back out of the meagre light. It was all working out like clockwork, as the best teams always did.

"My mom and Jeremy," Vert suddenly began. "They have no idea about any of this, do they?"

Lucinda shook her head. "You asked Ronnie never to tell them, so she never told them.

He nodded absently, his mind somewhere else entirely. "I never wanted it to come to this," he confessed.

"I know," she assured him. "But it has, so you're going to have to work out what to do about it."

"You can be just a little too blunt sometimes."

"Practical with a capital P," she shrugged.

Zoom strode back through the weak haze towards them, now wearing his civilian clothes, and Lucinda zipped up her jacket.

"Are you ready?"

"Let's get this done."

Sage handed Zoom a dark olive green and electric blue Battle Key.

"You will have to find somewhere to hide this when you reach the Battle Zone; the Pathgral will certainly be able to detect it."

Zoom nodded but said nothing. Vert gave Sage one last meaningful look before leading them through another door in the main control room, a glowing orb in one hand, and through several twists of corridor before finally reaching a stairwell.

"I never thought we'd use this," he muttered, and shoved the door aside.

On the surface of Handler Corners the sun had already risen high above the cliff line, and all three of them squinted out across the desert from the door of the old garage. Lucinda mounted up; her helmet was cold when she slipped it on.

"Good luck," Vert wished. She knew she couldn't summon a convincing grin in return, so she didn't try. As soon as Zoom had settled comfortably on the seat behind her she throttled the engine, allowed the air around them to fill up with gas fumes, and then kicked off the brake.

Vert watched them speed through the dust, and kept watching long after the blue light in the distance had swallowed them away. He wondered if he had made the right decision in letting them go, and what would happen, not just to them but to everyone on the planet, if they failed.

A/N

Hey everyone, thanks for keeping up with me so far and thank you to everyone who reviewed the last two chapters. So I've kind of cheated and made up a whole new species, but hey, I own nothing so by some twisted logic I can do what I like with it. Please leave a review on the way out, even if it's just to complain at me for something. I like complaints. They're funny. That's all for now, hopefully I'll have chapter four for you soon. ~E.C. xx