AN: This is the first appearance of (canon) United Heroez characters in the "Mind Games"-verse, and you can consider this an example of how I plan to handle them. For the most part, the United Heroez will be very different from the versions in the show.
To Lyger 0: That is quite a puzzle, isn't it? Good thing that in the story starting tomorrow, it's "Science to the Rescue"!
To Anon: Hmm… we'll have to see…
To yellow 14: They're definitely going to try to take the Ox by the horns!
Walking from the gym back to the main building of the high school Fern rolled her eyes, trying to ignore her sisters' bickering. It was a nice sunny afternoon in St. Louis, they only had another couple hours left of school, and their team had absolutely wiped the floor with the boys' team in Ultimate Frisbee. And all Lexie could talk about was Blake.
"I hope I didn't embarrass him too much," Lexie fretted, glancing over her shoulder worriedly to where the boys were slowly making their way back from their locker rooms.
"What, are you afraid he won't ask you to the prom, just because you faked him out so badly he face-planted on the turf?" Sandy asked, raising an eyebrow at her and grinning.
Lexie buried her face in her hands, moaning in embarrassment. "I didn't mean to do it! I just got so caught up in the excitement, and it was just second nature!"
"For you, it is," observed Sandy, stifling a laugh. "For him? Not so much…"
"He's going to hate me now!" Lexie whined. "And he was just starting to talk to me again, too. "Now we'll never move in together in college. Or get married. Or have six kids–"
"Wait – you really want to be pregnant six times?" Fern finally demanded, staring at Lexie in bewilderment.
Lexie shrugged.
"Well, multiples seem to be genetic," Sandy pointed out. "If a family has twins in one generation, then they're more likely to have them in the next. So that's a possibility."
"That would still be three times…"
"There's always triplets."
"What about if you are a triplet?" Lexie asked curiously.
Sandy raised an eyebrow. "Given how rare triplets are to begin with, I wouldn't count on it – especially not twice. The odds of that happening…"
Fern rolled her eyes, only to freeze when her phone buzzed with a special alert. She looked at her sisters, both of whom wore identical expressions of surprise, and answered the phone. "What's wrong, Daddy?"
"I just received an alert from Washington, girls," their father responded immediately. "We need you right away."
"Will you and Mom be joining us?" asked Sandy, eyes already narrowed in concentration.
"We aren't planning to come," their father replied. "See if you can handle it on your own. If you can't, we'll be there."
"Looks like the Calculus test will have to wait," Lexie teased, raising an eyebrow at Sandy.
Fern hummed and turned on her heel to sprint back toward the gym, and the small hidden changing room behind her locker, Sandy and Lexie right behind her. "Send us the information. We'll be there as soon as we can."
Less than five minutes later, Agents Red, Blue, and Yellow tore out of the school parking lot, their bright candy apple-red convertible already having transitioned its color to tactical black, logo of the St. Louis United Heroez emblazoned on the hood in silver. Agent Red tapped the side of her helmet to activate her communicator and connect it to the car's systems. Her phone lit up with a notification of a new GPS location, all the way on the west side of the city. She merged onto I64 and raced down the highway, weaving in and out of the bumper-to-bumper traffic, sometimes riding up on the median wall to skirt around a car. "What's going on?" she asked her father, slowly letting out a breath and settling into the hero mindset.
"It's an enormous Ox," he answered briskly. The display on the car dashboard lit up with a grainy picture of a large horned creature covered in a viscous green substance. "It's already torn a path through Colorado and Kansas, and it's heading this way. The Denver team managed to keep it from damaging too much of Colorado Springs, and they followed it as far as Wichita before turning back."
"A giant cow, and it's heading straight for us!?" Agent Yellow gasped, kicking the back of Agent Red's seat. "What if it destroys the city?"
"Relax, Lex," Agent Red told her. "That's what we're here for."
"Has anyone determined what this Ox is or where it came from?" asked Agent Blue, swiping through the details on the car dashboard, tapping the chin of her helmet.
"No one seems to know," their father replied. He hummed pensively. "The West Coast teams didn't know anything about it, so it mustn't have originated in California. Mr. Tremendous tasked a satellite to probe the Rocky Mountains, but we won't know anything for another few hours."
"What are we supposed to do about it if we don't know where it's from or what it wants?" Agent Blue demanded.
"Same thing you would do any other time: keep people safe."
"This is seriously messed up," Agent Yellow muttered.
Agent Red silently agreed with Agent Yellow, pursing her lips under her helmet. Most of the threats they faced here in St. Louis were of the human variety – pickpockets and drug dealers and the like. St. Louis didn't attract a lot of more powerful villains, especially while the reputations of Hurricane and Snowflake remained in recent memory. Traffic finally began to thin as they left the western suburbs behind, and Agent Red pushed the convertible to its limit. According to the GPS marker, the Ox had just reached the Missouri River and forded across. She turned off the highway and followed city streets closer to the river. "Is there a plan?"
"Stop it in the state park, away from the city," their father instructed them. "I have already alerted State Police to clear out the park." He paused. "Be careful. And if you need help, be sure to call. Your mother and I will be there right away if you need us. I love you, girls."
"Love you, too, Daddy!" called Agent Yellow.
Agent Red turned into the deserted parking area of the state park, and at first she couldn't tell that anything was wrong. The park was quiet and deserted. But normally there would be cars parked at this time of day. Normally there would be people picnicking and playing baseball. But today there was no one; the last car they had seen had been the state police car at the park entrance.
Then she noticed the tops of the trees, brown above the leaves and swaying back and forth, always swaying further away from each other. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
She opened the car door and stepped out, followed by her sisters, to feel the ground beneath them shaking. Then the trees burst apart to reveal that part of what she had taken to be the tops of the trees was actually the Ox's back as it charged out of the woods and into the open, its head down and horns pointed forward. Agent Red's jaw dropped. "Oh, my god…"
Agent Blue stopped beside the car, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "Don't see one of those every day… So how do we stop it?"
Agent Red turned to the other two and let out a breath. "Better start off simple," she decided. Pointing at Agent Yellow, she told her, "You go left, I'll go right. On the count of three!"
Agent Red sprinted right, leaving the paved parking lot and stepping onto the grass, as Agent Yellow did the same in the other direction. Slowly, Agent Red counted down in her mind, starting the moment they both reached the grass. One. She jogged further away from the Ox, out of reach of its horns. Two. She planted her feet, centering herself, calling on her own inner heat. Three. Agent Red clenched her fists, slammed them together, and exhaled hard. A burst of fire shot out of her joined fists, straight at the Ox's left flank. Opposite her, Agent Yellow flipped around and brought her arm down, pointing one finger and sending a discharge of electricity into the Ox's right flank. Near the car, Agent Blue slid her foot back and leaned forward. The air around the Ox super-chilled, wicking all the heat away from its head and encasing its head in ice. The Ox stomped its hooves, twisting its head around in agitation. Agent Red's eyes narrowed as she continued pouring fire into the Ox's flank. Carefully she stepped toward it, not letting off the fire for even an instant. Its head covered in ice, the Ox turned in either direction, glaring at the three heroes furiously. Suddenly the Ox slammed its head into the ground, shattering the ice. The Ox snorted and turned to charge Agent Blue, its horns lowered.
Agent Blue screamed in surprise and dove away from the Ox, which plowed straight through where she had been standing, straight toward their car. Agent Blue tucked and rolled back to her feet, turning around and sending another burst of cold at the Ox, forming a thin layer of ice beneath the Ox's feet. The Ox's hoof slid on the ice as it barreled into the car's front bumper, which shattered and caved in under the onslaught. Trampling over the car, the Ox continued straight ahead, stampeding out of the park. "Oh, come on!" Agent Blue groaned in frustration. "Was that really necessary?"
"Is everything okay, girls?" asked their father.
"Um… our car insurance is up to date, right?" asked Agent Yellow, shooting a lightning bolt at the Ox's tail.
"Yes…"
"Then… everything's totally fine!"
"Come on!" Agent Red shouted, racing after the Monster as fast as she could run. Agents Yellow and Blue fell in step behind her as they ran. The Ox continued its relentless advance, leaving deep cracks in the pavement beneath its feet. They were close to the edge of the state park now; much further and they would enter Wildwood. The line of state police loomed ahead of them, between the Ox and the city. The police fired as one, aiming at the Ox's face. The bullets bounced off, ricocheting in all directions. Agent Red held her arm up as a hail of bullets deflected straight at her, and concentrated on super-heating the air in front of herself. The bullets melted before they could hit her.
Putting on a burst of speed, the three heroes rushed after the Ox as it cut a straight line through the police line, shoving two cars aside and knocking several officers to the ground. Agent Red sent another fire burst at the Ox's back, but only succeeded in impelling it forward faster. Agent Yellow hit it in the rump with electricity, and it bellowed, dropping its head down and charging down the street. The suburbs rushed past them; every moment they were drawing closer to the city proper.
"Nothing we do is stopping it!" Agent Red complained, starting to fall behind the Ox.
"Hang on…" Agent Blue hummed pensively. "If we can't attack it directly…"
"It's gonna destroy the city!" shouted Agent Yellow, hitting a tree in front of the Ox with a bolt of lightning, bursting it apart into slivers that peppered the Ox's head and eyes. The Ox bellowed, shaking its head.
Agent Red put on a burst of speed as the Ox slowed, and just managed to pull ahead of the charging Ox. With mere moments to spare, she planted herself in front of the Ox and sent the strongest blast of fire she could muster straight at its face. The Ox lowered its head and charged straight at her. The distance between them dropped in half in a matter of seconds, and Agent Red leapt into the air just as the Ox reached her. Grabbing onto one horn, she sprang over it and landed on its back. "Any bright ideas, Sandy?" she demanded, wrapping her arms around its neck and clinging on for dear life.
"Just give me a sec," Agent Blue replied moments later. Agent Red clung to the Ox's hair desperately to keep her seat. "Alright," Agent Blue called, sprinting alongside the Ox to the left. "Direct it to the right, just a little bit, right… now!"
Agent Red grabbed the Ox's right horn and pulled with all her might, just as a mound of ice began to rise in front of the Ox. The Ox shifted its trajectory ever so slightly to the south. Agent Red could see Agents Blue and Yellow racing along on either side of the Ox, with Agent Blue constantly forming new ice in front of the Ox, always directing it further and further south. Agent Yellow hit it in the right side of the face with tiny shocks, pulling it more and more in that direction.
"Now all we have to do is keep going like this until we get it to the Mississippi," Agent Blue announced, panting from exertion and nearly stumbling as she formed another ice slick, propelling the Ox further south.
"Is that all?" demanded Agent Yellow. The Ox growled furiously, nearly goring her as she hit it with yet another jolt
"Well, it's either that or explain to Mom and Dad that we managed to let the city get demolished again," Agent Red reminded them, gritting her teeth.
"I changed my mind," Agent Yellow joked. "I think I'd rather take the Calc test!"