Chapter XIV: Discovered

Royal Woods.
Several hundred feet in the air...

"Woohoo!" Lincoln cried out as he soared over his hometown, the air roaring in his ears. He didn't know how fast he was going, nor did he really care at the moment. Right now all of those fears and worries he had were behind him. As he flew through the heavy clouds around him, the sensation of flight was starting to become near overwhelming. Lincoln could feel his heart racing as he finally got a true taste of flight over Royal Woods. The lights below from the town looked so small from his height, and without fear of falling Lincoln could stare down all he wanted. With one hand stuck forward and another grabbing the straps of his backpack, Lincoln flew over to somewhere he knew would be a good place to start practicing.

Lincoln glanced at his watch, which showed 11:02 PM. Plenty of time.

"Okay," he said to himself, "I should probably go until at least midnight. Or one. Definitely not two, that's pushing it far. An hour or so should give me plenty of time to practice and get some sleep."

He dived downwards once he recognized the spot, easing up on his speed as he approached his target: the old hiking trail, the same one that he and his sisters used to test their powers just three days ago. Already it was bringing up some strong memories, some fond and others not so much. Speaking of such memories made Lincoln glance over to his left where he saw the worn rope bridge, the place where he and Lynn had their little incident, was still destroyed. The park managers must not have been bothered to repair it, or haven't got around to it yet.

Nonetheless the boy continued. With the cover of night and virtually nobody around, Lincoln's excitement was peaking. Now that he was here in the woods and far away from his super-controlling sisters, he could do whatever he wanted without anyone else seeing him. And right now the Man with the Plan had some fresh ideas he wanted to try out. Lincoln hovered above the ground for a moment before he landed with a soft thud on both his feet, impressing himself for this level of control he already had.

He quickly shuffled his backpack down and opened it, revealing the many comics he had stored inside. The bright moonlight gave Lincoln some leeway, but he soon reached for his phone's flashlight to help him see better.

"Alright, step one is complete. Now for the best out of all of them; step two," Lincoln mumbled to himself as he flipped through the many comic books in his bookbag to find the one he was looking for, and sure enough he found it; Ace Savvy: Volume 13, a personal favorite of his. "A ha! There you are, gorgeous. Did you miss me?"

In the comic's vibrantly colored climactic battle, the heroic Ace was dueling against a powerful wind-wielding villainess that was robbing a planet-sized bank. The villainess herself was diving in and around all of Ace's powerful laser blasts with incredible speed and agility all while mocking the hero for attempting to hit her. The more he read on, Lincoln was hoping that he too could pull off that sort of skill with his own superpower. Unfortunately for him he didn't have any sort of lasers to practice with, so the forest and the sky would make do. He remembered to put the book down before he got too engrossed in his comic.

"Let's see," Lincoln scratched his chin as he began to think of a good way to start, "How about we try some speed."

...

"-can't keep my eyes from the circling sky, tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit-!"

"Josh, can you turn off that damn radio? You've been listening to that for hours on end, please give it a break."

"Sorry Aidan, just helps with the mood."

The two Starwatch agents currently sitting in their unmarked SUV both wished they were doing something else other than patrol, but orders were orders. Joshua Fulton, a young man with his blond hair buzzed to a trim, sat in the driver's seat as he drove around the moonlight-soaked darkness of Michigan. He had been with Starwatch for a couple years now, not as long as his passenger. Aidan Clancy was coming up to her eighth year at Starwatch. She was almost as tall as Josh, with a rather large bosom and short, thick blonde hair that dangled over her left eye. Right now, the female agent was currently fighting a losing battle against her tired body thanks to the long flight to Michigan, and being forced to hear the loud tunes of the late night radio wasn't doing her any favors.

Michigan was steadily becoming an area of interest for Starwatch. Ever since they had found the metal sliver days ago, which was now tucked securely in their Pentagon labs, the higher-ups at Starwatch had suspected that there may be more similar shards laying around in the forests and rivers of the American north, and they certainly didn't want them falling into any wandering civilian's hands, for their own safety of course. With a new goal in mind, Starwatch had sent teams of agents to the state to comb the area and be on the lookout for anything suspicious, which included the pair currently driving down a dark highway in the middle of the night.

Aidan let out a whine as she rubbed her eyes for the umpteenth time, blinking hard to fight the call for sleep. The female agent had been awake ever since they had landed here from the airport, and she didn't want to put in more hours where she would be a detriment to her friend. Even if Josh didn't mind, she was stubborn when it came to helping out.

"Hey Aidan, you know you it's fine if you want to catch some z's," Josh softly said, "I can manage the night watch by myself."

"It's not," She let out a yawn right as she started speaking, "that I don't trust you on the road, Josh. I'd rather be sleepy and helping out rather than just dozing off and leaving you all to yourself again."

"Aw, thanks. But seriously, if you want to sleep for a little bit, go ahead. I'll be fine."

"Alright, I'll hold you to that." Aidan slowly replied as she finally relented on her urge to stay awake. The agent reached over for her black baseball cap behind her in the back seat and put it on her face, leaning the chair back as she crossed her arms to dose off. Josh resisted the urge to turn the radio back on to rile her up, and as much as he wanted to listen to his tunes, he didn't wish to incur the wrath of his already tired friend. The SUV turned another corner, coming up to a sign showing the location of a hiking trail. Josh paid it no mind as he stopped at the red light and waited for it to turn green.

As he mindlessly tapped the steering wheel and gazed that the woods surrounding him, a sudden blur overhead caught his attention. The agent turned towards where he thought he saw something streak past the moon above, like a jet, but there was no sound to be heard other than the blinkers of his car. But he was sure that he must have seen something out of the corner of his eye fly past his car. He leaned forward to get a better look, but he couldn't find anything. Either it was some sort of animal, or he was seeing things. Maybe he was just as tired as Aidan.

"Huh." He mumbled to himself. "That was odd."

"What's odd?" Aidan asked, not bothering to remove her hat.

"I swore I saw something fly overhead."

"It's probably a bird, Josh. That's what they do."

It made sense, but Josh believed differently. The agent kept peering through the front window to make sure he'd actually seen something. He had just sat back down before he saw it again, this time right in front of the hanging moon.

"There it is again!" Josh pointed, nudging Aidan from her rest.

"Josh I swear if you're waking me up because of a goddamned bird I'm gonna-!" Aidan hissed as she slapped the cap off her face, ready to give her friend an earful.

"Look I'm telling you there's something there!" Josh argued. "I mean it! It couldn't be a bird!"

"Oh yeah, and what could it be?"

"I don't know, but it looked... it looked like a person." Josh slowly replied, sounding just as confused as he looked, and Aidan rose an eyebrow after hearing what her friend had just said. She gave him a blank stare, and he only gave a wondering, befuddled look in response as if trying to answer his own curiosity.

"A person? Really?"

"I don't really know what I saw but I'm sure it was something, and it wasn't a bird!" He said back to her. "Why don't you take a look and try to see for yourself?"

Aidan rolled her eyes and decided to humor Josh's request, rolling down the window of the SUV to stick her head out into the cold night air. She didn't expect to see anything other than stars and the moon. For a moment there was nothing other than the sounds of a gentle breeze and the occasional cricket. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a regular night patrol for the Starwatch agents. She shook her head, letting out a disgruntled sigh. Josh must have been watching those videos on cryptids again. She knew that there wasn't anything strange out here in this neck of the woods.

Right as she was about to call it quits and further berate Josh for being a neurotic spook, she managed to catch something fly across the moon. It was brief, barely a second long or less, but she had clearly seen it. Aidan was certainly surprised that Josh was, in fact, telling the truth.

"What the hell? What is that?" She narrowed her eyes, attempting to get a closer look at whatever it could be. From her vantage down on the street it was little more than a small dark, zooming mass in the sky, but she could tell what a bird looked like from her standpoint and their flying friend was certainly not one of them. For one, the thing had too narrow of a body, and the 'wings' were short and featherless, if they were even wings at all. Either it was some sort of elaborate prank with a drone, or it really was something else. Either way it was worth investigating.

"Looks like you were right Josh." Aidan admitted as she returned to her seat, and Josh let out a hoot.

"See! I told you!" Josh pointed at her. "I told you there was something out there!"

"Yeah I heard you," Aidan said back, nudging her friend to check out the sign on their left, "C'mon, pull in to that parking lot over by the trail. Let's get a better look and make sure it isn't some dumb joke."

"God that would suck! After all that time trying to prove myself right for once!" Josh laughed, turning the SUV into the left lane. Had the two agents decided to take a look behind them, they might have seen one of the recon drones launched from the alien ship watching the same action unfold from atop a tree branch, switching its gaze from the human vehicle to the mysterious object flying the sky. Everything that the little machine saw was directly streamed back to the ship, right onto the monitor where the two hunters were watching this all unfold. One of them pressed a red holographic button, and the image seen on the screen started to clear up, revealing a dark and slightly blurry humanoid shape.

"There it is," She pointed at the screen, "That must be one of our targets. The seed's definitely found at least one human, that's for sure."

"I believe you may be right, but we should make sure just in case." Her friend said, typing away at the keyboard before turning around and heading for the launch bay. "I'm heading out to take a look. Remain here for lookout. I'll return once I have solid contact on our quarry."

"Ugh. Fine, leave me to guard the ship as always." His friend grumbled, kicking her feet up on the keyboard while her ally made his way through the long, brightly lit halls of the ship before he reached the entrance to the launch area, which was an elongated hexagonal launchpad located above the engines right behind the command bridge. It was mainly used for solo runs and scouting, but here underneath the water it was the swiftest way in and out of the large starship. Once he was there he entered the reinforced glass double doors which lead to the air-locked port and activated a switch, elevating him outside the ship and into the cold darkness of the water, the only sources of illumination being the exterior hull lights.

The sheer chill and pressure of the lakes depths held no affect on his metal body, designed to withstand even the most extreme environments. He made a quick check with a holographic projection on his right arm, indicating where the drone had last located a potential target, before he bent down and launched himself upwards to the surface of the water, propelled by powerful thrusters on his legs and spine.

Had anyone been near the shores of Lake Huron on this night, they would have seen a tall mechanical figure blast out of the lake straight into the sky above, followed by the distinctive roar of a jet engine as it took off towards the clouds above Michigan.

...

"Ha ha, that was awesome!" Lincoln cheered, stopping for a moment to catch his breath. He gently floated back down to the ground, right back to where he had left his bookbag, remembering where he had placed it in the middle of the forest. Thankfully it was still there.

He wasn't expecting to have this much fun tonight, and it only made him feel more obliged to continue flying. Oh how he'd wished that it was a weekend night to do this where he had all the time he wanted, but alas it was only a Tuesday-well, a Wednesday actually. He had gone over the midnight hour some minutes ago. While he had it in him to keep going for as long as he wanted, he knew that staying up all night would tire him out come morning.

"Okay Lincoln, calm yourself down. You don't want to stay up for too long. The other's will definitely notice something's off if I wind up tired all day, especially Lori. She's got eyes like a hawk, though that's probably more said for Lisa nowadays." Lincoln said to himself as he rummaged through his backpack, looking for another comic book. The thought of defying his oldest sister's stiflingly annoying orders however got him feeling a bit more devious with a grin forming on his lips. "Then again, I guess I could go for at least another half-hour. Thirty minutes, tops. That sounds good."

There was another factor to Lincoln's late-night practicing other than learning more of his strange abilities; having far greater mastery of his powers of flight compared to his sisters. As childish as it seemed, Lincoln did have a competitive streak in him and a desire to be "number one", though he managed to keep it under control most of the time. The same couldn't be said for tonight, however. The mental imagery he was creating of himself flexing his newfound control while his sisters struggled to grow their own powers thanks to their own constraining rules (no using without permission, yadda yadda) was something that he was aiming to make a reality.

It was not out of spite that he was thinking like this, it was hoping that seeing how far he had gone all on his own would show his sisters that they should be using these powers for something more. They had these powers for a reason, all of them, and Lincoln knew that it was foolish and quite frankly idiotic to try and suppress them when they could be the very heroes that he had read about in his endless expansive library of comic books.

Speaking of which, Lincoln found the book he was looking for and began to read with his phone light, unaware that he was no longer alone in the forest.

...

The SUV pulled into the closest available spot next to the administration cabin, and before the two Starwatch agents decided to go exploring they went to the back of the car and opened the trunk. Inside lay their specialized tactical equipment, an upgraded standard for all Starwatch members in the field. Both of them donned their black light-armored vests, night-vision goggles that came equipped with mounted cameras, and armed themselves with suppressed Glock-19s just in case anything goes wrong. Once they were ready, as with a friendly fist-bump, Aidan and Josh ventured into the forest now on the hunt for their elusive U.F.O. friend.

Thanks to it being nighttime, Aidan took the lead with her flashlight with Joshua following behind her. Before long there was only the sound of footsteps crunching on the ground below and the occasional hoot from an owl. Aidan remained silent as she walked on, making sure that her camera was at full battery Josh had seen something out of the corner of his eye.

"Aidan! Over there!" Josh nudged her shoulder and pointed over through the trees. Aidan turned her flashlight off once she saw what Josh was pointing at; a light glowing in the forest. It was weak from their distance, but she noticed that it was hovering above the ground. Both agents donned their night vision cameras and zoomed in for a closer look, crouching through the low-level foliage as quietly as they could before they saw what it was, leaving the both of them befuddled.

"Is that a kid?" Josh whispered. It was the last thing he was expecting to find in the woods at this hour. The kid, a young boy by the look of things in his pajamas, was standing around reading a comic book without a care in the world. "What the hell is he doing out here?"

"I don't know, do I look like his parent? Speaking of which, do you think he's run off or something?" Aidan responded, keeping herself hidden in the bushes while she watched the child. He didn't seem to be distressed at all. A young lad like him would more than likely be scared out of his mind being here in the dark. Either this boy was very emotionally strong, or there was another factor they weren't seeing here.

What the two agents were not expecting to see tonight, however, was what the boy did next. He had put away his comic book back into his bookbag, before he tucked in his legs like he was preparing to jump and launched himself into the sky. There was a weak trail of dust that followed him along with the whoosh of air as he rose higher into the air, becoming a familiar shape that the both of them had seen earlier. The two agents couldn't believe what they had just seen, their mouths hanging open and eyes wide behind their goggles.

"Um," Josh managed to scrape his jaw off the ground, "A-Am I seeing things, or did that kid just fly off like Superman?"

Aidan nodded, swallowing as she did. Several seconds of silence later before Josh spoke again.

"Please tell me your camera was on."

She nodded again.

...

"One last trick, Lincoln. One last trick then we're gone." Lincoln mumbled to himself as he rose higher into the clouds. While he would have loved to go longer he could feel his body's need for sleep beginning to wear him down. He found himself rubbing his eyes more often now. He must have been at least a thousand feet up before he stopped mid-air to think for a moment. He needed to finish off with something good before he returned home, and he had an idea. The comic he had read for his "research", Ace Savvy and the Doom Soldier, had some interesting fight scenes in it, which made Lincoln wonder if he could somehow wield his powers for other uses other than just flying.

Maybe he could figure out a way to fight with it, like an actual superhero. It made Lincoln feel a little giddy to think of himself as some butt-kicking crusader of justice with his air powers. With a plan in mind of how he just might be able to weaponize his powers, Lincoln made a finger gun with his right hand and aimed at a nearby cloud, imagining it to be a villain of some sort.

"Bang!" He playfully said, "firing" his gun.

It caught him off-guard when a sudden blast of air to fire directly at the cloud right from his fingertips, effectively turning it into vapor. It made a shrieking sound as it tore through the distance between Lincoln and the cloud, distorting the air around it with great strength. Lincoln was clearly surprised, as he hadn't expected it to actually work! The boy felt a grin slowly tug at his lips.

"Okay, now things are getting cool."

"ꜱᴜᴅᴅᴇɴ ᴀɪʀ ᴅɪꜱᴛᴏʀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴅᴇᴛᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ. ʀᴇʀᴏᴜᴛɪɴɢ...

ꜱᴏᴜʀᴄᴇ ᴛʀɪᴀɴɢᴜʟᴀᴛᴇᴅ.

ʙᴇɢɪɴ ʜᴜɴᴛɪɴɢ."

The first sign that signified that he was getting company was when Lincoln heard an engine-like noise steadily getting louder. At first, he had simply thought that it was the wind billowing in the air. Yet he realized that it couldn't be the wind, because the sound that he was hearing was not only getting louder, but also closer as well. A sudden sense of fear came over him. If a plane managed to see him hovering it would be all over the news, and Lincoln could kiss his newest nighttime venture goodbye. He could see it clearly, Local Boy Becomes Flying Menace! written all over the papers. But what he was hearing now did not sound like any sort of plane that Lincoln had ever heard.

The boy turned his head to where it was coming from, which was emanating from the massive cumulonimbus cloud behind him. At his level, it had formed a gray-white wall that stretched high into the air. Lincoln couldn't see anything through the dark gray mist, so he slowly inched himself closer to the edges of the cloud to try and get a better look. Suddenly the sound stopped, leaving Lincoln in complete silence as he stared into the cool fog. There was a lull in the clouds movement, giving Lincoln a graceful view into its depths.

With the moon silhouetted above his head, there was only darkness greeting him as he stared into the long misty tunnel.

"H-Hello?" Lincoln said, feeling compelled to see if anything would respond.

And something did respond, in the form of an aircraft that came screaming out of the mist in a blur, close enough to nearly impale the boy by mere inches with its nosecone. Lincoln let out a yelp as he dived out of the way just in the nick of time, like in a slow-motion shot, letting Lincoln see what had just popped out from the mist.

It was large, but still strangely smaller than a usual human-piloted jet, with a wingspan of at least four to five meters from wing to wing as if it had been scaled down. Speaking of wings, they were forward facing and angular, with slightly curved stabilizers positioned near and next to the pair of nozzle thrusters at the back of the craft that blasted twin streaks of yellow-white light behind it as it roared across the sky in front of Lincoln. The aircraft itself was colored entirely metallic gray, with the cockpit being a diamond white-blue, flanked by two smaller stabilizers above the intakes. Lincoln didn't know whether or not it was some sort of machine, like a Predator drone, but he found himself curious about the aircraft, narrowing his eyes to get a better look.

There were no insignias or flags on it, though. Only smooth gray metal.

He watched as the jet banked down to the right before it re-aligned itself and formed a wide, semicircular U-turn. As it did, it was slowly dawning on Lincoln that, much to his complete shock, this thing, whatever it may be, was heading right back towards him. And he was in the open.

So he did the one thing he could do: FLY.

Lincoln took off as fast as he could before the jet could try to hit him again, the wind howling in his ears. With his arms stretched out Lincoln propelled himself as fast as he could to try and get away from the aircraft as he soared through the air like a missile. He didn't know how fast he was going right now, but when he briefly looked behind him he realized to his horror that the jet was in fact chasing him, keeping a perfect trail on the flying boy as it followed him.

What the heck is that thing doing?! Why is it chasing me?! Lincoln wondered in the midst of his panic. He rose upwards as sharply as he could to try and evade his pursuer, feeling the airborne mist brush against his face, but the jet still kept on him. Lincoln banked down and preformed a hook maneuver around a column-shaped cloud, but even with those tricks he still could not shake this jet. Its shiny blue cockpit gleamed in the moonlight as if it were mocking him, showing the boy that he could not escape.

"Go away!" Lincoln shouted, hoping for some reason that yelling at the jet would stop it from chasing him, but to no avail. It either couldn't hear him, or it did and decided to ignore his cries. He grit his teeth once he realized that he could not simply try to outrun it.

Think, Lincoln, think! What would Ace Savvy do in a time like this? Lincoln knew he had to play smart in order to get this thing off his tail. Eventually, after a couple silent moments of thinking, the Man with the Plan remembered that it was a cloudy night, and turned his attention to the clouds above both him and the jet and was instantly given an answer.

That's it! The clouds, I gotta lose it up there! Thank you, comic books!

So, briefly making sure that the jet was still following him, which it was, Lincoln rose up to the largest cloud in front of him and dove right inside. The first thing that hit him was not the humidity, but how cold it was inside the gray mass, which got darker and darker the farther he flew in. Lincoln could feel his body shivering, wiping off the excess dew from his face as he continued onwards hoping that the dark mist would be able to hide him from the mysterious jet. He banked several times to make his path ever more confusing to try and lose it faster. Over the sounds of wind and rain, Lincoln could faintly hear the sounds of jet engines slowly getting quieter and quieter, until he could no longer detect it.

Feeling relieved that his plan had worked, Lincoln let a sigh of relief exit his lips once he left the safety of the cloud. His chase had taken him far from the hiking trail, but he could retrace his steps. Lincoln didn't want to leave his bookbag unattended too long, especially since it carried a lot of his favorite comics.

And yet, as he continued to fly over the trees below him, a shadow suddenly washed over him and blocked the light of the moon above. In his confusion, Lincoln turned himself upwards wondering what it was and let out a startled gasp.

The jet, the one that had been chasing him, was flying directly over the boy, upside-down. No noise was heard coming from the jet's engines, for it must have quietly snuck up on the boy when he thought he had escaped. There must have been barely a meter of space between Lincoln and the strange aircraft. It was in the crystal blue cockpit of the jet that Lincoln could barely make out a pair of circular lights hidden within, deep yellow in nature. When the lights flickered for the briefest of moments, Lincoln realized with a startled gasp that they were not just lights: they were eyes.

THIS THING WAS WATCHING HIM.

For several silent moments, both he and the aircraft stared back at each other, neither making a move. Suddenly the jet flipped back over, lurched to the right and roared off back to the skies above, blasting the boy with a gust of hot air as it left. Lincoln managed to protect himself as much as he could from the searing wind to watch as the jet disappeared into the night. He remained there, floating in the air and still terrified out of his wits. The beeping of his watch brought him out of his stupor, revealing that it had just hit 1 AM. It was time to go home.

Before he did he looked down to his hand, and only now realized that he could've at least fought back with his newly discovered air bullets, but he'd forgotten to do so in the rush of the chase. He let out a distressed sigh, both for what happened and how he reacted. Lincoln quickly made himself scarce, grabbing his bookbag where he'd last left it in the forest and soared back to Royal Woods as quickly as possible.

And for some odd, ominous reason, there was a growing pit in his gut telling him that he hadn't seen the last of that strange jet.

...

"I can't believe what we just saw! H-He just, whoosh! Like that!" Josh exclaimed with wild hand gestures as the two Starwatch agents left the hiking trail in their SUV, peeling out onto the road once they had put their gear away. Tonight had turned into something far more than just a simple patrol, and to say they were startled was a great understatement. Aidan was still processing what she had seen back in the forest as Josh drove the SUV around the corner and merged on the state highway. Josh himself had turned into a non-stop chatterbox, a bad habit he did out of stress.

"Like, am I dreaming, or did we just stumble into a real-life superhero movie plot?" Josh stammered, feeling a little nervous.

"I don't know, dude. I don't know. But we have to get this," she shook the night-vision goggles she had worn during their excursion, along with the mounted spherical camera lenses that no doubt had solid video footage of what they had seen, "back to the Pentagon ASAP. They're gonna need to know what we found out here."

"Yeah, and I really wouldn't want to be in that kid's shoes right now." Josh said back as the drove to the nearest Starwatch outpost, knowing that what they were about to share was going to cause a whole mess of things for both them and their agency.

Lake Huron, half an hour later...

"So, how was your flight? Was it fun?" Those words coming from his friend's mouth was what the male hunter was greeted with the moment he stepped back into the observation deck of their ship.

"We have a lead," he responded as he made his way over to where she was sitting and typed a command on the console, pulling up a video he had taken, "One of the local humans was testing out his new powers. And luckily I was there to find him."

The silent video l on the yellow holographic screen showed a white-haired boy flying in the clouds, the same one that he had chased earlier. Several still frames taken of the boy's face spliced themselves into separate pictures displayed on the dark red screen, each detailing features of the boy. The two hunters watched as the video rolled on and eventually repeated itself, both of them eyeing the young human. His friend put a hand on her hips as she watched the video roll.

"More kids again?" She wondered, and then turned to her fellow hunter. "I think the seeds are specifically targeted to find younglings."

"Do you think you can find this boy?" He asked.

"Think? I know I can find him. I'll get back to you once I've hooked us up to the World Wide Web again." She plainly said, standing up to head towards another area of the ship to start working on the next step of their quest. As she left with the double-slide doors hissing behind her, he kept his optics focused on the boy in the video. He knew for certain that while this child was still adjusting to his newfound powers based on what he could see in his movements, the boy did have some talent for flight. Those maneuvers the child managed to pull off were quite interesting, fueling his curiosity.

He kept his focused optics on the white-haired lad, wondering just how far this child's powers would grow the next time they'd meet.