… and now my Red Sentient 5 one-shot collection has expanded into a one-shot collection about the Sentients in general. Oh well. =P

Note: This takes place in the very first episode, Starting Line, from the perspective of Sage. The shot will explain the rest.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Battle Force 5 franchise; I merely screw it up for my own twisted ideals.

Silence

Sage liked to think herself as a loner, but she knew that was a lie. While she did enjoy her solitude, it was something she had hardly ever received in the past, even though her faulty memory made it difficult to remember various events. While she seemed like she was alone now, in truth she was not, as the Human that had brought her to relative safety wasn't far away.

The Blue Sentient was hovering in the center of her newly-created Hub, built by the nanotechnology she possessed in a hollowed-out space beneath Vert Wheeler's building. Since so much time had passed since she had been able to accomplish something so large, she looked around at her surroundings with pardonable pride.

Granted, it still wasn't complete, as three bursts were needed to build: the first to hollow out the proper space, the second for the main functions, and the third for secondary functions. Doing the bursts of energy without a Mobius Command Center handy was a risky business, but when Sage made a decision, she stuck with it. Vert Wheeler would need this place as much as she did, she knew it. If she wanted to stay alive and hidden on this planet – and if Vert wanted to protect his homeworld – they would need the space to shelter other warriors; specifically the ones mentioned in the Prophecy of Five.

Sage considered herself a being of science, but she was also a being of logic, and she knew Sentient prophecies were rarely wrong. While the deleted parts of her memory dealt with those areas, intuition told her that the Prophecy of Five was coming true. Vert Wheeler was just part of the catalyst that would cause it to be fulfilled.

Taking a short pause to prepare for the last nanotech blast, Sage pulled up a group of her triangular screens, connecting her systems to what Humans called the Internet. In the simplest terms, Sentients of any color were a race of living, thinking computers, and their very nature made them masters of machines – and master hackers. Accessing the World Wide Web was Vandal's play to her.

Her screens were only needed in a superficial sense; her eyes stared blankly at the wall as she filtered various nuisances like "viruses" and "malware" out of her connection. It didn't take long for her to find a search engine that would suit her purposes, and she concentrated, trying to remember part of the Prophecy of 5 and its description of the 5. Vert was "the one with fire in his spirit," she was sure of it, but she wouldn't help with the others.

The two that are one …

That would be a good place to start – that was the only part she could remember – but there was the simple hitch that it could mean any number of things. Prophecies were notoriously open-ended, allowing them to be interpreted and fulfilled in any number of ways, which why Sage disliked using them.

It was better to just go with logic now. Sage preformed the mental equivalent of slouching backwards in her seat, thinking. Vert would be a good field leader, but what skills would he need to compliment his own?

The Sark are purely robots – easy prey for a skilled hacker or computer programmer. The Vandals lack even rudimentary mathematical skills.

Those simple enemy flaws led the Sentient to Spinner and Sherman Cortez, a pair of twin brothers currently residing in San Diego, California. Ignoring her twinges of unease (mostly stemming from her experiences with Krytus), she found that the 17-year-old brothers were considered prodigies in their respective fields: younger Sherman had taken college-level math classes and still wasn't sufficiently challenged, while Spinner was in high demand with various computer and game designers. A slight blip informed Sage that the older sibling had gotten in trouble with the law before – apparently, the 'Federal Bureau of Investigation' didn't appreciate it when a teenager hacked their databanks for fun.

Amused, Sage added the brothers to a list and continued on with her search. A survivalist would be good … someone who doesn't need technology to find someone, and isn't hindered by the terrain.

"Tracker, All-Terrain, Resilient" was plugged in, and her top result gave her an overview of Agura Ibadlen, a dark-skinned 18-year-old ATV racer whose family had immigrated from the continent of Africa when she had been about three years old. Scrolling down, Sage learned that Agura had learned traditional tracking methods from her grandfather, and that her maternal great-grandmother had been a tribal princess. Examining the photograph of her, showing a proud, confident young woman, Sage knew that part of her bloodline still survived.

Adding Agura alongside the Cortez brothers, the Blue Sentient didn't take long to find someone that could handle intense situations, as well as add a professional's touch when it came to close-quarters combat. Zoom Takazumi was the youngest group member so far, at 16 years old, but Sage was confident that his relative youth would only be a minor detail when it came to the sum of his parts … judging solely from his standings from many martial-arts competitions , he would be as valuable as the others.

Instinct told the female she just needed one more person to round out the group. Part of her remembered Krytus' gang and how some of their traits echoed in those of these Humans … Agura's affection for ATVs reminded her of Kyburi's Venikus, and the Saber's design was reminiscent of her twin's own wicked blades …

She shook her head, forcing herself to ignore those bad memories. Regardless, maybe it would do to have this group emulate her brother's Force. Vert had already been marked as the Leader, and Agura had all the makings of a Hunter. Zoom's love for life on the edge and need for speed pointed him towards the Scout's role; the Cortezes could act as the Technical/Tactical Support.

That just left the Artillery Officer's role unfilled. Krytus' pick had been Kyrosys, and while the Red and his fire wheels had been both intimidating and effective, Sage felt they needed something a bit more controlled for this group.

In any case, they would need good aim. Inputting "Sharpshooter" into the search engine, her new results – unlike the previous ones – did not suit her. Most of them were older than 19-year-old Vert and were active in various military organizations around the world. While she did not doubt their prowess and discipline, she preferred to keep anyone immediately associated with the government away from this place.

Starting to get annoyed, and wondering if she should set this aside and complete the Hub, Sage's virtual gaze finally fell upon a promising entry. Stanford Issac Rhodes IV, it read, detailing that the orange-haired 18-year-old was a prince in the British royal family, currently 188th in line for the throne and working as a disk jockey in the city of London. His affinity for sound, his record as an excellent shot, his youth, and relative unimportance to political entities made him her best Artillery candidate – yet Sage hesitated.

It was true that his low status on the royalty totem pole meant that it was unlikely that he would be in any position to betray her existence to a Human government, but he was still royalty. Agura's family hadn't had political power for several generations now, and there were few that knew of those connections anyway. Stanford, however, had known of his heritage since birth, and there was no room on a team like this for that kind of potential arrogance.

What other choice did she have, though, save those older warriors? Sometimes you couldn't predict the reaction of elements when they were mixed together – you just had to throw them together and hope for the best.

Steeling herself, Sage added Stanford to her list, than opened an email account. The email account itself would be untraceable, but the contents would be an offering what the recipients loved best, with the transportation to Handler's Corner paid for by her. (Sage was not above "borrowing" money from various online bank accounts when it suited her needs – they were all well-padded with billions in currency, so it was unlikely any of them would notice.) First-class airfare, limos – all would be provided, so long as the replies came as soon as possible.

Satisfied with her formatting, Sage fired them off, and then got down to arranging the aforementioned transportations, booking seats and renting limos from the airport to bring them to the salt flats. All it took was ten minutes of well-spent work, and by the time she was done, all of them – Agura, Zoom, Stanford, and the Cortezes – had leapt at the invitation.

Pleased with herself, Sage attached the tickets for the flight and limo and replied back. They would only bring the essentials – she had intentionally picked flights that would depart within three hours.

She disliked such deceptions, but it was necessary.

Signing off, Sage looked around at the imperfection that was her incomplete Hub, ocular units focusing on her surroundings. She had arranged for Vert's backup; now they needed a place to stay.

XxX

Up above, Vert Wheeler – out of the new shocksuit, cleaning volcanic ash off his new car, and marveling over the day's events – started in surprise as his garage lights flickered. It didn't happen like they usually did – dimming and brightening so quickly it was only apparent in hindsight – but instead they remained darker for a minute or so.

"Sage?" he called, trying not to betray his apprehension. The alien woman he had rescued hours earlier had vanished into the back rooms after leaving hibernation mode, but he had to wonder if she was responsible for the lights.

"I am in the lower levels," came her reply, magnified by his stereo speakers. Even that little bolt from the blue couldn't overshadow his confusion at what she had said, though.

"I don't have a lower level."

As he said it, the left wall – the one he had been facing – split open, revealing a space very much like an elevator; the white interior looked like it was illuminated by florescent lights. Sage's voice was very much in understatement as she replied.

"You do now."

XxX

-Inferna Firesword