"Summoner?" Hawkeye lowered his bow.

"Hawkeye." The man named Summoner lowered his wooden stick.

"It's been a while. I haven't seen you since last year when we dealt with that vortex AIM created."

Summoner just nodded, then looked left to right, tensing, like he expected something to jump out at him.

"So any reason why you're blowing up all the trees on this island?" asked Black Lightning.

Summoner turned to the blue and yellow-clad hero, his eyes darting around the woods. "I found them."

"Who?" Wonder Woman gave him a quizzical look.

"These energy beings. I've been tracking them for six months. I found a couple of them here."

Black Lightning eyed the mass of fallen trees. "I take it these things are up to no good, given all the damage you've done."

"That's the one thing I do know about them. They are hostile." Summoner checked around the woods again. "As to what they actually are or where they come from, I still haven't found that out."

"Are these things still here?" Colossus also looked around.

"I'm not sure."

"We better sweep the woods." Hawkeye assigned each Avenger a different point on the compass. Wonder Woman north, Black Lightning south and Colossus west, while he and Summoner went east.

"Comms on at all times. Sing out if you see anything."

Hawkeye switched out arrows, going for one with a taser tip. Fight fire with fire, or in this case, fight energy with energy.

He felt a tinge of nervousness. There was no guarantee the arrow would work against an energy being. Unfortunately, he didn't have many other options in his quiver. He couldn't imagine a smoke or sonic arrow doing much good.

"So what do these things look like?" Hawkeye asked, his eyes sweeping the woods.

"White, oblong-shaped, somewhat hazy. They also whisper."

"Whisper?"

"That's what it sounds like. I've never been able to make out what they say, though."

Hawkeye grunted. Stranger and stranger.

Then again, when do we ever deal with anything normal?

They continued on for a quarter-mile, a half-mile. Hawkeye saw no sign of any hazy white energy beings. Neither did the other Avengers.

"I hate to say it, buddy, but whatever these things are, it looks like they got the hell out of Dodge."

"Dammit." Summoner banged his Elemental Stick on the ground. Ripples of dirt spread out in all directions. "I had them. I had them."

Hawkeye gave the Algonquian hero a curious look. Before he could say anything, he heard the whine of a Quinjet engine above Fishers Island. That had to be Captain America and the others. He used his comm to brief them on Summoner's story.

"Sounds like this could be serious," Cap said. "Ask Summoner to come back to the mansion with us. We'll do a full briefing and try to come up with a way to find these energy beings."

"You got it, Cap." Hawkeye looked back at Summoner. "Captain America wants to talk with you back at Avengers Mansion about these energy beings."

"I don't . . ." Summoner groaned, his face tightening.

"You don't what? You said you've been after these things for six months, and you still don't know much about them. The Avengers have access to resources you don't, resources that can help us learn what these beings are, what they're capable of and why they're here."

Summoner groaned. He gripped his Elemental Stick tighter and stared at the ground. Several seconds of silence passed before he muttered, "All right."

Hawkeye contacted Wonder Woman, Colossus and Black Lightning and told them to meet back at the Quinjet. When they all arrived, Summoner stalked over to the aircraft and climbed in without a word. Hawkeye watched him, more than a little perplexed. Summoner wasn't a motormouth like Flash or Spiderman, but neither was he anti-social.

"I did not know you knew Summoner," Colossus said, breaking Hawkeye's train of thought.

"Huh?" He turned to the large, silver-skinned Russian. Colossus had joined the team a few months after the vortex incident. He wouldn't know about Hawkeye's history with Summoner. "Oh yeah. Yeah, we we're both in SHIELD together. Actually, I trained him in hand-to-hand combat and field work. He's taken down some pretty big-time baddies. Grim Reaper, Serpent Society, he even went toe-to-toe with Sinestro once."

"Impressive."

"Yeah, which makes me wonder."

Colossus tilted his head. "About what?"

"How bad these energy beings are to make someone like Summoner that spooked."

XXXXX

Summoner didn't say a word during the flight back to Manhattan. He just kept staring out the canopy, as though expecting to see an energy being. A couple of times, Hawkeye caught himself doing the same thing.

Jeez, when did you become so paranoid?

A better question would be when did Summoner become so paranoid?

"So, Summoner?"

"Yes?" He kept looking out the canopy.

"How are things with you and Cathy?" Hawkeye referred to Cathy Webster, aka the superheroine Free Spirit.

Summoner barely turned toward him. "We broke up."

"What?" blurted Wonder Woman. "You two had been together for two years. What happened?"

"Things change." Summoner went back to staring out the canopy.

Wonder Woman tried to pry more information out of him. Summoner just gave her one or two word answers, clearly not eager to go into any details. Hawkeye couldn't blame him. He'd been through his share of bad break-ups and always hated it when others wanted him to talk about it.

Minutes later, he landed the Quinjet in the underground hangar at Avengers Mansion. The second Quinjet came in right behind them. Captain America got out with the remaining Avengers, Flash, Wasp and Dr. Mid-Nite.

"Summoner." Flash grinned and slapped him on the back. "Good to see you again, buddy."

"Flash." The Algonquian nodded to him.

"So what the heck is all this about energy beings? And, you know, we just got done stopping the Wizard from blowing up the whole East Coast. You could've let us have a couple of days off before springing this on us."

"I'm sorry if these things are an inconvenience to you." Summoner glowered at Flash and picked up his pace, putting more distance between him and the red-clad speedster.

Flash scratched his head and turned to Wasp. "I remember him being a lot friendlier than that."

Wasp shrugged. "Maybe he's just having a bad day."

The Avengers gathered in the second floor conference room. Glasses of water sat in front of each chair, with two water pitchers and two trays of sandwiches in the middle of the table.

Good ol' Jarvis.

Flash took an entire tray for himself and started woofing down sandwiches as Captain America asked Summoner to explain everything he knew about the energy beings. After giving a general description, he said, "I started seeing them about six months ago, outside my cabin near Utica. Since them, I've seen them in Albany, Red Hook, Northville, Peekskill and here in New York."

"And you're sure they're hostile?" asked Wasp.

Summoner's head snapped toward her. His jaw clenched, as though trying to hold back an angry outburst. He took a slow breath and answered, "Yes, I'm sure. They tried to attack me."

"How?" asked Captain America.

"Some sort of electric tendril. Look, trust me, whatever they are, they are not friendly."

"What about this whispering you told me about?" Hawkeye reached out for a sandwich. Crisis or not, he was still hungry.

"Whispering?" Dr. Mid-Nite leaned forward, shocked. "These things can talk?"

"Apparently. I have no idea what they're saying."

Captain America tapped on a keyboard embedded in the table. Behind him a map of the northeast appeared on a wall monitor. "Summoner, go to the screen and touch all the places where you've seen these beings."

Summoner did as requested. When he finished, Captain America gazed at the screen, pinching his chin with his thumb and index finger.

"It looks like most of your sightings are around Utica, where you live, right?"

"Yes."

"Do you think they might be trying to contact you personally?" Wasp wondered.

"I don't see why they would."

"Well along with Utica," Cap said, "the bulk of Summoner's sightings are in upstate New York. I say we split up and go over these places with EMF detectors. If these energy beings are around, we should be able to find them."

"Another possibility is they come from another dimension," Dr. Mid-Nite theorized. "If there is some kind of portal they're using to cross into our world, the EMF detectors should pick that up as well."

Captain America nodded. "Good point. Okay, Hawkeye, you go with Summoner and check out Utica. Wonder Woman and Colossus can take Albany, Flash and Wasp Peekskill and I'll take Black Lightning and Dr. Mid-Nite to check out New York City."

The heroes stood, many grabbing a sandwich or two before heading out of the conference room. Hawkeye walked alongside Summoner, munching on a turkey and cheese sandwich. The Algonquian had his head down, his expression stiff.

"Don't worry. We'll find these things and stop 'em."

Summoner turned to Hawkeye, a grim look on his face. "We'd better. If we don't, the whole world will suffer."

TO BE CONTINUED