"What are you thinking? You can't keep her here!"

"I didn't have anywhere else to bring her. This is our home, Scarlett. Maybe it can be hers too."

"This isn't her home! This is my home, and yours. Her home is earth."

Skylar awoke to the sounds of bickering. This was nothing new. Arguing and yelling had been one of her father's favorite pastimes. But this time was-different. She felt warm, and safe somehow. Whatever she was laying on was firm and yet soft, and it comforted her.

"Look at her Scarlett, she needs our help. And in time, maybe she could help us."

Skylar winced. She didn't like being talked about like she wasn't there. She wanted to let whoever was know that she was awake. She tried to sit up, but it was too hard. She tried to talk, but all she could manage was a disoriented mumbling.

"Shhh—do you hear that? I think she's awake."

In an instant, she felt someone at her side.

"Experion?" she mumbled.

"Yes, I'm here," he answered. She felt him reach and stroke her arm.

Skylar groaned with effort, and managed to open her eyes. A vision of red assaulted her vision. Everything was red; the walls, the ceiling, and the bed she was laying upon. It was all a deep, dusty, maroon color, and it looked like it was completely made out of lava rock. She was lying on a small lava rock bed, Experion at her side. Above him stood another girl, with long dark hair and brown eyes.

"What happened? whe-where am I?" asked Skylar, at shock in her new surroundings.

"You're on my planet, planet Caldara," answered Experion. "This is our home planet. And this is my friend, Scarlett."

"And who are you?" barked Scarlett.

"I—I'm Skylar," coughed Skylar.

Scarlett sniffed, as though Skylar's name confirmed some theory she had about the girl.

"Of course," smirked Scarlett. "A perfectly normal name for a perfect Normo."

"I'm not a normo!" exclaimed Skylar indignantly. "At least, I don't think I am. At any rate, I definitely am not normal. I have powers."

"What kind of powers?"

"Bionic ones," it was Experion that answered. "I saw them. When the soldiers were fighting with that guy-Krane? I saw their powers, and it was amazing. You're one of them, aren't you?"

Skylar nodded. "Krane was my father. I was his head soldier, S-1."

Scarlett rolled her eyes. "Fine, so you have some little powers and soldier name. That doesn't make you a superhero, and that doesn't mean you belong here."

"But she can belong here," argued Experion. He turned back to Skylar. "This can be your new home."

Scarlett rolled her eyes. "She doesn't even look like us, Experion! How are we going to explain her presence to the others?"

"We make her look like on of us," smiled Experion. "With her powers, no one would ever know the difference. And we can use the regenerating goo to reform her facial features into a Calderan. The people on Earth would never question the presence of another Calderan superhero." He smiled. "You can be one of us, Skylar."

Skylar smiled and laid back, closing her eyes.

\\\\\\\

Something uncomfortable was pressing against her head. She tried to wiggle away from it, but it kept pressing.

She took a deep breath, and coughed. Dust was filling her lungs. In the distance, an alarm was buzzing. She tried to open her eyes, to figure out what was going on around her, but it was too late. She was already drifting back to the world of unconsciousness.

\\\\\\\

"You took those guys out no problem! Blue tornado would have been impressed."

"I never would have been able to do it if you hadn't thought to throw me those night-vision goggles. I couldn't have seen a thing without them!"

The others laughed.

"I think we can all agree that you two make a wonderful team," said Scarlett. "You've taken down more villains in the past two years then Experion ever did on his own."

"Hey, hey. I was just waiting for the right partner to come along," defended Experion while the girls laughed.

Skylar grinned as she took another sip of her strawberry-lava shake. With some new facial structures, and a new team behind her, no one would ever have recognized her as the weak-willed villain that tried to kill off four bionic teens in the middle of the bionic crisis. Coming back to earth still made her nervous, but it was a necessary part of the job. Plus, from what she heard, Davenport and his team had relocated to some remote, bionic island off the coast, so the chances of her ever running into the people who thought they killed her where very slim.

"So I was thinking," said Experion, as he picked up another fry. "We do work pretty well together."

Skylar blushed, but she smiled back. "We do," she answered.

"Probably one of the best superhero duos to date," continued Experion.

"Yes, maybe," said Skylar slowly, wondering where this all was leading.

"Probably even good enough to take down the Annihilator himself."

Scarlet choked on her shake. "The Annihilator? You want Skylar to waltz in with you and take on one of the baddest villains in superhero history?"

"Why not?" asked Experion, offended. "Skylar's been training; she's awesome. I bet with the two of us, we could do it."

"Skylar's my best friend, Experion," said Scarlett. "I don't want you pulling her into one of your little fast-thought though schemes and getting her hurt."

"I think it's up to Skylar to make that decision," said Experion calmly. "So, Skylar, what do you say? Ready to take on one of the best villains in history with the best superhero team Earth has ever known?"

Skylar hesitated. Experion and Scarlett watched her.

"Skylar?"

\\\\\\\

"Skylar? Skylar? Skylar?"

The alarms were getting louder. She could hear sirens in the distance. Where were they coming from? What was happening?

Skylar lifted her head and opened her eyes a bit, but all she could see was a haze of dust and smoke. And a dark figure, loaming above her.

Skylar blinked, and the worried figure of Horace Diaz came into focus. He was bloodied and bruised, and covered from head to toe in what appeared to be remints of the Mighty Med ceiling.

"Skylar! You're alive!" Horace embraced her with an awkward hug, bending over a pile of rubble to reach her. Skylar winced as she felt her ribs groan in protest from the movement.

"Horace?" coughed Skylar. "What's happening?"

Horace pulled away from her. He looked more disheartened then she had ever seen him. Whatever was happening, it was worse then the time he found out that there was no such thing as bottom-hats.

"You'd better get up," he said. "I'll help you, come on."

He took her arm and lifted her out of the pile she had been sitting in. She looked around in shock. The room, which she recognized as the entrance of Mighty Med, was completely in shambles. The walls were crumbling, and the medical equipment was upset and strewn about the floor. A whole chunk of the ceiling was missing in the left corner, and half of an x-ray machine from the upper floor was hanging precariously through the hole.

"Oh no," gasped Skylar. Memories came back to her now. Of the fight; Roman and Riker's surprise attack, the casualties.

"Horace, where's Oliver and Kaz?"

Horace looked nervous. "They're over there," he said, gesturing to the threshold to the Normo hospital. "But Skylar…"

Skylar pushed him aside and hurried over to her friends. As she approached the magical janitor's closet that served as the entrance to Mighty Med, she saw into the upper floor of the Normo hospital. She was disinherited to see that it looked in no better condition then Mighty Med. How could someone be so heartless?

Kaz and Oliver were both sprawled across the floor, unconscious. She faintly remembered Roman hitting them with some sort of ray weapon as they dashed to evacuate patients from the hospital.

"Horace," she cried, turning to find him behind her. "What's wrong with them? Are they going to be okay?"

"They're going to be fine," answered someone. But it wasn't Horace.

Skylar turned back to the entrance. Through the dust, she saw the shadow of someone approaching. A medium-height man with short brown hair and a solemn face. Donald Davenport.

How had he found her? Skylar tensed before realizing that he had no idea who she was; she was safe behind her new disguise as a Calderan.

"What do you want?" she asked, trying to keep the bite out of her voice.

"I want to help," said the man calmly. "I own an academy where I train and treat bionic superhero-"

"I know who you are, Donald Davenport," cut in Skylar. "What do you have to do with us? How did you even know to find this place?"

"He and I have been in contact before," said Horace. Skylar turned and looked at her doctor in shock. Horace knew the importance of the superhero code; she couldn't believe he would have spread their secret around to egotistical inventors like Davenport.

"We work in similar fields," explained Horace. "Bionics and superheroes; they have a lot to learn from each other. Davenport has known about this place for awhile. I called him for help."

"And I came," said Davenport. "Skylar, your abilities are amazing, and now so are Oliver's and Kaz's. I want to offer you the opportunity to get back at Roman and Riker," he continued. "I want you to work for me. I want to form a powered team, to help protect the world from people like them."

"Don't you already have one? A bionic team, I mean?"

Davenport smiled sadly. "I used too, but they're busy with the academy now. I need new people to join our ranks, and you three are the perfect candidates."

"Kaz and Oliver are unconscious," she said. "They can't agree to anything."

"But I can help them. Come with me, and I'll care for them, and when they're awake, we'll ask them what they think."

Skylar looked back at Horace, who shrugged.

"He's the best chance you and your friends have," he said. "I need to go and get care for my nephew somewhere safe. I'd feel better knowing you were being taken care of."

Skylar sighed. The idea of working closely with the man who almost had her killed pained her, but she knew it was the best chance for Oliver and Kaz to survive.

"Come on Skylar," said Davenport. "It's time to begin a new chapter in your life."