Over the course of the next several hours, all five heroes of The Shield got to work in preparations, taking not a second lightly but instead drilling themselves with as much as they could in the allocated time they had before the drums of war would roll.

Deeper into the base was a large room with black metal faces, and in the center of the room was a humanoid in matte black casing, standing still as it didn’t seem alive, and above it was a blue holographic screen that simply read: ‘0 J.’

Standing several feet in front of the humanoid was Calypso, no longer wearing her hoodie as instead she only sported a black tank top above her black shorts, wearing more athletic wear as she lifted her right arm up, and then made a downward angled slashing motion, before bringing her hand up with another angled slash, and one more straight down the center. With every slash, a purple streak appeared in front of her, striking the humanoid like a sword, and with every slash the number on the holographic screen changed, first being ‘4012 J,’ then ‘7452J,’ and finally 16546 J,’ although there were no damages in the room nor on the dummy.

Initially reluctant with the plan, she had figured to put her focus not on questioning what will happen but instead making sure it happened well. She did understand why what was happening was taking place as decided, it was for the best, including where she would be stationed. This mission called not for her abilities to hide but for her strength to fight, and that needed her to be focused on the task that mattered.

As she stepped back and drew her arm, she took in a deep breath, and in that breath she reflected on her long and debataly tortuous life, confined from before she could walk to after others her age were driving their own pods and able to explore the world without their parents. And when she finally decided to break out of her chains and go out into the world her ashamed parents tried to lock her out of, the first act she did was nearly annihilate a mass of innocent people. In fact, if it had gone any other way, she likely wouldn’t have been able to keep living with herself, and her story would have ended as one of a monster.

But it was how that story went, and who had come to not defeat but help her, which altered the course of her life forever. For once she was surrounded by people who didn’t want to hide her, but instead wanted to embrace her, and take her on escapades that would show her every corner of what was possible to experience when she was due to live and die behind the same walls and under the same ceiling.

Then over the years of being able to finally develop into an adult who could know concepts like courage and independence, she was able to use what was shunned as a curse but to save lives of people who could see her not as a monster but rather a hero. She was able to be confident in her own, able to act without fear of the world or herself, and be someone that could be who she was without a veil yet still be loved and cherished. So she vowed that she would love and cherish them, and be someone who wouldn’t devastate worlds but save them.

Calypso let out the breath, and began another fury of slashes.

In a different area was a massive open room made with a dark metal material, which had a ginormous ring with bearings along the edge, and in the center on a raised platform was a huge capsule that emitted a sky blue glow.

Around the capsule on the metal ring was a sky blue ring that pulsated with a loud whooshing sound of something moving rapidly, and as it moved blue sparks flew off into the walls, quarantining the immense energy being generated.

Moving around the ring, Flynn jogged in his white tracksuit still barefoot with his body low in an ideal running motion, swaying his arms back and forth as afterimages were copied in every step over and over again while he pushed himself forwards, training his body for the fight ahead.

Wrapping around the blue capsule was a holographic screen which read: ‘8.13E5 M/S,’ but steadily rose as the runner’s speed continued in his warm up jog. He raised his head up to look at his speed, and then returned his gaze back ahead of himself after the check.

Streams of radiating energy sparked off the back of his body, generating the blue streak amongst the afterimages as he used this workout to also fuel the capacitor.

He had to push himself, not just because it was any other mission, but because now it meant something deeper to him. The first target of the war would be his own home world, even close to his hometown, the world he grew up in that shaped who he was and gave him the aspiration to become something more. That world was in jeopardy, and it needed his all to keep it safe from any devious threats.

Another adventure, another battle, something Flynn grew up chasing from the day he could crawl. From birth it was set in stone what he would become, even if it took him years to truly find that within himself. But it was a taboo concept: an Exhuman outing himself, but furthermore, trying to save the very people who were against him.

It took time, and without anybody else on Earth to support him in his adventure, it was difficult to find success. He always stayed reserved in his goals, taking down minor bank robberies, maybe going up against a gang or so, but he always shied away from the truly difficult tasks that would require him to do more, give more.

But when he found himself among others just like him, also wanting to do good but instead having far greater ambitions beyond him, that’s when he understood that if he truly wanted to be a hero, he couldn’t reserve himself to what was easy; he had to let himself struggle. In doing so, he found more fulfillment than he thought could exist, a life he could not just find exhilarating but one that he could find prideful of. He just needed to trust others to find trust in himself, and in doing so he became someone he never dreamed of becoming back when he ran as a hobby.

In another dark room, albeit this one far smaller as it was the size of a closet with black walls, was complete silence. The only entity inhabiting the small room was the one whose body was emitting a green glow, her eyes shut and her body meditating a foot off the ground.

Juno silently meditated in complete lack of stimulus, a room perfectly designed to tune out the outside world and allow her to focus only on herself, to hone her power and have it ready for when she would need to unleash it.

There were no counters and such, for there was no need for that, strength tests were merely games for her that would hardly serve her any true development. Instead, with all the strength already within her, now what she had to concentrate on was being able to control it, being able to control herself, and let it flow by her command.

The greatest target to use for practicing control was the one that also was arguably the most dangerous, herself, and yet it was the most productive. Controlling herself not with her body but with her mind, she meditated serenely, directing all her strength into a singular channel that she could guide at will.

From the beginning, she sought a life of ease and guaranteed fortune. Her only concerns for the future were collaborations with other celebrities, special releases for when she’d hit milestones, and what parties she should show up to to bolster her own standing. She liked that life, even with the occasional creeps, because it was a life where she could feel in control, controlling not just her own destiny but in control of a huge mass of people that looked up to her. She had always known what she truly was however, for behind that smiling pretty mask was not an innocent star but a dangerous bomb. But she didn’t like that side of her, so it was hidden while she instead basked in the pleasures of being a perfectly lovable queen of billions.

But the first time she was forced to feel something other than leisure, all those relaxed thoughts shattered, her ideals of comfort gone. When she was thrown into a dangerous world that wanted her not for what she did but what she could do, she learned that she could not forever turn a blind eye to what she truly was, and that she couldn’t hide forever. She at first tried to latch onto safety from others, hoping that she could remain pure and unscathed without needing to put in work herself, believing that her power of influence could give her infinite protection without ever needing to lift her hand.

That was until she understood that what she was living as was not a cardinal celebrity but instead a colossal coward. Letting others fight for her didn’t make her strong nor powerful, it made her weak and pathetic. Seeing others as tools didn’t make her likable, it made her revolting, and the only reason she was even able to maintain a desirable image was the mask she melted into her face. But when she took it upon herself to get her hands dirty, and when she was able to see people as who they were, only then was she able to take the mask off but still be accepted, because only then was she able to be someone she herself could accept.

Dimly lit in red was another volume of the base with gunmetal gray walls, and along one of the walls was a showcase of various unique firearms all attached to the wall, hung like trophies. Some of them were smaller, with there being one that was designed similar to a revolver with glowing red chambers.

There were then far larger ones, exemplified by a cannon which didn’t even seem to be a wieldable gun as it lacked a handle, and the back was ripped up as though torn off something else. The barrel was like a turbine, massive as it was larger than a head, and had an inscription along the shell that read: ‘003.’

In front of the arsenal display was a large red hologram of a miniature city model, which was densely packed with various tall buildings high above the red flat street ground. The buildings had unique shapes and sizes, many of which cylindrical, some being wider and curving like one half of a capsule, and others being a collection of towers inhabiting the same block yet felt connected enough to be one.

A noticeable trait amongst all of the buildings however was their top, as all of them ended with spiked roofs. Many of the straight towers stood like massive stalactites, and even the wider curved ones slimmed towards the top to form spikes, some even having several. The design made many of the buildings slightly resemble towers of a castle, as though the city was one massive fortress, which for the matter it very well may be.

In the center of the hologram stood the leader, Razi, wearing his leather biker jacket and standing waist level to the city model, analyzing it carefully with sharpened gray eyes.

Beside his shoulders were several other holographic screens, one of which being the same screenshot of the threat video that Meditat had captured, and another being a three dimensional diagramed model of a humanoid with the familiar antenna-esc prods jutting out of its face and the overall similar build to the speaker’s form. There were several rays that connected parts of the model which connected to smaller screens the size of post-it notes, with small written descriptions of what components of the android could infer.

In a literal sense, Razi was knee deep in his work, using all the resources he could muster to strategize the operation. He made a gentle pushing motion forward with his right hand, causing the holographic city model to be translated backwards, not necessarily moving in real space but causing the layout of the city to shift, displaying different buildings instead to view other sections of the city.

He then started studying a specific area of the city that had an open plaza neighbored by a few shorter buildings all with multiple spiked roofs, and he placed his hand under his chin contemplatively, concocting a plan to best utilize not only himself but his team in this environment against what could only be inferred to be a overwhelmingly substantial army.

Memories of the past were even to this day shadowy and murky, many parts of Razi’s early childhood only viewable through few stills of a peaceful remote village with small houses made humbly of primitive material such as wood, each one barely large enough to hold an entire family. Even then, those few stills were ones of blissful joy, flashes of adults and fellow children dressed in cloth garments such as raggy shirts and oversized pants, spoils of a detached civilization that thrived on its own.

But the pacific memories of the tranquil village ended in flames that torched his home, above the battalion dressed in shiny white armor with a red cross in the center, and masked in the same white mask with the red cross visor. That cross dictated his life after being sold as a bargaining chip for the faction to leave the village, and the faction experimented on that chip for years with torture until giving birth to an unholy monster, the first unnatural Exhuman. He became the prized weapon of the faction for years, a hunter who mercilessly slaughtered leaders and families, given his own squad of other child soldiers who saw him as a monster too, and they hated him for that, so much so that they were pleased when he was eventually struck down and left abandoned in sleep for years, presumed dead and thought to be an imposter when he attempted to return. He was cast out of the only home he had, so he did the only act he knew, and set out on his own crusade against the faction that stole his life.

Along the path of his revenge, he accidentally ran into other strangers, obnoxious creatures who clung onto him begging to be protected for having abilities they couldn’t even properly use, unstable leeches who wasted his time and could combust his body with a single thought, and childish pests who rattled on about superheroes and the great wonders Exhumans could do when really they were demons. But over the crusade over his former family, he somehow began to find comfort in the bugs, their irritating grasps beginning to become affectionate holds and their never ending stories of mundane activity recontextualizing into aspiration to be better, a thought that somehow resonated with the monster. The end of his slavers wasn’t brought solely by himself through bloodshed, but rather through the cooperation and bond he made with his new family, one that helped to slowly but surely unravel the devil he was made into and helped him start on a journey as a hero he made himself into.

Later after his own work, he gathered his family in the brief room encapsulated by the circular wrapping of the holographic screens around the circular table, standing and pointing at a diagram laying out a city as well as several photographs of it, with buildings that had the same architecture as the ones in the city model, made with blue reflective bodies.

Around the table were the three teammates attentively watching, Juno sitting up straight highly engaged with her arms crossed over the table, Calypso back in her black hoodie and swiveling from side to side on the hovering chair while still retaining heed, and Flynn who had a white towel around his neck with sweaty wet hair, who leaned back to rest but still keying into the lecture as the leader spoke on and on in great precise detail.

During the briefings for the defensive team, there was one more member left unaccounted. From a screen in the white walls of a different room projected a beautiful outlook of the thick forest, which also fed cyan rays into the room, casting a light onto a hovering white mattress bed that sat along the screen wall.

Embellished in the sunlight also was the final member, seated on the edge of the bed, his body leaning forwards yet held stably by the grips of his hands on the mattress. Dressed still in the blue bomber, he had his eyes closed tight as he was deep in thought, mentally preparing himself for the operation that lied ahead, as the greatest weapon in his arsenal required the most attentive priming.

Meditat remained on the bed inside his room, and beside the bed was a full body mirror. The floor was carpeted with white fur, and further back along the walls of the room hung a plethora of odd contraptions, all attached to the wall with hardwood plaques above each of them with the same format.

For example, one of the contraptions was what appeared to be a hockey stick at first, made of a material resembling carbon fiber, however the inner face blade of the stick was made of the frosty crystal, and the outer face had a ventilation grid as though it was meant to exhaust some sort of boost. Above the hockey stick, its plaque read in golden inscription: ‘12 / 26 / 2851,’ marking the dates at which the creations were first produced and used.

They acted similar to a camera roll, but instead they held artifacts of memorable battles, using the constructs he made as a way to recall the rest of the memories. Among the artifacts were other shelves that held many more miscellaneous items, each treasures of their own story, and closed white cabinets.

By the corner towards the exit was a long white corner table with a shelf above it, which had a few other items, and hanging off the wall above the table was a familiar large ball held up by a chain, although curved behind the ball was a metal mechanism that projected a gentle blue light on the ball, inhibiting its magnetic properties.

Recollecting himself and centering his mind, Meditat kept his eyes shut, gripping the bed and leaning forwards while waiting to be called for. His face up close was relaxed and calm, confident in the plan although knowing it required meticulous execution for success. Still, he felt assured about the operation, and was ready to give it his all.

Much later, Meditat opened his eyes again from a blink, hearing the continuous gentle deep hum of a specific pod’s engine. He stayed seated in front of the narrow hall, and he was dressed not in the blue bomber but instead the blue suit with the pencil emblem glowing, streaks diverging out of the core. His hood was down to reveal his face, and he waited patiently in the vehicle, his hands clasped together on the dining table.

Next to him on the same dining seat was his ally with purple eyes and longer silkier hair, also dressed in her uniform, the tight black suit with purple streaks curving down her arms and torso. Her hood too was down, letting her see with her own naked eyes as the two sat next to the window, which provided a view of the cosmos with purple and blue nebulas mixed together among glitter of white stars.

On the other side of the Box, Flynn was standing by the couch, stretching his body by rotating his hips with his arms up to his shoulders. He was also in uniform, dressed in his white race suit albeit without the helmet, his signature Tachyon emblem worn proud on his chest.

At the front of the pod on the two front seats sat both Razi and Juno, Razi in his crimson battle armor while monitoring the flight through the windshield and its holographic interface, and Juno in her forest green combat dress. Both of them gazed ahead as there were multiple distant planets all with the same appearance of Earth, each with their own small moons neighboring them. Far beyond the Earths however was something far greater in magnitude, a titanic cyan sphere that radiated intensely, immensely larger than the Earth and so large the closer the Box reached the origin of the solar system.

They were already enroute.

Returning to the dining table, Meditat and Calypso sat together as Calypso twiddled her thumbs on her lab, her head low as she seemed upset.

Meditat glanced at Calypso after noticing her mood, and he slightly nudged against her, to which she faced up at him, looking him in the eye to hear him check up: “Are you still bothered?”

After hearing the question, Calypso’s head lowered lightly, and she closed her eyes before releasing a heavy sigh. She then opened her eyes partly, and answered, “Not anymore, I’m sorry about before.”

Meditat warmly smiled and shook his head, assuring “As I said, don’t be.”

Calypso smiled softed to his forgiveness, and she nodded her head before quietly admitting, “To be honest, I was just uneasy about the prospect of you being the only one not with us. I know you’re more than capable by yourself, I really wasn’t worried about the mission, so I guess I was being selfish when I tried to get myself to join you. And I know we’ve done countless missions that required us to split up, but usually it’s more even…and I guess I just…didn’t want you to be alone.”

His smile widened more with genuine delight, and he cupped his left hand over her twiddling hands, steadying her and causing her to bring her eyes back up to his. He looked her intimately in the eyes, and gently guaranteed, “I’m not alone, it’ll be a couple hours at most and then we’ll be together again, all of us.”

He then mischievously swayed his head before quietly conjecturing, “Who knows, maybe we can go somewhere fun later to celebrate. You know, I’ve actually gotten really good with pods now, the capacitors were tricky before but I think I got it to last well enough.”

“Entering the atmosphere now, get up and prepare for deployment, Meditat. We’ll be there shortly, and I want a quick and clean drop. I'll try to scramble signals but it’s only a matter of time before they see us,” announced Razi out loud from the front.

Meditat nodded to Calypso, who looked back at him with shimmering purple eyes, given an exciting prospect to look forward to now that her previously berated request had been given a new answer. She watched Meditat stand up and walk towards the front of the pod, approaching Flynn who stopped stretching to greet him.

She then faced the windshield, watching as the Box flew towards the final Earth ahead, and behind it was the monumental behemoth of the cyan supersun so close that it seemed lethal, yet still somehow safe to near even to the planet that harbored flourishing life.

Watching the entry, Calypso gazed at the dark Earth, observing it enlarge until consuming the entire view through the windshield, diving down towards the dark green surface for the side of the Earth was at night.

Meditat stopped in front of Flynn, nodding to him before noting, “Guess I’m already almost up, how are you feeling?”

Flynn hopped thrice as he seemed to still be loosening himself, and he began stretching his left arm by grabbing his shoulder with a right lock. While stretching, he answered enthusiastically, “Ready as ever! Sucks that we won’t be able to combo out there today though, you’re the closest to being able to match my pace. But that’s alright, guess that means I have no excuse to slow down today, I’ll be tearing through those metal bodies so fast that the server will crash trying to handle all the updates! Huh, do you think that’d work?”

Meditat chuckled softly and shook his head, having to unfortunately reject, “No, I have a computer science degree from one of the top schools in the Superverse which has nothing to do with my work now so I can verify that that’s not how modern servers work. Maybe if they’re made really badly, but nowadays there’s a surplus of methods built to handle those loads, like to permanently prevent DDoSing. But who knows, maybe they’re not that smart and you can find a way. You’re always welcome to try, it would make my job way easier.”

Through the windshield, the Box flew across dark green plains, descending gently as it passed hills and rivers.

Outside, the Box grazed above the Earth’s surface, and above the black rectangular pod was the shimmering sky of sparkling stars in the black sky, and amongst the stars was the full white moon with flashing lights coming off it, indicating colonization in space.

It was a beautiful sight, having gone from the afternoon to the middle of the night where it was silent and peaceful.

“We’re approaching, I’m going to open the hatch behind our seats now,” declared Razi, and seconds later a square hole opened in the floor behind the front seats, near the same place it opened all those years ago on the mission that started their true journey.

“I’ll tell you when to jump, ready yourself now. And remember, we won’t be able to communicate with you since you can’t send out any signals inside the site, so you will be completely on your own,” ordered Razi formally.

“And be careful, if the operation is compromised or something goes horribly wrong, you’re always free to abort,” sincerely reminded Juno in a gentle, caring voice.

“What she means is, don’t die,” abruptly recontextualized Razi in a blunt yet somewhat comedic manner given his atypical sense of dark humor.

Meditat took a deep breath, and acknowledged, “Got it, I’ll keep that in mind.” He then stepped forward, right up to the edge of the open hatch, and lowered his head to look down at the green land below.

He then turned around to face Calypso, who stood up to watch his sendoff. She smiled warmly, now confident in him, and she waved her hand silently at him.

Meditat nodded his head in return, warmly smiling back before he also waved, the two having their own short silent moment as they gazed into each other’s eyes moments before the deployment.

Meditat then turned back to face the hatch, and closed his fist before extending it behind himself and bumping it into Flynn’s shoulder before pledging, “Once I shut down the servers, I’ll rendezvous up with you guys. I’ll see you on the other side.”

Behind Meditat, Flynn closed his own fist and bumped it into Meditat’s shoulder before wholeheartedly swearing, “I’ll see you on the other side.”

“We’re here, good luck,” ultimately announced Razi as they flew past a village with several small buildings hardly clear from above at such speed, but right after passing the village they began to fly over a mountain just behind it.

Taking the cue, Meditat threw his black hood over his face, which immediately masked his eyes with the parallelogram lenses before the rest of his face was covered in the white concealment. As the mask was finalizing, he dove straight through the hole promptly, his arms and legs tightly together to dive aerodynamically in a straight freefall.

His cape waved violently in the heavy turbulence of the fall as his bright azureus lenses glared down, and the black Box flew past him, continuing onto their own trip on the other side of the planet.

Leaving the team, Meditat continued his descent towards the peak of the seemingly normal mountain, and in the perspective from down at the village, he was a single falling dot as the black pod rose back up into the clouds to follow their task.

In that moment, the two separated, prepared to take on their own engagements for the mission, working together on other sides of the world to complete one objective: Save humanity.

Total darkness inhabited a space with an unknown location, coupled with absolute silence. For several moments, this black abyss remained vacant, ominously hollow and unsettlingly quiet. It was not right, it was not natural, for there was a true darkness that shrouded the space, which had consumed the light previously to take a new throne.

In the complete darkness, a distant whoosh like wind brushed the silence away, for even though it was quiet, it was still perceivable above the completely dead volume that the void previously had.

Soon after the whoosh passed, two flaring red dots appeared in the darkness like demonic eyes, glaring disturbingly as it gazed straight through the void, awakened by the minor sound. The dots then moved with the shuffling sound of someone getting off some sort of cushioned platform whether it be a chair, sofa, bed, bench, or otherwise, and the red dots were then lifted, continuing to glare in the same direction but now higher up.

In the dark void, a male deep demonic voice unlike anything else spoke, raspy but with an unhinged attitude that fluctuated its pitch. The demonic voice discerned, “I knew I could trust you.”

Out of nowhere, the sound of a object lodged in a wooden plank being pulled out came from near the red dots, and abruptly a bright red blaze lit up what resembled a viking axe, gripped by the pitch black silhouette of a standing humanoid, whose eyes were the red blazing dots, which stare straight through the void out into the imperiled world.

Next, history would be forever made.