(I'm so sorry this took so long to come out. I hope you enjoy it anyway :"))

It was one of the warmest days they'd had recently. The Sun shone its golden glow onto the grass below, making each strand appear taller than it was. The lodge sat on the side of the hill, untouched. It was the one next to the since abandoned Shadow outpost; East of Weeping Woods.

Kit decided it was a good day to play in the grass, chasing a bright yellow butterfly, that fluttered desperately to escape him. The bluebirds tweeted in the bush and trees around him, and he meowed happily, content with his situation and surroundings.

But then, he paused. A deep rumble sounded in the air, and the atmosphere changed in a moment. The Sun's golden rays were shadowed by grim, grey clouds that hung in the air like a vile disease. A storm was brewing.

Just as Kit prepared to head back to The Fortilla, a neon blue lightning bolt struck the ground next to him! He hissed at it, then fled in the other direction.

Well, he was, until he saw there was a man inside of the lightning bolt.

The man had long blond hair and eyes that were the same colour as the lightning. Kit was mesmerized by his outfit, which appeared to have a whole galaxy inside of it. Three larger blue dots on his chest marked a large constellation in the odd pattern. In his right hand he had some kind of hammer, and the puzzled expression on his face told Kit that he was unsure of where he was.

When the man spotted Kit, something his father had told him replayed in his mind:

"Now, son, if you see someone you don't know who cones towards you, it is right not to trust them. They're strangers, and they're probably strange!"

"YOU'RE STRANGE!" Kit cried, then scampered off at lightning speed into the bush.

"Who's that?" Ava asked Skye, pointing to the man with the long blond hair.

"Looks like a hippie," Skye giggled.

The girls had been camping out in the abandoned Shadow outpost, watching Kit as he played in the meadow. It was really quite amusing.

"Stranger danger," Ollie muttered to himself on Skye's head.

"True," Olivia smiled on Ava's head.

"Danger may be right. We don't know yet," Skye suggested.

Ava looked at Skye curiously. In the short time Skye had known Ava, she found out that she, too, was telepathic. This meant that they could have private conversations with themselves.

Hey, do you know him? Ava thought.

I don't, sorry, Skye thought back.

You could use your golden touch to turn him to gold. Boom, problems gone!

Skye looked at her golden hands that rested on the stony floor. Upon lifting them up, she spotted that they left two golden hand prints where she had rested them. She wondered if anyone who passed by would think Midas had been there. But no, she hadn't hurt anyone with her golden touch yet, and she wasn't going to now.

We don't even know if he's bad yet, Skye thought to Ava instead.

"You literally just said that he might be dangerous!" Ava giggled, returning to talking aloud.

"Hey, are you two having a private conversation on us?" Ollie scolded them.

"Mm hmm!" Ava replied. "Skye's deciding whether she wants to kill that man or not!"

That was another thing Skye had learnt about Ava. Even though physically they were almost identical, their personalities were slightly different. Ava was more of a rough, open type compared to Skye.

"Skye? Seriously? I thought we were past this!" Ollie grumbled.

"No! That's not what's happening!" Skye laughed, although she was really quite annoyed.

But then, the sky rumbled again, this time more violently. Another lightning bolt struck with a man with red and gold armor on him.

"Is that... Iron Man?" Olivia gasped.

He was not the only one. A wooden man appeared with a flying raccoon, a green lady with oversized muscles, a blue lady with flowing red hair, a man with a green cloak and a metal face, a woman wearing all white with matching white hair. Finally, this time in Weeping Woods, another lightning bolt struck. None of them saw who was in it, and they all got a sudden urge to run.

Then, the man with the long golden hair pointed into the sky.

"Look," he said, almost inaudibly.

And there, in the sky, was a huge creature wearing black and red glowing armor.

"We need to tell Midas about this!" Skye whispered, then ran from the hiding spot, Ava in close pursuit.

Over the next few days, Midas declared the newcomers highly dangerous, and Skye and her friends were not allowed to go near them. This made sense, as one of them, the one in the green cloak and with the metal face, had ransacked Pleasant Park with his henchmen and had claimed it as his own.

"Doom's Domain, wasn't it?" Brutus asked Skye during lunchtime four days after Skye and Ava witnessed the arrival of the strange people.

"I think so," Skye shrugged.

"Hey, I heard a part of The Fortilla floated off into the ocean!" he continued. This was true; Skye had heard it already.

"I heard that too," Skye nodded.

"Do you reckon Midas will think about moving back there?"

Ghost operations were still in Catty Corner. As much as Skye loved Kit and Meowscles, she was getting fed up seeing their faces around every corner.

"I don't know. Probably not."

Across the room, Skye saw Ava sat with Ocean. They were waving at her and Brutus, wanting them to come over.

"Skye, I think they want us to go over," Ollie said from atop Skye's head.

"Ya think?" Skye rolled her eyes, so only Brutus could see.

Nonetheless, they went over and sat down with them.

"Hey there!" Ocean greeted them.

"Hi," Skye nodded.

She looked around, but it took her a few seconds to realise what for.

"Have any of you seen Joe?" she asked them finally.

Just as they were all saying they didn't know where he was, him and a few other henchmen appeared through the door. Skye had heard of the phrase before, and she thought it applied here: it looked as though Joe had been through the wars. He limped into the room, and one of his arms was in a cast. He was truly miserable.

"Honey, what happened?" Skye gasped.

"Ran into some of those Doom guys while spying on them. One of them shot my arm, I gotta wear this thing now while it heals up!" Joe grumbled.

Skye gave Joe a kiss on his mask's cheek, and his mood seemed to brighten after this. Skye produced a blue marker pen from her pocket and wrote on Joe's cast with it; she drew her name and a smiley face.

"Thanks," Joe shrugged, then slumped down into an empty chair on the table.

Everyone spent a moment just looking at Joe, and Ava looked at her new friends nervously.

"Mmm! This pasta is so good! Complements to the chef," Ava forced out, taking a large spoonful of her pasta, which was bright red with the tomato sauce.

Nobody seemed to care about what Ava had said, so she looked to the floor and continued with her meal. Skye, meanwhile, glanced at the empty chair at the table, the one that would have been TnTina's. She felt like such an awful person, for exposing TnTina like that, and she had a feeling that TnTina would never come back.

It was a terrible feeling, irrational, even, but she couldn't rule anything out. Anything was possible.

Chaos Agent ordered, walking quickly ahead.

"Why, sir? Why did you order the evacuation of The Authority?" Rue sighed.

"Yeah, why?" Omega added.

Chaos Agent looked around, almost as if he expected someone to be there.

Chaos Agent mumbled.

"Alright, jeez, we'll be quiet!" Omega moaned.

"Alright, but what is a 'Hush'?"

Chaos Agent gestured to Rue and Omega to quicken their pace, which they did. Was it just Omega, or did he see a flash of metal in the trees above?

He had.

Some kind of ninja man jumped out of the trees, stopping them in their tracks. He appeared to be wearing some kind of suit, with the helmet representing a wolf. His eyes and teeth were hot pink, like the fire that burned on the back of his head. Instead of a shirt, he wore a singular black strap, holding his trousers up and going into a scarf around his neck. The robot suit's torso was stylized to be in the shape of a man's chest, and even had pink lights to mark out where his muscles and nipples would be. Omega was unsure whether this was a threat or some kind of odd flirting.

The wolf-man produced a black and pink katana out of a sheath on his back, and pointed it at Chaos Agent.

"I would say that I'm gonna kick your butt, but I doubt you have one," the wolf-man said. His voice was deep, yet quite young sounding at the same time.

Then, Chaos Agent shot him in his metal chest.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Word Count: 1578 Words