“Ok, kids! This is a game I call Bowling with Uuughh,” Cameron said. Uuughh, a huge purple giant, some eight feet tall, dug his feet into the ground, leaving footprints that would make a sasquatch proud. Uuughh needed to be dug into the earth to prevent the giant sling that he rested in from launching him prematurely before the game began. The sling’s anchor points, two otherworldly, magnificent trees, taller than any redwood in California, stood about thirty feet ahead of Uuughh, with about thirty feet between the two trees, which put Uuughh at one of the three points of an equilateral triangle. Once the purple giant lost contact with the ground by lifting his feet, he would be launched beyond the monumental trees at an arrangement of large boulders, tree trunks, and other objects about a hundred yards beyond the sling’s anchor trees. Earlier, Uuughh had used his unfathomable strength to set the arrangement in place so that the mixed group of adults and teens could try Cameron’s idea for this game.

“Ok”, Jaimie admitted, “this is kinda cool.”

“I told you, right?” Cameron smiled.

*******

The creature needed to feed. It didn’t know how long it had been slumbering beneath the earth, but it knew it needed to feed. Long, wispy tendrils that wound through the soil connected the buried creature to the root systems of an entire field of yellow flowers above on the surface. The creature could feel the vibrations of anything above it in the field or nearby, as the flowers themselves were an extension of its senses. There was prey above. There were two groups of prey. One group was further away, moving around actively along the treeline at the edge of the field. The other was in the middle of the field, much closer and more sedentary. There were also three very loud tiny things right above it, about the size of squirrels from the nearby forest, but they weren’t chattering like animals. Through its vibrational senses, the creature could hear them conversing. These weren’t animals. They were sentients. Good. The creature was something of a sadist. It knew that sentients suffered more than mere prey animals. It enjoyed the fear of its prey as much as it enjoyed gorging itself on them. The creature didn’t know the language they were conversing in, but that didn’t matter. Fear was a universal language. Soon, it would feast on both fear and flesh.

*******

“I can’t believe Cam got the boys to play a game today,” Mary said, incredulous but clearly pleased. Mary aka Velocity Girl sat on a large tarp spread out on the ground in a group of picnicking Pocket Protectors and associates. Her husband Roger leaned back against her chest. A veteran of the American armed services, Roger no longer had legs. Around the married couple sat five of their closest friends. “I haven’t seen them play like that since they were much younger. Everything today is about video games and hanging out. Physical exercise should do them some good.”

The Pocket Protectors and some of their family members were relaxing away from Earth in an otherdimensional place they called simply the Yellow Field, naming it after the yellow flowers that formed a large clearing about a mile wide in what appeared to be a primeval forest. There didn’t seem to be any seasons here. No matter what time of year it was on Earth that they came here to the Yellow Field, the Sun of the place was always at the same angle and the weather was always nice. It was as if time itself had stopped here except for the occasional breeze or the buzzing of an insect pollinating the yellow flowers. The Pocket Protectors got to the Yellow Field by means of a Qwai Gate. The Qwai had been a species of gate builders, of gates that anchored and linked wormholes between worlds. A Qwai Gate stood in the exact middle of the Yellow Field, the only sign that anyone had ever been there before.

“Cam has a way with young people.” William Savant said, as he reached into a large, blue plastic cooler for another ham sandwich. “Teaching is in his blood. His parents were both teachers. On his father’s side it goes back five generations. I hear you’re a teacher, too, Anita.”

William looked at Anita Bayron, the newest member of the Pocket Protectors. “I was, yes. I’m still figuring out what I’ll do now.” Anita was officially, legally dead. She had secretly survived an attempt to murder her. It would not be prudent for the world at large to learn that she was still alive. For the time being, she fought alongside the Pocket Protectors, using the costumed hero name Lady Guard. She looked across the Yellow Field at Cameron David aka Knightshade, her American boyfriend who had teleported her away from the Philippines after she had brought justice to her would-be murderer.

“Don’t worry, young lady,” came an elderly voice from the other end of the tarp. Lee Chen aka Xuan Hu the Grey Fox, a Chinese man in his 70’s, smiled at her. “You’ve got a new family now. This group has been through many things for many years now, and we’ve always stuck together. We’ve taken in many over the years. Some have passed on. Some have moved on. Some are still here. We’ve even taken in a few strays now and then, haven’t we, James?”

James Jackson aka Upbeat smiled at his mentor. “We sure have, old man.”

Lee looked at Anita with joy in his eyes. He had mentored many of the Pocket Protectors since they’d been in their teens or twenties. He’d picked them up when they’d fallen. He’d cheered them through their greatest victories. Now, in his 70’s, he didn’t take to the field of battle with them as he once had, but he was still their mentor. Coming to the Yellow Field like this with everyone here made him feel like a proud grandfather clanmaster. “This will be a good life for you,” he told the Filipina.

The only other member of their party had been silent until that moment. Amy Wrenolds had been laying out in the middle of the tarp with sunglasses on, trying to get a tan from the Sun of the Yellow Fields dimension. She had been the only one of them who had been perfectly still.

“Did anybody feel that?” She sat up and pulled off the sunglasses. “The Yellow Fields have never had earth tremors before, have they?”