William Savant approached the Qwai Gate, accompanied by Anita Bayron aka Lady Guard. The upright stone ring didn’t look to outward appearances like a piece of technology, let alone high technology. Only upon closer inspection and study would one notice that it did not show any sign of weathering or erosion, as monolithic stone structures such as Stonehenge did on Earth. It was as if the Qwai had erected it yesterday, though to WIlliam’s knowledge the Qwai had been extinct for millennia, perhaps longer than millennia.

From out of his satchel, William produced a device about the size and shape of a Geiger counter, though much lighter. He affixed some cables ending in suction cups to the smooth stone side of the Qwai Gate. The stone had no knobs, buttons, switches, or ports of any kind. As ever, the ancient artifact stubbornly refused to look like a piece of technology. WIlliam knew that the stone it was made of was only found on certain worlds in the multiverse. Though the Pocket Protectors had very little knowledge of this particular world beyond the Yellow Fields, chances were the Qwai Stone, as William called it, was probably not a mineral native to that world.

LIke Cameron, Uuughh, Mary, and James, William was a Whirlwind Child. His grandmother had been subjected to medical experiments in the 1960s. The effect of William’s Whirlwind Genes on him were the mental equivalent of what Uuughh’s genes had done to the purple giant’s physical body. William’s IQ was off the charts.

James/Upbeat arrived by the Qwai Gate helping the elderly Lee Chen (Xuan Hu). Chen craned his neck back to see how his students were faring against the strange, alien yellow creature.

“How’s it going?” James asked.

“Alright,” William responded without looking at them. His gaze was fixed on the Qwai Gate as his fingers punched in codes on the top of the device he had attached to the Gate. “C’mon, baby. C’mon. Open for Papa.”

*******

Back in the treeline at the edge of the expansive Yellow Fields, Cameron/Knightshade watched Mike line up his shot for the first ever game of Bowling with Uuughh. Suddenly, directly ahead in the group’s field of vision field of vision, a large, bright yellow creature emerged from the ground with a bestial roar.

“What the-?” Mike was clearly startled. “Uh, guys! I think there’s a new target Uuughh might want to smash.”

“Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Whoa!” Uuughh was so excited, like a kid at Christmas, bouncing up and down and rocking in the large, elastic sling made of black matter Cameron had channeled from the Dark Place, which Cameron called shadowstuff, that the purple giant almost lost his tenuous grip on the ground and launched prematurely. “Line me up with that thing, Mike! I’ll save everybody!”

“Looks like Mary is already engaged with it,” Cameron observed. “I’ll tell her Uuughh is coming so she can get clear.” When the Pocket Protectors normally went into the field on their adventures, they each wore special earpieces that allowed them radio contact with each other. They weren’t wearing these for their leisure day in the Yellow Fields. The Yellow Fields had never been dangerous before.

Cameron concentrated. Black mistlike wisps swirled around him, solidifying into a solid suit of armor made of shadowstuff. This armor served both as protection and as Cameron’s uniform as the costumed hero Knightshade. The shadowstuff armor made him about as invulnerable as his team mates Uuughh and Amizara.

As the familiar armor coalesced around Cameron, it felt different somehow than usual. It felt stronger. The mistlike wisps that formed it came to him more easily, almost effortlessly. It solidified more quickly than usual. Are my powers going wonky? he thought. No time to think about that now. Quickly, Cameron took to the air, flying out over the Yellow Fields toward Velocity Girl and the yellow creature.

As a living conduit to another dimension, the Dark Place, Cameron/Knightshade, by mentally projecting himself along otherdimensional vectors, could, in effect, fly. While flight was not an uncommon thing in the world of individuals with unusual powers, Knightshade was currently the only member of the Pocket Protector’s roster who had that particular ability.

Knightshade could also sidestep instantly through the Dark Place, and, in effect, teleport. He didn’t use this ability to teleport to Velocity Girl now, though, because he wanted to use his advantage of flight to see the entirety of the Yellow Fields from above. What if there were more of these things? What was going on? They’d been coming to the Yellow Fields for years at this point and never been attacked or had any trouble before. Looking to the horizon from his vantage point in the sky, Knightshade couldn’t see anything different from what he’d ever seen before other than the monster attack going on directly below. The ebony-armored guardian hero dove down to get involved.

As soon as Knightshade got within earshot, he shouted, “Hey, Uuughh is about to get slingshot this way. Heads up!”

Velocity Girl chuckled. “Oh, is he now? He’ll love that!”

“You bet he will.” Knightshade smiled back.

Suddenly, Knightshade saw Velocity Girl zip far to the side in a blur of superspeed. Behind him and below him, Knightshade, Weaver of Shadowstuff and Conduit to the Dark Place, heard Uuughh’s voice bombastically bellow “Woooo-hoooooo! Look out, bad guy!”

*******

The yellow creature was doing a double take to try to follow the female human’s blurring speed. It began to let out a primal roar of frustration, “Roooooooooaa—”, a roar that was suddenly cut off when a very massive, very purple missile made of muscle and enthusiasm slammed into it. Instantly, the creature found itself once again buried in the ground. Though its thoughts wouldn’t be the clearest until it fed, the thing’s starved brain did register the unwelcome irony and sense of deja vu that it had just dug itself out of the ground and would now have to do so again.

“Gotcha!” The voice of the large purple humanoid rang in the creature’s ears.