Midnight Skirmish

Miles slid off his bunk as quietly as he could. He landed with a thump and looked over toward Jason. He was still asleep, as was Kane. Caspar, however, was gone. Miles checked in the bathroom to see if Caspar was there, but he knew before poking his head in that he wasn't. Caspar had gone outside, and Miles was going to find out what he was up to.

Miles quietly turned the doorknob and stepped out into the cool air of the night. He closed the door with the same care and exhaled. Being silent was hard. The power of teleportation was probably useful for those kinds of things, assuming that was what Caspar had used to exit the cabin. Miles looked around, but didn't see Caspar anywhere. All the lights were out in the cabins and the academy, and the whole place looked completely different in darkness. Miles considered going back in the cabin for the night, but decided against it. He needed to figure out what Caspar was up to. He moved toward the academy, his eyes fixated on an odd shape on its roof. Once closer, he realized the shape was of a person. Caspar. He was sitting on the academy roof, his head in his hands. Other than his steady breath, he wasn't moving a muscle. Miles wondered if he was asleep. But no. Caspar looked up, stared straight ahead into the trees for a moment, then looked back down. What was he doing? Miles considered calling to him, but that was probably a bad idea. He might wake someone, and Caspar didn't look like he wanted to be disturbed by someone shouting at him.

Miles considered his options for a moment and then grabbed onto the windowsill and hiked himself up, setting his feet on the bottom of the window and placing his hands on rungs that jutted out from the middle of the building. He pulled himself up, climbing up like it was a rock-wall. He would hoist himself up and find new places to grab, new places to set his feet. And he kept repeating these motions, getting closer and closer to the roof. He didn't know what he would do when he got there, maybe nothing at all. But he found himself climbing nonetheless. A few seconds later, he had pulled himself to the roof and sat down, breathing heavily.

"Blimey," remarked Caspar, who had heard Miles coming up and looked over. "Quite the baboon you are."

"Ha," Miles replied between breaths.

"Do all that to sit in my lap up here?"

"Yeah, you wish," said Miles, which earned a laugh from Caspar.

"Almost beat my time," Caspar said.

Miles raised his eyebrows. "You mean you climbed up here too? You didn't just teleport or whatever?"

"All the way up here?" Caspar shook his head. "Nah. I don't have that kind of control yet, mate. Might end up falling on me face."

Miles asked the question that had been on his mind, that had made him go looking for Caspar in the first place. "Why are you out here?"

Caspar averted his eyes. "Oh, uh, nice view, ya know?"

"Yeah, but you didn't come out here last night."

"How do you know?"

"I haven't been able to sleep since I got here."

Caspar gave in, a smile tugging at his lips. "Alright detective, I just came out here because the Doc should have been back hours ago, and he's not here yet."

"Lancaster's gone?" Miles asked.

"Yeah," replied Caspar. "He left several hours ago to pick up some new recruits. I just hope nothing went wrong."

Miles realized that Caspar must care for Lancaster, and wondered what had happened between Lancaster, Caspar, and Dawn that had gotten them so close anyway. "Wait, why didn't you and Dawn go with him?"

"Should have, I suppose," said Caspar. "With you, Necron almost had you and the Doc thought he needed some back up. This time was different, though. Not much threat."

"He'll be back," Miles said, trying to sound encouraging.

"Yeah," murmured Caspar. "So why'd you come out here?"

Miles shrugged. "You were gone, so I guess I just got curious."

Caspar laughed, back to his old self again. "Like I mentioned, you'd make a bloody great detective, mate."

"I also had never seen you look even remotely worried about anything before," admitted Miles. "I sort of just thought you were limited to one emotion."

"Yeah well, we all have our days, right?" Caspar said. "Promise not to tell anyone?"

It was Miles' turn to laugh. "Sure."

They sat in silence for a while, and Miles took in the view of the forest that stretched as long as they could see. The one Miles had come through a couple very long days earlier. Miles could see how one could very easily become lost gazing at the forest, or by turning around and watching the ocean brush up against the shoreline.

"Wow," breathed Miles, several minutes later.

Caspar just smiled, saying nothing. Miles' thoughts drifted to the academy, the superpowered kids, the evil organizations. But something kept coming back to him, like a nagging question burning into the back of his head.

"Hey, Caspar?" Miles said finally.

"Hmm?" Caspar didn't look up at him.

Miles shifted a little, trying to put what he was thinking into words. "You know more than I do, don't you? About us."

Caspar looked up this time, but didn't respond. He had a conflicted look on his face.

"I mean," Miles continued, "when you came and, uh, got me. It seemed like you, Dawn, and Lancaster were in on something that you weren't telling me. Like you were dodging it in our conversations."

Caspar's smile had faded, replaced with a rock hard expression Miles had never seen before. He considered backing down, but decided that he needed answers. "I just want to know everything about our situation."

"Our 'situation' is complicated," Caspar said. "We have bloody superpowers, man. I wish I knew everything, I really do. But I don't."

"But you do know something. Something that most of the other kids and I don't know."

Caspar was the one who shifted this time. "Look, mate, Lancaster's the brains of this thing, why don't you ask him? He tells us what we need to know, nothing more and nothing less."

"So you needed to know more," Miles guessed.

"Dawn and I, we were the first that Lancaster was able to, ah, collect," said Caspar. "The academy was still in the works, so he brought us along to find others until there was a safe place for everyone that Necron couldn't find. According to Lancaster, there are twenty-six kids like us."

"Twenty-six?"

Caspar nodded. "Yes. Like I said on the car ride here a couple days ago, I don't know why we're like this, or really anything else. Twenty-six of us. That's basically what I know. Happy?"

Miles was happy, but there was one other thing. "When you found me, Lancaster was frantic to know my name, and he said something about M. What does that—"

"Look, mate, I don't have all the answers," said Caspar. "I wish I did, but I don't. All I know is what I've either been told or overheard. I don't know if half the stuff is true or not. And there's a load more questions to be answered. I just don't know."

"But do you know what—"

"Shh," interrupted Caspar. Miles figured he had pushed too hard, but then noticed that he was pointing toward the forest clearing. Miles strained his eyes to look where he was pointing. It was Lancaster, entering Fandomania. With him were two teenagers Miles had never seen before.

"They're back," Miles said.

"Something's wrong," said Caspar, who was squinting his eyes at them.

"What?"

"I don't know, just watch…"

Miles did watch. Lancaster was walking into Fandomania, talking frantically to the two new kids. One was a short and plump boy, the other a tall girl with black hair. They all kept looking back over their shoulders.

"What are they looking at?" he asked.

Caspar shrugged. "Dunno."

Miles continued to watch, and felt himself drifting off to sleep. It didn't last long, however, as he soon was awakened by Caspar's jolt of movement.

"Bloody..." Caspar trailed off. He was now sitting up and alert. Miles followed his gaze to the entrance to Fandomania, where he saw a man in a Necron uniform. The uniform wasn't the military kind that Miles had seen in Virginia, though, it was different. It was like the outfit you'd see on a country man about to go hunting. Furry aviator hat with a chin strap, along with a heavy leather jacket and pants. The only way you'd even know the man was Necron was if you looked at the emblem on the jacket. The Necron man wasn't the half of it, though. At the man's ankles stood three beasts, animals that looked to be attack dogs but were much, much bigger. Miles couldn't see well from where he was, but the eyes on the things looked almost yellow.

"What are those things?" asked Miles, feeling fear seeping through him.

"I think," said Caspar, "those are Necron's secret weapon."

The man in the uniform shouted something that was inaudible to Miles and the beasts lunged forward, each beast tackling a person. Soon, Lancaster and the two kids were on the floor, the beasts standing on them.

"We have to help them." Just the idea frightened Miles, but he knew they had to do something. They couldn't just sit around while enemy forces invaded their one safe place.

"Help them?" exclaimed Caspar. "Help them do what exactly? Get their bloody heads ripped off? That's suicide, mate!"

Miles threw up his hands. "What do you suggest?"

"I—" Caspar, for once, was at a loss for words.

"I thought you lived for battle," Miles quoted.

"That's not battle, Miles," said Caspar, "it's—"

"Suicide, I heard."

Suddenly Caspar grinned. Miles hadn't expected it, but he should have known better. Caspar was becoming predictably unpredictable. "You know what, let's do it. We'll give it a welly."

Miles was relieved that he was going to have help fighting off the creatures, but he was still scared to death. He tried to quickly think of a strategy, but nothing came to him. He wasn't used to thinking in terms of 'enemy forces invading'. Just a couple days ago he was living a normal life.

"Grab my hand," ordered Caspar.

"I don't think we're there yet," mused Miles.

"Hilarious," Caspar replied, smiling a little despite the serious circumstances.

Miles took hold of Caspar's hand and they teleported. Miles had wondered what it would be like to teleport like Caspar when he had seen him do it previously, but he hadn't expected what happened next. For a few moments, Miles felt like he was being shrunk down into a quantum particle—everything became too big around him before it was gone, leaving a blue shade of nothing. An instant later, Miles began to grow back to normal size. He was now on the Fandomania lawn to the right of the beasts. All of that had happened in a millisecond, and Miles was swaying on his feet, attempting to ignore the nagging urge to empty his stomach of its contents.

The beasts were now coming down upon Lancaster and the teenagers, so there was no time to waste. Miles and Caspar ran towards them. Without thinking, Miles dove into the beast that was bearing down upon the nearest guy, the short kid. The beast rolled off the boy on Miles' impact, but stood back up a moment later, now focused on Miles. Out of the corner of his eye, Miles saw Caspar distracting the man in the uniform by striking him and rolling out of his grasp. Miles kicked the beast that held down Lancaster and the man sprung up and yelled for the staff to come help. Miles was now fending off two beasts, and started backing away from them. The beasts walked forward slowly and calmly, completely in control of themselves. Miles tried to hide his fear so the beasts couldn't smell it. Miles saw Caspar tackle the Necron man to the ground, and watched as he ran toward the beast on the girl, punching it away. The two beasts suddenly broke into a run and knocked Miles to the ground, approaching him. Miles' head hit the ground and he saw Lilly help the new girl up from the floor and start backing away with her. Miles blinked, his head hurting. Was he imagining things? Why was Lilly there?

One of the beasts focused on Miles suddenly jumped away and pounced on Lilly, who fell backwards hard. Caspar and Lancaster were still focused on their beast, and none of them had seen the other attack her. Miles focused on drawing out his superpower, knowing that his strength was the only way to knock his beast away and help Lilly, who didn't appear to have a fighting superpower like Miles or some sort of martial arts skill like Caspar had.

Miles let out an unexpected cry as he pushed upward and brought a fist up on the beast's head. A clean uppercut, and strong too. The beast fell back, no longer moving. Miles moved back and admired his work for a second, then remembered Lilly. She must have heard the commotion and come over to help the new kids get away. But now she was stuck under the grasp of one of the beasts. Miles ran forward and grabbed the beast from behind, taking it to the ground with him. The beast let out a howl and clawed at Miles, drawing his blood. Miles grimaced, but stayed focused, and used his super-strength to bring the creature up above his head and into the ground. It, like the other beast, didn't make another move.

Miles looked over to Lancaster and Caspar to find Lancaster laying across the ground, the beast above him. But before the beast could come down, Caspar roared and ran forward knocking it back down and into him instead. Miles made a move to help but Caspar didn't need any—he already had the beast into a headlock. Miles watched as Captain R ran towards them and kicked the beast as hard as he could.

And that was it. All the beasts and the Necron beast wrangler lay on the ground, unconscious. They had fended off an attack. But now Necron knew where they were, and it wouldn't be long before their attacks turned into an all out war.