Reversal

[The First One]

The battle for the climate was lost.  Sea levels were rapidly rising, deadly heat waves were a regular occurrence  and storms that had once happened maybe once a decade happened multiple times a year.  As the world's governments struggled and debated, a pair of NASA scientists had seized on a tiny sliver of hope.  Three years ago, a space probe had identified a planet referred to as Kepler 4 as the first inhabited exoplanet on record.  Not only that, the native intelligent species was remarkably similar to humans, the most notable difference being that males were small and slender while women were hugely muscular and, at maximum, a little over eight feet tall.  But most remarkable of all was the planet's atmosphere and its projected effects on humans.  The couple estimated that, if she were able to grow up on Kepler 4, their baby daughter, Lucy, would end up on the large side for a local woman... and then some.  Which leads me to the experimental faster-than-light "warp engine" NASA had been developing.  Currently it was only powerful enough to carry a small load, but for the couple's purposes it was enough.  They loaded Lucy into a small capsule powered by a warp engine, its databanks containing their final message to her and as much data about Earth as would fit.  One stormy night, the couple kissed Lucy goodbye, tearfully loaded her into the capsule... and launched it. 

[The First One]

⚡ Support Saradas

Keep the archive alive with Bitcoin

1QDxcxUx8pnsZvauyVxTqaJrWkeNhQrPdK

Donate →

[The First One]

One night, in Dekana, a fishing village on the planet known by the locals as Temereth, two of the townspeople, a woman named Graka and her husband Drev, were making repairs on their fishing boat when they saw a fiery object streak across the sky above them before landing, by their estimation, on the rocky beach area just east of town.  As the only residents of Dekana outside that late, they were seemingly the only witnesses to what had just happened, and curiosity drew them to the landing site, where they found what looked like a small rocket painted with symbols they didn't recognize.  A hatch swung open, revealing a small, padded compartment within the rocket containing a baby girl.  Graka and Drev were unsure what to make of what they were seeing, but the baby was crying and they couldn't bring themselves to just leave her there.  They brought her to their home, where Graka tentatively breastfed her. 

"So... should we keep her here?"

Graka pondered that question for a few seconds.  "Yes.  If people knew that she came from space, they'd never leave her be.  She might not be treated badly, but people would never leave her alone.  We can say she's biologically ours but she was in fragile health from her birth until recently, so we kept her in the house." 

"What do you think we should call her?"

Graka pondered that question as well.  "How about Kraya?"

[nickolai]

Keep it coming ...

[The First One]

Kraya Althun wasn't like the other girls in Dekana.  Like them, during puberty she grew far taller, stronger and more muscular than the boys, and even adult men. Unlike them, she realized at a young age that she could see through walls and hear conversations across town as if she was personally there, both of which took considerable time and effort to learn to control.  Neither her mother's weight set nor anything at the local gym challenged her in any way, even when she curiously tried to use the former when she was five. Climbing around on the rocky beach east of town throughout her childhood, she never so much as scratched her knee, even when she occasionally tumbled.  She kept these things secret from her parents until one occasion when she was fifteen, when she fell off their fishing boat and started floating in the air.  At that point she came clean about her powers, and her parents finally explained that they had found her in a bizarre rocket they had seen land near the town on the night they had previously claimed she was born. 

"Can I see it?"  Kraya's thoughts were circling through her mind at an unprecedented speed.  Not only was she adopted, she wasn't even a Lokomo.  On some level her powers had always scared her, and this didn't help.  How could she do these things?  Who, or what, sent her here, and why? 

Graka and Drev had kept the rocket in a shed in their backyard since finding it.  A layer of dust had accumulated on it during that time, some of which Kraya wiped away as she opened the hatch.  The padded chamber she had once been carried in was, although she didn't remember it, the same as fifteen years ago. 

She closed the hatch again, before noticing what looked like a handprint scanner to the right of it. 

"Neither of us have ever been able to activate that," her mother noted.  "But I'm guessing you could."

Kraya pressed her hand on the scanner.  The panel on which it was placed slid upward, revealing a screen.  That screen came to life, displaying a man and a woman.  They were in what looked like a modest laboratory, and dressed in buttoned white coats.  But the oddest detail about their appearance was the woman's size.  She lacked any visible muscular development, and was actually a bit smaller than the man.  They spoke a language that Kraya didn't recognize, much less understand, but she understood that these must be her parents.  The ones that sent her here.

The duo talked for a few minutes before the screen went dark again.  Kraya stood there for a few minutes before turning back to her foster parents.  "I still love you."

"Thank you," her father replied solemnly.  "We believe you were sent here for a reason.  Use your gifts well."

[Wookey]

What a wonderful start

[The First One]

Thanks.  I think by this point you can tell what the title's referring to.

[The First One]

Shortly after turning twenty, Kraya applied to, and was accepted by, Tregg University.  This required that she move to Dreketh City, one of the bigger cities on the continent she lived on, roughly sixty miles from Dekana in Earth measurements.  She was 8'4 by then, and hugely muscular, within the usual parameters for a Lokomo woman her age, but definitely on the bigger side.  She had continued to keep her secret for the last five years, with her and her parents the only ones that knew of her origin or her powers (which had greatly increased over that time).  She was taking the tour for newcomers to the university when her life changed forever. 

The tour group was in the campus materials lab when a group of anti-tech terrorists barged in, shouting about "returning to the old ways."  Most of the tour group and lab staff were taken hostage, while the rest fled.  Kraya ended up in a room being used to test experimental fabrics for use in space suits, diving suits, etc.  Looking back, she wasn't sure why she did what she ended up doing, specifically hastily assembling a haphazard costume out of the fabrics in the room, with a short skirt, a sleeveless bodysuit, a face mask and a cape.  All she knew was that she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she hadn't done SOMETHING.  Dashing toward the room the hostages were in, she broke the door off its hinges and punched the nearest terrorist, making sure not to seriously damage any vital organs.  "Stop," she announced, raising and trying to disguise her voice, "Put down the guns and let these people go.  You get one chance.  Don't say I didn't warn you."  The remaining terrorists took a few seconds to process what was happening, then opened fire.  The bullets damaged the impromptu costume in some spots, but, to Kraya's relief, only bounced off her skin.  A couple terrorists dropped their guns and surrendered, after which Kraya disarmed and subdued the rest, moving at speeds the naked Lokomo eye couldn't even process. 

It was at this point that a mixture of campus security and police officers swarmed into the room.  Kraya held up her hands as one of the hostages, awestruck, described what she had done.  The police escorted everyone out of the building, with the terrorists in handcuffs.  A reporter who grilled the hostages about what happened and who the mysterious masked woman was simply listened to each hostage's account in turn, as awestruck as they had been but better at hiding it. 

The reporter and her cameraman both turned to Kraya.  It should be noted that Temereth did not have "superheroes" as a concept.  The Lokomo had a lot of similarities with humans, but comics and movies about costumed crime fighters with superpowers was not one of them.  "Who are you?"

Kraya thought about that for a few seconds.  "Call me Guardian."

[The First One]

Over the next few months, people living in and near Dreketh City developed a habit of watching the sky when they could.  Guardian's appearance at the university lab proved not to be an isolated incident.  The mysterious superwoman was sighted with increasing frequency afterwards, be she foiling some petty crime or helping the victims of the occasional fire or other disaster.  Speculation about who she was and how she could do the things she did quickly reached a fever pitch, particularly as she demonstrated additional powers, from the ability to fly despite no visible reason it should be possible, to strength great enough to bend steel or lift a damaged cargo freighter with no visible effort.  "How can anyone be that strong?!" exclaimed Jathani, one of Kraya's roommates, an aspiring professional weightlifter and one of the few people Kraya had met as big as her, as the two of them watched a news report of Guardian lifting the aforementioned freighter.  "I train eight hours a day and still have some basic weights that I struggle with, and she can just...do this!"

"It is interesting," replied Saleth, Jathani's boyfriend and an aspiring journalist.  "There have always been things we can't explain, why should this be any different?"  Indeed, sections of Temereth's internet were abuzz with theories about the source of Guardian's powers, from covert experiments by some secret government department to Guardian being the incarnation of an ancient goddess.  Rumors of other people with inexplicable powers were also circulating, from a man among the indigenous tribes in the desert in the center of the continent who could manipulate the sand to a woman in a mining village in the tundra on Turath, the northernmost continent on Temereth, who could seemingly transform into metal, but even less was known about any of them than Guardian. 

Monitoring the media coverage of Guardian and the other mysteriously empowered people coming out of the shadows was Ganatha Golena, founder and CEO of Golena Enterprises, one of the largest corporations on Temereth, making her one of the wealthiest people on the planet.  These developments were both worrying and promising.  Ganatha never could stand anyone else being more powerful than her, but if she played her cards right there may be opportunities here that she could exploit...

[The First One]

Lucy Jensen's capsule hadn't been the only vessel human civilization had launched in its death throes.  The Ark project, the last gamble of an alliance of several nations, was launched soon afterwards, and ever since then had been searching the galaxy for a suitable place to restart humanity.  Eventually, it neared Temereth, and picked up not only readings indicating a habitable planet, albeit one already inhabited by an intelligent species, but recognizable signs of a similar, albeit much smaller, vessel.  Lucy's parents had eventually told their superiors what they had done, only to be dismissed as crackpots, but the record of it remained all the same, and had ended up in the Ark's database.   The AI quickly put two and two together and set course for the planet Lucy had been sent to. 

The craft landed in the ocean near where it had pinpointed the capsule's location.  The size of a small island, it was visible from Dekana and triggered a massive wave that flooded the town, forcing the residents to evacuate. 

"...the object's origin is unknown," the news anchor said in an audibly nervous tone as her small aircraft circled the flooded village, "and it has seemingly remained inactive since its landing.  Wait, there's something moving under the water...!"  The first of the Ark's drones, almost tick-like (not that there were ticks on Temereth) robots, each about the size of what the people of Earth would have considered a small car, started emerging from the flooded area with water deep enough to conceal them. 

"Isn't that where you-" Jathani, watching live footage of the situation, began saying to Kraya before realizing that her roommate had left the room while she had been focused on the screen.  Jathani gave this no more thought, assuming Kraya had gone to touch base with her parents.  That wasn't actually what she was doing, at least not exclusively.  Kraya didn't know what, specifically, was going on, but she couldn't shake the feeling that Guardian was needed now more than ever.

By the time Guardian reached Dekana, traveling at Mach six, the drones had spread out as though searching the village for something.  Guardian landed waist-deep in the water, directly in front of the first drone she could see.  The robot stopped dead in its tracks for a few seconds before its synthesized voice spoke in the same bizarre language she had heard from the rocket; "Genetic match detected: Lucy Jensen." 

Guardian still didn't understand the language her parents had spoken, but she recognized the last two words.  "Is-is that my name?!" She asked, in the Temerethan language she had been taught growing up, "Do you know who I am?!  Did my parents name me Lucy Jensen?!"

"Correct," the robot replied, this time in the same language as Guardian, pieced together from analysis of Temereth's satellite networks during the Ark's approach.  "Records indicate your capsule landed near these coordinates.  Genetic analysis is a match.  Analysis of the atmosphere and your physiology confirms your parents were correct about the effects of certain elements in this planet's atmosphere on the human body."

"Who-what are you?  What are you doing here?"

"Unit designation is Ark-prime.  By the time you were born, pollution due to Earth's planetary infrastructure had led to environmental collapse, with human civilization not far behind.  Your parents sent you here to save you.  Analysis of this planet's atmosphere indicated that prolonged exposure to certain elements found in it would cause humans to develop enhanced abilities, which analysis of your body now confirms.  The primary Ark vessel contains twenty thousand human embryos in cold storage.  Unit directive is to find a suitable planet on which to rebuild human civilization.  Conclusion: This planet's environment is optimal for that purpose."

"And the people that already live here?"

"Competition for resources is an unacceptable risk.  Competing entities must be eliminated."

"Then I'm sorry, but I can't let you do that."

[The First One]

With those words, Guardian kicked the drone in front of her, denting it and sending it flying into a bar across the street from where it had been, clear through the bar's walls and into another drone, with the hulls of both breaking open.  Guardian stayed where she was just long enough to watch with her enhanced vision, then darted toward another drone that had been approaching her, crushing its armor and heavily damaging its internal workings with a single punch.  Meanwhile, the Ark's AI started using a combination of its onboard nanotechnology and the materials it had started mining as soon as it landed to build something more focused on combat.  By the time Guardian had finished with the existing drones, the Ark released a gigantic humanoid model of robot, bristling with weapons. 

The robot unloaded a vast arsenal of kinetic guns and plasma and laser blasts, only for Guardian to hover in front of it unharmed, bullets bouncing off her invulnerable body and lasers and plasma harmlessly dissipating against it, with the only damage being to her costume.  She dashed through the air towards the robot, only to be knocked backwards by a mechanical fist larger than her entire body.  She was caught, to her surprise, by another hand, a biological one this time, which raised her up to a gigantic woman's face.

"You alright?"  Guardian nodded, only now realizing that she was still unharmed.  "Alright, good."  The massive woman set Guardian down on the roof of a small hotel, which only came up to her knees.  The woman then began to rapidly shrink, stopping head and shoulders taller than the hotel roof.  Guardian noted that, like her, the newcomer was muscular even for a Lokomo woman, and unlike her was wearing a costume that resembled the Temerethan equivalent of a hazmat suit, albeit with no gloves or helmet.  "At this point I'd say you need no introduction," the woman noted with a chuckle.  "You can call me Mountain."

"And I'm Blur!" exclaimed another woman whose arrival was only heralded by a gust of wind before she was standing directly in front of Guardian.  Like Mountain, the more or less average-sized Blur was wearing a costume seemingly derived from a hazmat suit, except red where Mountain's was orange, and including a pair of goggles.  "Not gonna lie, you've been such an inspiration to both of us, and when we saw what was happening on the news we decided to come help."

"Thank you," Guardian replied.  "Now that we've got introductions out of the way, let's deal with them." She gestured at the combat robot, which had been joined by nine more at this point. 

Mountain quickly grew large enough that the robots only came up to her waist, but before any of the trio could do anything more another voice, male this time and seemingly coming over a speaker, was heard.  "Got room for one more?"

The newcomer was wearing a suit of mechanized armor, which Guardian was able to look through and see a stocky middle-aged man.  "Is he with you?" each of the three women asked simultaneously.

The man chuckled.  "No.  I just heard about what was going on and figured helping out would be as good a field test of this thing as any.  Call me Alloy."

The robots stood no chance.  Mountain effortlessly tore three of them in half, while Guardian disabled four by flying clear through their chests at supersonic speeds.  Blur, running fast enough to remain on the surface of the water, drew-and easily dodged-their fire, while Alloy took down the last three with barrages of tiny missiles fired from launchers mounted on the wrists of his armor.  However, as this was going on, the Ark had continued building.  By the time the last of the ten robots fell, a larger and more diverse force had been created.  Automated tanks and infantry, not to mention artillery affixed to the Ark itself and a number of airborne drones had already been produced, and more robots were emerging from the Ark as the heroes watched.

"How many of these things can it build?!" Guardian muttered in exasperation.

Before anyone could reply to that, the entire group suddenly heard music from behind them.  They each turned to see a slender young man on the roof of a nearby house, playing a flute that seemed to be made of some sort of bone.  As he played, the house broke away from its foundation, rose out of the water, and dashed through the air.  The man leapt off it as it rammed into a drone and both fell into the water below, the house breaking apart as it landed.  Still playing all the while, the man landed on both feet in the palm of a hand that had formed out of the water, and which carefully deposited him on Mountain's shoulder.

"What the-  Who are you?!"

The young man bowed before answering Alloy's question.  "Call me the Troubadour.  I heard about what was going on here and decided to come help." 

"And he's not the only one."  The new voice was definitely a woman's, but there was an undercurrent of clicking and buzzing sounds as it spoke.  Everyone, including the Troubadour, looked towards where the voice had come from, unsure what to expect to see.

What they did see was a creature with the general shape of a woman, but covered in a layer of chitin and possessing three pairs of compound eyes.  The being flew on insectlike wings, and its hands bore long, sharp claws.  Looking through its dark green exoskeleton, Guardian saw another woman, but also saw that the bizarre features seemed to be growing out of her.  "Call us Unity." 

An aircraft dashed over the assembled group, and dropped something out of it.  As the thing fell, the group saw it was another woman, wearing a dark costume with a face-concealing cowl and an elaborate cape she was using to glide.  She landed on the roof of a building that Guardian was hovering near at this point, and rose from her knees to her feet.  "Call me Darkglide.  It looks like we'll need to disable the spacecraft itself if we want to put a stop to this.  Any ideas?

For a few seconds everyone just stood or hovered where they were, wondering if anyone else would show up.  When nobody did, Guardian, having already scanned the Ark with her enhanced vision, spoke up.  "It looks like the machinery housing the ship's AI is roughly in the center.  If we can disconnect it from the rest of the ship, that should stop it."

"Sounds like a plan," Alloy replied.

"Let's do this."

After Mountain said those words, she set down Blur on the ground again.  The duo started running towards the Ark, the Troubadour staying on Mountain's shoulder while Darkglide glided behind them and Unity, Alloy and Guardian flew.  The battle resumed.  Blur ran straight through the smaller, land-bound robots with enough force to shatter them.  Alloy unleashed a barrage of missiles and energy beams, while Unity's claws cut through everything that got between her and the Ark.  Mountain crushed robots underfoot while the Troubadour played a song that caused drones near him to rust away in seconds.  Guardian was melting through any robots that caught her attention with beams of heat she had discovered last month that she could project from her eyes.  Darkglide tossed a variety of darts, ranging from explosive ones to darts that shorted out any robot they hit to ones that splattered the target with a powerful acid.  The battle was ultimately extremely one-sided, with Guardian and Mountain easily breaking through the Ark's upper hull, after which the latter scooped out the spherical machine that the former identified as containing the AI.  No sooner had this been done than the robots shut down, the remaining drones falling from the sky and everything on the ground just stopping in its tracks. 

After the heroes caught their breath and left Dekana for the nearest non-flooded area-a small campground-the press had a field day.  The group, both together and individually, were bombarded with questions, not the least of which was if they intended to continue working together.  Everyone pondered that for a moment before simultaneously answering "Yes".

"Do you have a team name in mind?"

Again, the group all pondered that for a few seconds.  This time, the rest looked to Guardian, who answered, "You can call us the League of Protectors."