Chrissie was the pretty one, Laurie was the athletic one, Shay was the . . . What exactly was she?  In many ways, from kindergarten, from the moment she met Chrissie, Shay had been mostly background noise.  A quiet, unobtrusive child, under normal circumstances she would have remained so all her life but around Chrissie that wasn’t allowed.   The trio quickly became the center of attention everywhere they went.  First as precocious children, then as budding tweens and finally as the dominate female clique in high school.  None of it any of Shay’s doing.  When Chrissie’s power manifested, Shay figured it was only natural that her friend would be the one.  When her own powers show . . . she was stunned.

When she had been younger, she had always been afraid of the dark but as she had grown up she had tried very hard to conquer that fear but she hadn’t been very successful.  The night IT happened was a typical Friday for the trio, a walk up to the Jerk-in-a-Box followed by a movie, followed by the walk home.  Everything proceeded as other Fridays until the blackout.

Having left the streets to cut through the elementary school grounds, the girls had reached mid-way across the field formed by a quartet of baseball diamonds when the world went black.  The day’s overcast blotted out even a hint of light from the crescent moon and stars. The three clasped hands and froze.

“Crap!” Shay hissed.

“Man, I can’t see my hand in front of my face!” Laurie declared with a giggle.

“It’s darker than a well-diggers ass!” Chrissie added.

“Shut up!” Shay demanded uncharacteristically.

“What’s your problem,” Chrissie sneered.

“She’s afraid of the dark,” Laurie said softly, squeezing Shay’s hand.  The hand was trembling.  “We’re in the middle of the field, we can’t run into anything out here.”

“’cept the Concord RAPIST!” Chrissie released Shay hand and made ghost noises.

“Chrissie!” Laurie snapped.

“He could be sneaking up on us right now,” Chrissie said, nothing but a voice in the dark.  “I’ll catch you, my pretties, and right here in the middle of the field!”

She grabbed Shay from behind only to be blinded by a sudden flash of brilliant white light.

“Jesus CHRIST!” Chrissie squawked, covering her eyes.  “What the hell is that!?”

“Its Shay,” Laurie said, voice tinged with awe.

Chrissie uncovered her eyes to find they were bathed in light that formed a nimbus around Shay.  Everything within fifty feet was illuminated as if by a noon day sun, at the center, Shay.

“What happened?” Shay blinked.

“You got powers!” Laurie grinned.

Chrissie frowned.  “Great,” she muttered.

“How do I turn it down?” Shay looked at Chrissie, expecting an answer.

“How the hell should I know?!” her friend snapped.

“You got powers, how do you turn it off?” Shay almost demanded.

“I do emotion things, not ...” Chrissie waved a hand at the glowing Shay.  “play light bulb!”

“OO!” Laurie hooted.  “Maybe it’s like a light switch in your head ...”

“That’s stupid,” Chrissie rolled her eyes.

Shay closed her eyes and imagined a light switch floating in mid-air then imagined flipping it off.

“HEY!” Laurie yelped.

“It worked!” Shay said in relief.

“So, let me get this straight,” Chrissie said.  “You got a big light switch in your head to flip off?”

“HEY!” Laurie yelped again.  “The power’s back!”

True enough the field was bathed in the soft cloud-reflected glow of the neighborhood lights and the school buildings’ security light shone once more.  Shay relaxed visibly.

Laurie hooked an arm into her friend’s arm and giggle.

“Maybe I’LL get powers next!” she said hopefully.

Shay squatted behind the plate as the batter swung the bat back and forth before settling down to wait for Laurie’s pitch.  Calling for an inside curve, Shay tapped two fingers against the inside of her thigh and brought the mitt up.

Someone in the bleachers screamed.

Coming out of her squat and tearing off her mask as if to crash down a foul ball, Shay stared up at the towering metal monster dropping to earth on top of her riding twin columns of fire.  An arm looped around her waist and she screamed, instinctively activating an unknown power.

Snow hit her in the face, the tiny ice shards feeling like sand.  Next to her, still gripping her by the waist, was a man wearing a silver helmet that covered his entire head.  The face shield gave her a view of arched eyebrows and black eyes that regarded her steadily.  Across his back was a weapon of some sort, some type of sci-fi rifle.  Before she could open her mouth to scream a second time he clamped a hand across her mouth.  When he spoke his words were oddly accented and stilted, formal.

“Please refrain from screaming,” he said.  “I fear we stand on a snow-covered slope and it may be poised to avalanche.  Your auditory expostulation may precipitate that pending event.”

She blinked at him.  He slowly removed his hand but retained his grip on her.           
               “To where have you teleported us?” he asked.

For a moment, she stared at him blankly then a gust of wind sprayed her face with ice and she shivered.   Slowly she scanned her surroundings.

In all directions were mountains.  Tall, rugged, snow-encrusted mountains.  They stood nearly thigh-deep in snow at the top of a gigantic slope with the only sound the howl of the wind.

“Where are we?” she whispered, shivering violently.

“I had hoped that you would be able to tell me,” the man said.

“Who are you?”

“I am War Eagle,” he replied.

“I’m freezing,” she said.

“As am I but I am unable to communicate with my headquarters and hence am unable to effect our extraction,” he returned.  “We must remove ourselves from our current predicament on our own, I fear.”

“How are we gonna do that?”

“If you are not averse to flying, I can transport us down the slope and hopefully, toward some form of settlement,” he said.

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked through chattering teeth.

“I did not,” he replied.  “I believe it was an instinctual reaction on your part to the eminent threat posed by a trio of Minute Man Mk VIII robots.”

“I can’t do anything like that,” she assured him.

“Evidence indicates otherwise,” he lifted an eyebrow at her.  “Now, perhaps if you allow me to maintain an adequate hold on your person, I will be able to extract us from this precarious location and find some form of shelter.  But first I believe it would be more advantageous were you to wear my belt.”

Releasing his hold on her, he pressed a stud on said belt’s buckle and waited a moment as it seemed to uncoil.  Once it had parted, he slipped it off and started to loop it around her waist.  She shied away but was unable to go far as the snow all but stopped her.

“This will provide warmth for you,” he explained.  “I would rather not be forced to explain to Ghost Archer how I managed to return only with a frozen corpse.”

She let him pull it around her.  As before he touched a stud and the belt’s buckle began to move, coiling back into place and fitting itself to her smaller waist.  Instantly she was bathed in warmth and was no longer bothered by wind driven ice striking her in the face.

“This is wonderful,” she said in amazement.

“I fear we must be quick now, for I am not as well equipped as you Earthers are to handle extreme cold weather,” he said.

“Earthers?”

“If I may?” He slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her firmly against his body.  “I assure you, no sexual excitation is intended.”

“Sexual?” she meeped, suddenly worried again.

When he reached for her she thought he was aiming somewhat lower but all he did was touch a stud on the belt and they lifted into the air.

The hut they found after a few minutes of flying probably saved War Eagle’s life.  By the time they reached it, he was a definite blue-green color and his hands shook uncontrollably.  Snow and ice had encased the structure to a surprising depth and after only a second’s hesitation, her companion unlimbered the massive rifle on his back.  Adjusting something along its side he aimed it at the ice tomb of a hut and pulled the triggering stud.  A ball of plasma expanded to a six foot diameter and struck the snow, vaporizing it instantly but leaving the front wall of the building and its hide covered door intact.

After re-slinging the rifle, War Eagle forced the door open and pushed Shay inside.   He followed her in and fitted the door back into place.  The temperature inside was only slightly warmer than the exterior but War Eagle moved as quickly as he could and piled some of the logs stacked inside the door into the fire pit.  Unslinging the gun once more, he readjusted it and fired a pencil thin line of plasma into the wood.  Flames erupted, rapidly filling the chamber with heat and light.  The strange man stood almost in the flames as he warmed his frozen hands.

“Once I am sure you are warm and safe, I will ask you for my belt and, protected by it, shall endeavor to ascertain our location,” he said, his lips now back to their original color.  “After I have determined this, I shall proceed in the direction most likely to produce adequate communications reception.  At that point, I will request assistance.  Barring that, I shall make such preparations as may be required for our continued survival under these conditions.”

Tibet.  They had ended up in Tibet.

“That’s a hell of a t-port,” I said to War Eagle.

“Indeed,” he replied.  “It was a near thing as well with the weather conditions being what they were.”

“You want to spend a few weeks in Tahiti to warm up?” I suggested.

“I believe I have recovered sufficiently,” he assured me, as I knew he would.  “What of our young charges?”

I gave him a steady look.

“I have petitioned the court for custody,” I replied.  “I doubt there will be any problem as none of the three have living family.”

“That is most unfortunate,” War Eagle observed.

Even after all these years, my friend’s outwardly callous demeanor some times shocked me.  So many dead.  I couldn’t understand how he could be so blasé.

“You cannot continue to blame yourself for the actions of the Black King,” he said.  “It was his decision to embrace his path.  You did not force him.”

“But I could have taken his back to his own time,” I said, knowing it wasn’t true, not if the dragon wouldn’t allow it.

“The alternative is to exterminate him.” War Eagle lifted a shoulder.

“Yes,” I agreed.  “It has come to that . . . if I can find him.”

I rose from my desk and pushed aside the curtains.  Outside, at the pool, the three girls were stretched out on lounge chairs baking in the sun.  Raven had helped them recover from their losses and now it was up to time to heal the wounds.

Shay stood at the top of the cliff and watched the two surf.  Jessy she recognized but the tall surfer dude was new and totally hot!  Picking her way down the face of the rocks she selected a spot in view of the action in the water and flipped out her towel.  Careful not to get sand all over the place, she stretched out in the sun, one eye on the tall blonde surfer.  Oh, yeah, he was seriously hot!