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Martin was busy watching the meteor shower from inside his makeshift house. (An abandoned convenience store. He actually furnished it nicely, but that's beside the point.) He sighed, because he could only see shapes out of the small, foggy window. He wanted to see more, but he was afraid that the small cloud two feet above his head would spout small flames if it could sense the outside weather. It wouldn't effect him much more than hail, but the attention it'd attract would be a minor inconvenience. Also, he might burn the town down. But nonetheless, he heard the voice, just like the other citizens in Tangent Tropolis. He didn't know who it was, and he had never heard the voice before, and he was sure it was some spectral being, the likes of which he'd never seen. It should be lovely to meet it, and maybe make it cry. He turned on the radio, and tuned around until he found something useful.
"Hello everyone, I'm Diane Simmons, and this is your nightly Channel 5 news report. Tom?"
"Diane, there has been an astonishing event here tonight as a meteor has seemed to strike on the west side of our outskirts. Ollie Williams is at the site. Does it look strange, Ollie?"
"IT'S REAL COOL!"
"About how big is it?"
"TEEN FEET. LOOKS LIKE A BIG BOWL."
"Anything else?"
"FOOTPRINTS HEADIN' INTO TOWN!"
"Thanks Ollie. We'll see you all tomorrow."
Martin smiled and turned the radio off. He looked at the odd jumble of Halloween costumes that he had purchased, and thought that his costume was not yet ready. He shrugged, and climbed out of the broken window, and started a dangerous chase after a strange figure.

Issac was asleep when it happened. Join me. Join me and watch the world burn... Or die with it. It didn't help that he'd already been having a nightmare; a massive creature crafted from the papers that made up a final exam, turned monstrous with huge red F's for hands, and red Crayola markers sprouting from it every which way like spikes. Of course, this monster had grown out of a tree that was sprouting from his teacher's bald head, so it wasn't like this was any kind of normal dream in the first place. But when his final-exam-turned-monster spoke those words, the dream practically drew to a halt. In fact, it did- he woke up with a start about halfway through the sentence, eyes opening just in time to hear the end of it echoing in his head. He blinked, shaking his head; he wasn't sure if it was real, what had just happened. That had been one seriously freaky dream to begin with... And hearing voices in his head was an option Issac would rather not consider. It was quite easier to simply dismiss it as an aftermath of the dream... Although, the meteor shower was easily distracting. The lights in the sky caught his attention as he was walking to the bathroom to get water, and he blinked rapidly as he saw them. For a moment, he almost mistook them for fireworks.

"Moooom! Why didn't you wake me up!?" He shouted, shoving through the door to the outside. He had always been a bit of a space freak, even before showing signs of being a prodigious genius. And a meteor shower, especially an unexpected one like this, was a fantastic phenomena that he couldn't bear to miss. The part that pissed him off was that nobody bothered to wake him up for it. Nobody really bothered to do anything for Issac, despite his being a child genius. It wasn't all that exciting, being a child genius in Tangent Tropolis. Someone else, one of the mutant heroes or villains was always in the news, never some 12 year old who was attending the local college. That would be news to any other city in the world... But no, his parents just HAD to settle here. Of course, Issac had no wish to be in the spotlight permanently. His 15 seconds of fame would be just fine, and he'd be happy. But he didn't even get that, did he? No. He sighed, smiling up at the meteor shower for a few more minutes before returning inside. No, he didn't get his 15 seconds of fame for being a child genius. And he didn't want the lifetime worth for being the freak he was... And Issac was, for now, hiding his freakishness rather well.

"Five more minutes..." Lara muttered, waving limply at her brother as she rolled from the swing and fell completely out of bed with a rough "Oompf." She shook her head, blinking off the grogginess of a sudden awakening, and looked up at him. "Message? Well, not exactly. But I got a pretty random shift in dreams. One minute it was da- it was Dr. K, standing over me and lecturing me about breaking... Something. The next second he was all... I dunno, on fire? And said, 'join me. Join me and watch the world burn... Or die with it.'" She frowned, standing up. "But it wasn't his voice, Lucas. It was..." And just like that, for once in her life, Lara didn't have words for something. It was an odd experience, being speechless, and she didn't like it. So she shook it off, and huffed. "But if you heard it too, I'm guessing it wasn't just twin telepathy or something. Do we even count as twins?" She wondered, mind going on one of her ever-so-often tangents. Shaking her head quickly, she stopped him from even answering. "Never mind. Point is. Voice was real, some baddy is in Tangent Tropolis and needs stopping. Shall we?" She asked, gesturing into the hall towards the staircase that would bring them to the lobby. It was definitely hero time...

"Wha...?" Lara muttered, before glancing down at her pj's. "Oh. Right," she muttered, slightly abashed as she shoved Lucas from her room and closed the door, quickly getting dressed. It wasn't her crime-fighting outfit, which was probably a mistake, but it was, after all, 3 in the morning and she'd only just woken up. So instead she had on a pair of purple and black sweatpants and a gray hoodie, emerging quietly from her room. "Mom's not up yet," she whispered, frowning. "Should we get her? Or Tony?" Her eyes glanced cautiously to either room, a soft light glowing from underneath Tony's. A quiet mechanical hum of electricity could be heard, as well- but it didn't mean anything. She wasn't sure if Tony needed sleep- he was, after all, an action figure brought to life by their mother, and turned into actual metal of some kind. "Tony might be able to help... Of course, so could mom."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, between them and the crash sight, was Issac. He had returned to the meteor shower, this time with a telescope; much more interesting close up. However, on thought, much more disturbing... These weren't meteors. Well, they were now... But they hadn't been only a short time ago. And how did he know? Because, as he watched them burn up into Earth's atmosphere... He saw. On the edges of some of the fragments were flat, like a plain... But the other side would be horribly jagged. But what he saw on one of the flat sides scared him shitless. It was the ruins of a city, although unlike any city he'd ever seen. Made entirely out of what appeared to be colored glass, the city melted. Anyone in it must have died previously, because he didn't see any life on it... But this meant only one thing. This wasn't a meteor shower they were watching. It was some of the remains of a distant planet, burning up in their atmosphere. And the only proof he had just incinerated in the sky overhead. He prayed he wasn't the only one viewing this, that some scientist or government dude somewhere was taking pictures of the surface of these meteors. Because something had destroyed a planet... And if the pieces were headed this way, why not the source of it all?

(Huh. Nobody noticed the Family Guy joke.)

Martin walked out of the door, and as soon as his foot left, a small cloud materialized above him and he was barraged by tiny fireballs from right above his head. Fortunately for him, they just dissolved into steam with a little sizzling sound as they hit him. Martin rolled his eyes at all of the "oohs" and 'aahs" and terrified shrieks from everyone.
Tearing this guy limb from limb had better be worth it, he thought to himself as he trudged through the road, slightly melted due to the meteors he had involuntarily created. When he reached the city limit, the road turned into gravel, and he had a slightly painful sense in the palm of his right hand. He looked at it, and stuck inside was what he assumed were the meteors. He pulled it out, still letting off steam, and noticed something... different. Looking close, he could see that it looked like a tiny piece of a stained-glass window, which had been crudely shattered. He looked at the sky, and squinted. He couldn't make it out clearly, but he knew that something was going on. He dropped the mini-meteor and ran to where Ollie had described was the crash site.

Leon was sitting on the roof of a sky scraper, smiling as he saw such beauty. All was quiet as crime seemed to stop for such a rare sight, if only for a short time. He remmembered what he was supposed to be doing, and turned up the sensors in his ears, so he could hear people through out the city. He slowly recieved a message. Join me. Join me and watch the world burn... or die with it. Leon shuddered something was strange about this, as it wasnt going through a radio broadcast, and he doubted it was any civilian, or one of the usual villans. In the short time he was here, something big was already happening. He tuned into the news station and listened in. He caught "Really Cool". Useless. Leon thought, continuing to listen. "Ten Feet. Looks Like a big bowl!". Perhaps a point of entry, but it couldnt be. He thought, slowly realizing what was happening. "FootPrints headin into town." Leon sighed. He had concluded what was happening. Okay. Its alien. Most likely Humanoid, because he didnt say anything unusual about the foot prints. Its obviously not a good sign. Hes going to have to contact someone, if he wants to take over. So I will have to find some help. He thought as he got up and put on his mask. From now on he'd be called Rage. He looked down, and his mask assessed a fall to be 200 feet. He Jumped, forming a dive, he slowly shifted his body so that he'd glide towards the roof of a shorter building, as he descended, he rolled on top of the roof. It cracked with a sickening sound, but Rage was not hurt. He sprinted towards the crash site, knowing that other people were bound to hear what he had. He jumped roof to roof, and occasionly slid under some pipes just to see if he could still do it, but he didnt stop. No one was going to get hurt.

"Now, is that any way to treat a guest?" the man's voice didn't come out of his mouth, instead seeming to reverberate from the very air around him. He turned slowly, relishing the moment as he looked down at the boy. He was much taller than the boy spewing threats, and his eyes were hollow points of inhuman, unfeeling blackness as he turned his gaze on him. The ruby light that constantly licked across his skin flared at the threats, and the man's lips turned up in a smirk. The smirk and a knowing look in his eyes as Xanth skimmed through the man's mind to find his name, and the speaking continued. "You see, Martin, here's how I see the fight going. You attack me. You die a thousand hideously painful, slow, drawn out deaths. I will keep you alive simply to find new ways to torture you. And when I finally tire of hearing you scream and beg for death... I'm going to suspend you in space, allow you to watch as I destroy everything you've ever known... And then allow you to drift endlessly into the vastness of space." He didn't say it as a threat- he said it as a simple statement of fact, all the while smirking. "Or, you join me. Help me conquer the planet. I leave it intact, to you. And, of course, anyone else who joins me." He shrugged. It was a simple enough choice to make. This man seemed smart enough to figure it out.