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Basic Solo #1: 522 words

Derrick sighed as he looked at the ceiling that was above his bed. Currently he was using a couple of vacation days to take a break from his job. He had been planning this for a while ever since he had chatted with that other senshi but… he was still nervous. The other senshi’s home planet sounded amazing! But he knew that not all of them could be like that. And he wasn’t even sure why he was going at this point. What would be accomplished out of doing it exactly anyway? And he had to get used to the “voices” too that he would hear.

It sounded like he was walking straight into some horro-sci-fi game or picture considering this was on another planet. Not all planets could be harmonious and sunshine and rainbows all of the time. Some of them couldn’t be that good.

He sighed once again, looking at his phone, with the little icon that he would have to tap and instantly teleported to his planet. I am not ready for this. His hands were trembling and he broke out into a sweat. Was this a good idea? Did he have to go? But… he couldn’t ignore it now could he? He had heard that senshi were reincarnations of what had happened before. He had to calm down. He had been in dangerous situations before. Stumbling during parkouring, all the battles he had been doing with Negaverse agents so far… this couldn’t be too bad right?

His left hand went up to rub his temple as he managed to slow down his breathing again. He would have, no he MUST do this. He needed to see what his past life had been like, and it might help him in discovering why he was a senshi in the first place.

He nodded to himself, got up, and quickly shook himself. As much as he would have liked to go in some casual clothing, eh knew he had to be powered up to do this. And so he did, even though he knew that he would be vulnerable to attack if an agent or youma sensed his aura. But he just needed to press the button on the phone quickly enough.

And so, he concentrated, and felt his clothes changing into the familiar uniform he wore as a senshi. He sometimes wondered at the tie, but with some of the outfits he had seen, he was quite glad for what he was wearing since they didn’t get to choose them. He quickly grabbed his senshi phone and put his finger over the button. Before he did however, he closed his eyes. He wasn’t yet brave enough o watch as this whole thing unfolded in front of him. He quickly tapped it and suddenly he knew he wasn’t in his apartment anymore.

It was quiet. So quiet compared to the apartment that had the fan going on at this point. Too quiet without the sound of electricity but he could hear humming. What was it? And it seemed much darker than his room with the lights on. He opened his eyes.

Basic Solo #3: 573 words

Caliban looked through the gate, not quite sure what to do. Well, there were a couple of things that he could do, he just didn’t want to do either of them. And one of those was to run away and never return to this incredibly creepy place, or go ahead and see what was inside. The latter appealed more, however he still couldn’t get rid of the feeling like there was something evil, something that shouldn’t be here. He didn’t feel quite in danger, but he would have felt better if there was someone here with him. At least one of them would probably be able to spot whatever was here before it attacked them.

He could feel himself shaking once more, however he decided to forge through and through the gate. He took a few steps forward, reaching the very entrance, with just one more step inside putting him through. You can do this. You CAN do this Caliban. It was all he could do to get himself through the gate.

He took another look around once he was inside. However, before he could really appreciate the scenery, he decided to close the gate himself. At least it wouldn’t randomly be closing on him then and freaking him out. And luckily he could just press the app on his senshi phone to teleport back to Earth.

Finally it was time to look around. It seemed that within the complex, that couldn’t be seen over the walls, that there were many other buildings, although they all looked a bit deteriorated. And then Caliban felt something that he hadn’t ever since he had gotten to the planet. It felt like… homesickness? Did he really miss being here? He hadn’t even ever been here before!... Had he? He was sure that he had never set foot here, but it felt as though he had lived here once. He remembered then that all of the senshi had previous lives on their home space planet/asteroid/whatever. But he was still surprised that only one person from each planet would be chosen to represent and fight for it. Wouldn’t it be better to have a lot of senshi from the same planet? Besides, why was he the chosen one anyway? Was he that important? How did they get chosen to be senshi?

His head felt dizzy for a moment, trying to think of an answer for all of these questions. He would have to go back and ask. At least he had a few more now for Denebola if she could possibly answer them. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Even though he felt as though he had been to this place and lived here in the past, he couldn’t remember anything specific. No building stood out to him except for the large one in the middle of the complex.

Without even noticing, his feet started to move for him, and he wandered around all of the various buildings, wondering what had gone on in each one. What had happened here? Why was everyone gone? He knew that all life had been wiped out once before, but how? A giant wave of chaos that killed everyone in an instant? He wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.

Eventually he got to a building that looked like a cross between a church and a castle. He felt drawn to this spot especially, and decided to head inside.

Basic Solo #5-8: 2,041 words

Caliban continued to walk slowly to the other side of the door, wondering what was giving him this terrible feeling. Again, he got to the door and the seal glowed a bit, but the door seemed to be locked. However, when he put his hand onto it, it glowed brighter for a bit, before it started to move, and the intricate details of the door lit up, and before he knew it, the doors had opened, showing the way to what was behind them.

He took a minute, trying to calm his nerves. Something was definitely off at this point. His hands were shaking uncontrollably, his mouth was dry, and he felt sick to his stomach. What could possibly be on the other side that would make him feel this way? When he could finally register what was being shown to him, all he could make out was a dark courtyard with some sort of statue in the middle of it. There was no lighting, except for the faint glowing lines on the statue.

He didn’t want to go to it. Every nerve and fiber in his body was telling him not to go forward. But he had to. He had to figure out what his moon was like and what it had done in the past. Slowly, ever so slowly, like something was going to jump out and attack him as soon as he set foot outside, did Caliban make his way to the middle of the courtyard. It was quite large, almost the size of two American football fields if they were built in a cylindrical fashion. In the middle though there stood an object. He couldn’t quite make it out, it didn’t look like anything in particular and with practically no lighting it was hard to tell what it was. But he felt as though he had to go closer to it.

The awful feelings only continued to get worse, and it took all that was in him not to run away screaming. He had never felt such fear and agony before. Soon enough he found himself in front of the statue. It looked… weird. Or at least it didn’t look like it was just for decoration. At this point Caliban knew he could look, but he could not touch. Something was telling him that it would be an extremely bad idea if he touched the statue. He decided to head it’s advice.

However, when he went to examine it more closely, he was suddenly hit with excruciating pain and fell into blackness…

“…” He couldn’t hear what was being said, but he knew that someone was trying to speak to him. “…Aldren!” He still couldn’t quite understand it. All he wanted to do was stay in bed. “… Aldren!” He heard it clearly that time! Caliban quickly rose from the bed, looking around wildly, until his eyes landed on what appeared to be quite the elderly man looking at him with an unhappy expression. Before he could even think about what he was doing, words were coming out of his mouth. “Sorry Rawlins. It seems I overslept.” He replied with a yawn, his nerves finally having calmed down. Wait, what? What am I doing? Caliban thought to himself as he felt his body move and get up from the bed, heading to what seemed to be a dresser.

The man called Rawlins continued to scowl. “Aldren, you know what we have to do today! You can’t be sleeping in for such an important occasion!” He said, practically telepathically saying that ‘Aldren’ needed to hurry up and get dressed. ‘Aldren’ nodded, taking off his clothes. “Yes, but that will have to happen after a shower. Since this is so important, I would like to be as clean as possible for this. If we aren’t clean enough, we’ll have a harder time sealing it away.” What is it though? Caliban wondered as he continued to go through what seemed to be a past memory of his. Rawlins hmphed. “All right but make sure you are downstairs as soon as possible. We only have a limited amount of time to get this done and only one chance to do it. And since you ARE the high priest, we expect you to help all of us do this successfully.” He said before walking out of the room.

‘Aldren’ sighed but went to take a shower and then get dressed as much as he could. He KNEW it was a big day, and he was very nervous about it. That’s why he had wanted to sleep in as much as possible, almost as if he wished that the day could just pass and he could pretend that what they had needed to do would have happened already. But unfortunately for him, he would have to face the day. And something told him that something terrible was going to happen.

Although he was the ‘High Priest’ of the kingdom, he was also one of the youngest scholars and practitioners there. He had mostly gotten the title because he had such a natural ability in using magic to seal away threats into objects. It would often take the most experienced priest years to be able to successfully seal away one of the many monsters into an object if it was big enough. Sure, smaller ones usually weren’t a problem, but ‘Aldren’ had shown his proficiency when he was able to successfully seal away one of the largest monsters that they had come across when he was in his entrance exam to become a priest. The test had only really been meant to test what the students knew and some of their skill; no one had expected one of the students to do it so easily.

And that’s why today he would be the one to lead them in sealing the terror that had been attacking their kingdom for years now. No one had ever been able to do it. Generations had passed and they had only been able to keep it at bay for a year or so before it would once again reign terror down upon the civilization. It was predictable though, coming around the same day every time.

However, with ‘Aldren’ on their side, the Kingdom figured that they would finally be able to seal away the monster for good. Although ‘Aldren’ wasn’t sure if he could do it, he would have the help of all of the other priests, he would only be leading them and putting the final seal on it.

And so he hurried down to the main hallway before quietly entering the main room, the prayer room. This room was used for all sorts of activities; prayer, gathering, planning, ceremonies, etc. And this is where ‘Aldren’ found all of his fellow priests. The moon of Caliban did not discriminate though, as there were all sorts of priests who could be found within the priesthood. The kingdom was known to be quite accepting, but it almost had to be considering that they sent many of their priests to other celestial objects to help them. Often times it was better for a priest whose origin came from those places, as they helped to relax and ensure that those from Caliban were trustworthy.

As soon as ‘Aldren’ got in, he could feel the tension in the room. He knew that he wasn’t the only one who had been extremely nervous about this and it made him somewhat glad that he wasn’t alone with these feelings. A female priest named Rey turned to look at him. “Aldren, I’m glad that you are here. It’s almost time and we haven’t got a moment to lose. I hope you will lead us well today and remember that you are not alone. If you need more help from us, we will do everything in our power.” ‘Aldren’ always liked Rey, though she had been his main teacher too. He looked at the other priests and although some of the older ones looked at him with envy, which he couldn’t really understand, why would they want this sort of pressure anyway? He knew that they wouldn’t jeopardize the sealing ceremony just to make him look incompetent. They also wanted to finally be rid of the monster that had plagued them for so long.

Aldren nodded to the others. “Thank you. I know I will not be able to do this on my own, so I will gladly accept any help that you can offer. I hope that we will never have to deal with this monster again.” He knew all too well how it affected the kingdom, considering that he was the youngest prince to the Queen. His father was not of royal blood and had wanted no part in becoming a queen and instead wanted to focus more on other aspects such as Economics and Ambassadorship for the moon. His mother was perfectly fine with being the one to lead, and didn’t mind that the father of her children was only a consort in title.

And every year ‘Aldren’ had seen what the monster would do. Although they had gotten better at defending the Cathedral that housed it’s layer, it still cost too much in damage. Inevitably someone would be at the wrong place at the wrong time and lives would be lost. It had never taken the city down, they had always been able to rebuild thanks to the Royals and other leaders who planned ahead for it, but it wasn’t something anyone wanted to continue. Not with the death toll continually rising and the fact that it seemed to be getting harder and harder to seal away the monster.

‘Aldren’ felt his hands shaking a bit and he felt his throat go dry. He wanted to shout out tha the couldn’t do this and run away but he had to. He had to do this for everyone’s sake. Rey noticed and quietly went over to him and held his hands in hers. “It is all right for you to be nervous. No one knows for sure what will happen, we can only try our best. Now, take a few breaths. It’s all right. We’ll get through this for sure.” Her words were comforting and already ‘Aldren’ could feel himself gaining a bit of confidence. And after a while, he slowly nodded his head. “All right. Let’s do this then.”

What happened next was such a blur, the memory seemed to have been blocked out and Caliban could only glimpse what had happened. They had tried sealing it, it attacked, they lost some of the other priests in the attack, and eventually in the end, with all that ‘Aldren’ had, he had managed to seal the monster away. However, just moments after sealing it away, Aldren had collapsed. … There were no more memories after that.

Caliban suddenly woke up, realizing that he was face down in the courtyard, close to the statue, and sweating like crazy. There was something truly evil here, and although they had been successful, it had cost him and others their lives. Caliban shakily and hurridly tried to take the phone out for a bit, almost dropping it a few times because of how badly he was shaking. Eventually though he managed to get the home screen back on and pressed the button to go home.

And suddenly he was back in his apartment. And immediately after powering down he went to go lose whatever was left in his stomach in his bathroom. Once he had been able to take some time sitting on cooled tile floor, he knew that it would be hard to go back there. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to get to know what it had been like back there. But… he had needed to go and learn what had happened. And… he felt a sense of relief too. Sadness, but also relief. Relief in that he had finally learned that he had been successful in sealing away the monster. Sadness in knowing that the Kingdom had been destroyed anyway, though by a different, outside force than the monster that they had been dealing with. Perhaps… it had given them a few years peace.

Super Solo #7-8: 1,197 words

Caliban hadn’t planned on powering up again for about a month, or at least until the snow was gone. He wanted to just relax for a bit. Not have to deal with all of the weird s*** that was being thrown around, even if it was less dangerous than giant spiders or zombies or whatever happened at Halloween. He was supposed to just go to work, go back to his apartment, maybe meet up with Keely a few times, in general, just RELAX!

But no, he had been compelled to come out once again, and power up instead of just staying at his apartment. At least this time he brought a hoodie with him to help with the cold.

So, why was he out, and in a trailer park of all places?

Apparently, there had been problems in the trailer park of people just… disappearing. Not just disappearing, but it would be like one moment they were there, and the next, gone. He wasn’t sure what was going on, it could just be a run-of-the-mill serial killer, but there was always the possibility that it was an agent or, even worse in his opinion, a youma. At least an agent would try to cover their tracks. They probably wouldn’t be picking up people from a crowd. Or at least he was pretty sure they liked to be a bit subtler. But the fact that this was appearing on the news? They wouldn’t want that kind of attention, and if it was on the news, something he was pretty sure was controlled by the Negaverse if their unwillingness to address and look at what was really happening was any indication, then it must be something that wasn’t under their control.

Which meant it was most likely a youma. Hopefully one of the more feral ones. He did not want to run into one of the more intelligent ones. Or, from what he had heard other senshi and some knights say, half-youma agents.

When he finally got to the trailer park, which had taken a while even with his super speed and being able to jump tall buildings, he immediately felt a sense of dread. No doubt about it, definitely a youma. He thought as he started to wander around the trailer park, looking for possible signs of it. Unfortunately, all he could feel was the aura of the youma, and he was unable to pinpoint it, which left him open for a possible attack. He tried to keep his guard up the entire time, looking around, behind, above, anywhere that he could, even in the snow to see if he could find the youma that seemed to be so craft at not only capturing its’ prey, but leaving no trace that it was ever there in the first place.

He wondered just what kind of youma it could be. It would have to be quick so that whenever it snatched someone, they wouldn’t cry out, but also left no trace. Caliban wondered if it could be some sort of flying youma… a silent flyer perhaps? Like an owl or other raptor?

As if it knew what Caliban was thinking, he suddenly felt himself being grabbed by his arms, and before he knew it, he was up in the air, going away from the trailer park, and further into the woods that surrounded it. If there was one thing that trailer parks didn’t need, it was woods. Why were they always near them?! Suddenly though, Caliban was on the ground, eating snow. However, he had to be quick as the youma was just about to attack him. He rolled away from it, and getting up to face what had captured him. He couldn’t hide the disgusted face he was making looking at it. It seemed to be like some sort of vulture-falcon hybrid, with the ugly head but with the body of a falcon. And it was huge. Much bigger than Caliban thought it would have been, but then again, it was flying with full-grown humans in what Caliban could only call its’ talons. It would have to be quite big to actually be able to pick them up. He couldn’t stare at it for too long though, as it seemed to screech out in protest that Caliban had actually chosen to fight, and he covered his ears. Its’ screech was just awful, and Caliban hoped that he wouldn’t have permanent hearing damage after listening to it.

Suddenly though, the youma attacked again, this time with its’ beak, and Caliban just barely dodged it. He had been lucky so far that it hadn’t yet tried to use its’ talons, but he knew that it was a possibility. He would have to try and time his punches to hit its’ head or its’ feet to actually be able to defeat it. He only hoped that with a youma that big, that he would actually be able to dust it. If he couldn’t… then his fellow senshi wouldn’t even know that he was missing. He wouldn’t be able to help them with their fight against the Negaverse and creations such as these. He… he wouldn’t be able to stop the monster that laid dormant on his moon from destroying it and moving on to other planets.

Failure was not an option here.

He steeled himself, starting to feel the cold wind from his now ripped hoodie and the pain that was coursing through him. The youma had stabbed him with its’ talons as it carried him off. He wasn’t sure how deep the wounds were. They didn’t feel that deep, luckily, he could heal a bit better as a senshi, but that didn’t mean he could just ignore them. He would have to end this very quickly.

The youma leaned its’ head in once again, aiming for Caliban, but he managed to side-step it and send his fist into its’ head, yelling “Seal Matrix!” It seemed to have worked! The youma’s mouth immediately fell open, but there was no sound. And then its’ head fell to the ground, the youma, now unable to feel it, could not move it and it was a dead weight for now.

However, it wouldn’t last long. Caliban rushed toward the main part of its’ body, though he aimed for its’ left wing first. “Seal Matrix!” And the wing was now paralyzed! However, the youma was starting to lift its’ head, which meant that his magic was running out. Quickly, he aimed for its’ abdomen, and yelled, “Seal Matrix!” And slammed his fist into it as hard as he could. The youma seemed to screech out one last time, before it finally disappeared in front of Caliban’s eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was ironic, but a creature that could make others disappear in front of other so easily, disappearing itself when it was finally destroyed.

Caliban sighed, taking a bit to rest and try to get his bearings. Luckily, he still had his phone with him, which was able to tell him what direction he needed to go to get back to the city. He sighed. This is going to be one long walk back.

Super Solo #11-12: 1,036 words

It was a strange beginning to the week. Just the week before there had been flurries of snow, falling killer icicles, and so many other weird, but natural-seeming phenomenon’s that when Monday came around it was sunny, a nice 45 degrees Fahrenheit and it actually felt good, well Derrick naturally became suspicious. He knew that the Negaverse wasn’t actually behind this. Well, he was 99% sure, at least, which made him wonder what the next spot of trouble would be. Would there be another horrible bomb cyclone? A strange snow that made everyone feel sleepy? And thinking about that, that would have made the civilians better targets than that aurora. He didn’t know, but either way, he felt as though he was on edge the entire day he had been at work.

While he was at work though, there had been a few customers that had come in and had asked him about the strange shadows that had been seen near one of the old and unused churches in the city. Derrick couldn’t say that he had, especially since he tended to avoid those places, especially with what happened last time he went near one, but they had been telling him that he needed to check it out. They weren’t ordinary shadows either, they seemed to come from nothing and didn’t look like anything that could explain them, such as trees or rocks or snow covering something. Although he did want to go and check it out, any excuse to actually go out and enjoy a rare day like this in January, he had told them he was stuck at the store until closing time, and he was pretty sure that he would miss them.

But, when the store finally did close, and that was at 10PM, he went to go over to check what the shadows were. He powered up though, to be able to detect if there was an agent or youma or some senshi there that he might need to fight. And thank goodness, he remembered the hoodie this time. Though it was the same as the last one, when he had been attacked by that gigantic, ugly bird youma, so it still was a bit torn up. But it did what it was supposed to do and protected his arms and head from the cold wind that picked up every now and again.

He made his way over to the Church, glad that everything had mostly melted so he could do a bit of parkour again, and when he finally got there he… couldn’t really see anything. Though he did get a creepy feeling down the back of his spine. It just… didn’t feel like a youma this time though. Just felt like regular, old creepy church vibes. Which wasn’t’ very fun for him. And last time he had met a chibi senshi who had been too brave for her own good, and a creepy gargoyle youma that hurt to punch. Not fun.

He wandered around a bit outside of the church, not daring to go in since it didn’t seem to be used anymore, and the people who had talked to him had only told him that the shadows seemed to be near the church, not inside of it.

When he was going to give up and finally go back and fall asleep in his nice and comfy bed, he suddenly saw something. It looked like a strange shadow for sure. The shape of it was weird, like it was something floating in mid-air rather than something stuck to the ground or just passing overhead. It made him wonder for a minute if someone had gotten some balloon or something stuck and he just couldn’t see the string.

Unfortunately though, it was in that moment that he suddenly felt the aura of a youma, and knew he had to be on his guard. But before he could really do anything to ready himself, the youma tried to attack him from behind! Caliban barely dodged, though he felt as though there was some sort of blade that had tried to attack his right side. Caliban whirled around, trying to catch sight of the youma, but couldn’t see anything! That’s when he noticed something moving on the ground. It looked like a figure of some sort, not human, was running straight towards him.

At this point Caliban realized that this wasn’t an ordinary youma, it was some sort of invisible youma, he was pretty sure, that only cast some sort of shadow to tell you where it was, and whne it was night time, that made it even harder for the youma to be seen. Caliban knew he had to move to a well-lit area to try and even the odds of the battle, and moved away from the Church, into the parking lot where the church’s shadow wasn’t casting. Thank goodness it was a full moon tonight too, or else he might not be able to even see the youma’s shadow. It did not stop the youma from attacking though, and it leapt once again at Caliban, and he could only dodge and feel like the youma had just missed hitting him. If Caliban didn’t act soon, he could easily be defeated by the creature.

He continued to track its’ shadow, making sure that he could tell where it’s ‘head’ was, and keeping his arms ready to throw out and be able to punch the creature. If it had such a good trick of invisibility, that might mean it was more vulnerable to attacks! The creature moved around, circling Caliban like it was checking out its’ prey, and then it leapt once again in the air to strike! This time though, Caliban was ready, and when he thought it was close enough, he threw out his arm and yelled, “Seal Matrix!” Landing a hit squarely on the creature’s head! It seemed to whine as it was hit, but shortly after it poofed in regular youma-destroyed fashion. Derrick sighed. He was wondering what all of these creatures had been doing and why he was finding them a bit more frequently. Of course, the Negaverse was behind it, but still, he thought it odd.