"I'm so bored!" Danny cried out, exasperated. He had his head on the desk, his left cheek pressed flat against the surface. "Why is my life so boring?"

It was Monday, which meant school, which meant walking into an exam completely unprepared yet again. It was a true miracle that Danny, at seventeen, was still on track for graduation. Of course, it should go without saying that Danny wasn't going to be graduating with any sort of honors or distinctions. No one was going to offer him any scholarships for college, but, as Danny was prone to say, he didn't plan on going to college anyway. He hated school; he wasn't about to sign up for another four years of it.

"Mr. Hayashida, if you're going to be disruptive, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Is that a promise?" He asked, his face still planted squarely on the desk. His exam sat closed in front of him, his name hastily scrawled across the lines in what can only be described as chicken-scratchings.

He had skimmed through the test, answered only what he knew, which was about four questions, and doodled Napoleon on a horse for the rest of the questions. He hated history and the only thing he had learned from the class was that Napoleon wasn't actually short, which was extremely disappointing. He rather liked the story of Napoleon being a shorty.

"Leave, already!"



"Again? You were disciplined again?" Director Rick Curry asked as he stormed into the room, his one good eye glaring at Danny. Rick Curry—or "Ricky," as Danny preferred—was a tall, imposing man with a habit of talking too loudly and keeping too many secrets. He also wore an eyepatch, which Danny figured was more for effect than practicality. "If you keep this shit up, I'm going to have to suspend you from training!"

"Are you serious? Is that really going to happen? Please say yes!"

Gritting his teeth together and resisting the urge the strangle the boy (an accomplishment that deserves praise), the director walked over to the outlet and ripped the power plug from the wall, effectively ending Danny's time with the Stop Station. "Either get your shit together or I'll get your shit together for you. Now get your ass over to the training room!"



"Heard you got reamed again for being trash," the blond smirked as he flew past the turret, spiraling left to avoid the storm of rockets on his tail.

"Heard your mom got reamed last night," Danny shot back, always quick on the come-back. He weaved around the array of machines, running fast enough that the robots, in an attempt to gun him down, accidentally took each other down. Without looking back, the redhead raced ahead, grabbing the first of four keys needed to finish the program.

"Oh snaps!" A boy with a giant scar crowed as he charged forward, ramming his entire body against the ten-foot tall turret. The tower shook from the impact, but stayed standing, still trying to gun down the blond. "You gonna take that Davide?"

"Dave always takes it," Danny laughed as he dodged oncoming spikes. "Takes it up the butt, hahaha."

"Fuck you!" The blond suddenly dropped at a steep angle before turning around and firing back at the tower. The guns mounted on shorted and, seconds later, the ten-foot tall machine was nothing more than blown up scrap metal. "Bite me, Danny!"

"No thanks, homes. I don't got that kinda fetish. Ask Val, she's into kinky stuff." The three laughed, giving each other high-fives and props.

"Will you guys stop messing around already?" A girl shouted as she jumped on top of another robot—one that had been waiting to ambush the boys—and sliced off its shoulder joints before severing the power circuits in the back. "Can't even take care of simple shit."

"Aw, Val, it's 'coz we know you got our back!" Danny swung an arm around her neck, pulling her into a one-sided hug. But the hug was short-lived. Val—Valerie Esteves—elbowed Danny in the chest and walked ahead, her blades still drawn to attack.

"Let's hurry up and finish this. I have a calculus test to study for."



"We're all in this together, once we know that we are, we're all stars and we see that!" Danny belted out as he showered, enthusiastically massaging the shampoo into his hair. He was so into his private musical number that he hadn't noticed the flash of light and he certainly didn't notice the elderly man now standing on the other side of the sliding door. "We're all in this together and it shows when we stand, hand in hand!"

"I should hope not. I'd rather 'we' not be in anything together. Also, none of this naked hand holding."

Everything happened in a second. Danny, looked over, saw the bearded man, and screamed. He tried to run and he ended up running into the wall before falling flat on his butt—still naked, still in the shower. He hadn't stopped screaming.

"Will you knock it off? You're giving me a headache and where's the ale? Here?"

"The—The—The what?" Danny was slowly coming back to his senses. He realized that he was naked and there was a man standing in the bathroom with him, who, at a glance, looked like Randolph the White, the wisest mage of the world and a trusted counsel for APEX. Of course, Randolph the White would never be in his bathroom, much less trying to look for alcohol among ammonia-based solutions. 'Unless, of course, good ol' Randy is actually an alcoholic,' Danny thought as he watched the elderly man scrounge through bathroom's cleaning supplies. 'It's possible, right?'

"Danny?" A voice called out to him from outside. "Is everything okay? Is there a spider in the shower?"

"Shit," Danny cursed as he looked over at the old man, who might actually be Randolph the White. "Look, you have to leave. My aunt is home and I can't explain why there's an old man in the showers with me. I can't even explain it to myself."

"But I can't," the Randolph lookalike said, rather matter-of-factly. He even had the nerve to sniff, as if Danny was the one being unreasonable.

"Uh, yes, you can. Just teleport back. Beam it up, Scotty. I don't know. Do something. You can't be here," the redhead hissed before shouting back, "Ah, no, obasan! I'm fine. The shower was just a bit too hot! Sorry!"

"I'm here to take you back with me. You're being summoned to protect the worlds. If you care for your own, you will come with me," the man said, somewhat sullenly, as he gave up any hopes of finding ale in the bathroom. He gripped onto his cane a little more tightly as if he meant to use it some time soon.

"Can this wait?" Danny asked. The summon sounded serious, but he was also in the middle of a shower and it wasn't like he could just fight crime naked! He had to protect his identity! He had to protect certain parts of himself!

"No."

"Randolph, please, I'm—"

"I'm not Randolph," the man interrupted, wrinkling his nose at the name. It was as if he thought it was an insult or something. "I am Elder Naghum and you'll need to come with me if you don't want to see your world perish."

"Right, I know. I'm going to get dressed and then I'll meet you at HQ. I just need you to leave—"

Suddenly the shower was gone, the hot water was gone, and Danny was standing—still dripping wet, some soap suds still clinging onto him—in the middle of a room with three other people who were not his usual teammates. The first thing he did was move his hands to cover some rather choice spots, but, luckily, he was now wearing clothes.

They were his clothes from training, but they could have been worse. He could have been wearing that potato sack the man called clothes. "Alright, so, here to save the world. I don't know who you guys are. Are you some secret Alpha-team Director Curry called up? Oh man, this is so sick! Can't wait to let Davide know that I'm on an alpha squad!"

Danny turned to his side, held out his fist, expecting the other man to return the gesture.