Super Different

“Queen Scaaphroi, I am here to give my resignation notice. I no longer want to lead teams to destroy planets that we have no right to destroy or dominate. Consider this my formal retirement from the Screallek people.” The Queen frowned, her sideways-blinking eyes staring at me intently.

“But Hazai, this is all very sudden. Why would you even consider leaving our people? We practically dominate most of the galaxy on this side of the Milky Way. I thought you loved leading the squads?” I shook my head, my head tentacles moving slightly with the motion.

“I’ve seen the kind of destruction your little ‘squads’ can do and frankly, I don’t see the reason behind annihilating an entire planet's population so you can say you own it. If you destroy the people, then a planet is just a chunk of rock or a cloud of partially solid gasses. It shows nothing other than how far you’re willing to go to say you’re the best. And I’m done having a part in that.” I folded my hands in front of me, signalling to the Queen that I wasn’t going to change my mind. She sighed, her full lips pushed out by the force, revealing some of her small, long, rounded teeth.

“Well, where are you planning on going, sweety? There’s no other planet that will let you stay with them, everyone’s heard of what our people can do.” I smiled to myself, knowing this might just put an end to her scheming.

“Mother, I’m going to your next target, Earth. That way, you won’t be able to obliterate it, because I know, no matter what our rules say about deserting the tribe, you won’t want to kill me too.” I turned on my heel and walked away, smiling smugly. 

My tutor had been teaching me a bit of English, the main language they speak on Earth, and I was getting pretty good at it. Although some of the words were quite hard to get my tongues around…

I strode down the hallway of our mothership, searching for the one Screallek I knew would come with me. Screalleks only have two loves ever. So if the first isn’t ‘the one’ then your second is definitely going to be. Usually, things don’t work out with the first one because one of the pair dies or moves or something happens so they can’t stay together. Then the love fades and they find someone else to share their life with and everything is alright. But most end up with their first love, so naturally, I was expecting Lunno to agree that killing innocent creatures and their planets was wrong and we should do something about it.

I turned a corner and the spaceship hanger came into view; it was wide inside and colourful lights showing through the glass wall you had to walk past to get to the door. I got to the also-glass door and spotted Lunno immediately.

“Lunno! Can I talk to you for a sec?” I called across the hanger. He looked up and a wide smile spread across his face. He put down whatever tool he was using and jogged over to me.

“Hazai! I didn’t expect to see you until later!” He leaned in for a quick hug and a peck on the cheek, pulling back and looking me in the eyes.

“So what’s up?” He asked, blinking his bright yellow eyes. I took a deep breath and rocked forward on my heels.

“So, I’ve just formally given my notice of leave to my mother and I’m going to run away to Earth. I’ve already learned a lot of their language and this way Mother won’t be able to destroy it! Isn’t that great?” I said excitedly, bouncing and letting my tentacles float around my head freely. A shadow crossed Lunno’s eyes, a frown appearing for a second on his beautiful face, and then disappearing as quickly as it had come.

“That’s sort of great, but what about me? I don’t know any Earthish and I don’t want to leave my job as a mechanic here. And you know that once you leave you can’t come back. No one will have you, even me because if I’m found harbouring a Former, I’ll get thrown out as well.” The huge grin that had taken over my face slipped slowly into a sad little frown.

“But-but I can teach you English. And life will be so much better on Earth! You won’t have to fix guns and death rays and you could still be a mechanic on Earth! They have these funny little things called ‘cars’ that need fixing constantly! It could be just you and me, away from all the fighting and destruction and planet debris. Don’t you want that?” I asked, my tentacles pulling painfully at my head, reflecting the confusion and anguish I was feeling. Lunno shook his head, his shorter tentacles moving freely with the motion.

“Look, I’ll admit I don’t want to help destroy planets, but I also don’t want to never see my family again, or be stranded on a planet that is the next target without knowing the language or customs that will help us fit in. I mean, do you even know what these Earthlings look and act like? Will they accept us, knowing who and what we are? Look, Zai, I really love you and you know that, but I really think this plan of yours wasn’t very well thought out. I’m sorry but I’m staying here.” My luminous green eyes filled with tears, my lips wobbling with emotion.

“So you won’t go with me? I’m going to have to try and survive on my own? On a foreign planet, far away from you? You would do that to me?” I frowned and shook my head when he tried to reach a comforting arm out to touch me.

“No! Don’t try and make this better! I only did this because I thought you would come with me. But now I’ll have to do it on my own. Well fine! I don’t need you anyway! Good riddance!” I stormed away, stomping to my royal suite and grabbing the bare minimum of supplies I would need to survive Earth. A holophile (tech that would allow me to alter my appearance slightly), some Earth-ish looking clothes, a packet of food that would last me about an Earth week and a picture of Lunno, despite the way he brushed me off. Maybe he would realise how empty his life is without me and come looking for me, apologising and repeating how much he really loved me. I smiled to myself, imagining the scene.

A sharp knock on the door jerked me out of my thoughts, and I gathered my stuff in a bag and opened my door, finding one of Mother’s lackeys outside. He nodded down the corridor towards the escape capsules, grabbing me roughly to the closest one and shoving me in without saying a word. What a nerve to treat the daughter of his Queen like that! Well, ok, I was the Former daughter of the Queen, so maybe he wasn’t being that rude, but still.

He slammed the door shut and gestured for me to program the desired destination. I put in Earth’s coordinates and pushed the START button. I stuck out both of my tongues at the retreating lackey, hoping he would fall out of the gap in the wall my capsule left. Unfortunately, I could see him calmly hit the close button and then I lost sight of the door and watched as my home grew smaller and the planet I was going to start calling home grew bigger and closer. 

I knew the journey would still take a couple of hours, so I brought out the holophile and started fiddling with it, seeing if I could make it look more like something the Earthlings call a ‘watch’ so it would blend in more. The more I could look like one of them the better, because you never know how much a planet will know of the space pirates that like blowing up whole planets without a warning. 

After a short nap and a couple of hours later, I entered Earth’s atmosphere. I watched as the blue flames licked up the side of my capsule, knowing our tech would be able to handle the heat. I was headed straight for one of their oceans, but not too far away from the coast so I could easily get to a city and start my new life. 

Suddenly the flames and clouds dissipated and I could see a bright expanse of blue with a grey smudge of land in the distance. Oops, I may have put in the wrong coordinates. I braced myself for impact and closed my eyes as the capsule plunged into the water. It popped back out a second later, causing me to bang my head on the roof. 

As I rubbed my head I put the capsule into hydro mode and a little propeller appeared on the back and started pushing me towards land. I slipped the new and improved holophile onto my wrist and changed some of the settings, checking out how it worked in the reflection from the glass. I tried a couple of different looks and suddenly I heard a scraping sound. I had reached the shore.

I hit the OPEN button and the capsule released its door, causing it to fly over the sand and land a few feet away. I shrugged it off, noticing this looked like a fairly empty part of the beach. I pushed the capsule back into the water, making sure I had all my stuff with me and then throwing the door in after it. I couldn’t leave any trace of my arrival, and besides, it would be a fun find for an Earthling someday. I watched the bubbles rise and then stop as my way off of Earth sank into deep oblivion.

I turned to go but realised that the sand around my feet had turned to a transparent liquid. I shook it off, trudging towards what looked like a rough-hewn path in the cliff face that separated this part of the beach from the rest of the land.

Halfway up, the path disappeared, leaving me to climb up the craggy cliff and eventually collapse at the top, breathing heavily. I swung my legs over the top of the cliff, sighing as I laid back and watched the clouds for a while.

My peaceful cloud-watching session was interrupted by the sound of falling rubble and smashing glass. Oh no, not MORE destruction. I got up and started walking towards the tall buildings that were clogging up the skyline.

As I approached the damaged building, I could hear the sounds of combat. A grunt here and a yell there, leading me to believe that it was two males, one with a potentially lethal weapon and the other with not much more than basic defence. When I got around the side of the building, I could see that a whole chunk of one side had been blown away, leaving a perfect view of the two brightly-clad boys wrestling on the debris of the shattered wall.

“Hey!” I yelled in what I hoped was a convincing Earth accent. I had turned my holophile on as soon as I got to the top of the cliff, so I wasn’t worried about what I looked like.

Both boys stopped and turned to look at me.

“Why are you fighting?” I asked, balling my fists. I had come to Earth looking for a refuge from violence, not to find a smaller scale of it.

“Well, you see, HE wants to rule the city and of course, that’s not reasonable, so I have to stop him.” Said the boy in the blue, skin-tight, scale-patterned outfit.

“Hey! You just tried to blast me off the face of the earth! All I want is a fair and just system for the ‘bad guys’ because we never get a good deal. YOU guys are always butting into our plans. And yes, ok, maybe city domination was on my bucket list, but come on! I just want to be able to get cheap weapons! That’s not asking for much!” The one with the bright red cape and shirt on pushed the other one over, making them start fighting all over again. Eventually, the blue one pinned the one in the red to a discarded metal beam, tying his hands and legs to the steal and pushing a ball of fabric into his mouth.

“Sorry about all of that, I’m Aquaboy. Leader of Team Justice and son of Doctor Splash and Mister Mighty. Nice to meet you.” He jumped from his place in the third story and landed next to me, holding out a hand in what I recognised as an Earth greeting. I awkwardly put mine out as well, reaching out to his hand cautiously.

“I’m, um, Hazai. Why are you incapacitating that boy?” I asked, pulling my hand back when he flinched at my touch.

“Woah, that was hot. Why is your hand so hot?” He asked, rubbing his own.

“Um, I’m not sure… But why were you and him fighting?”

“Well, it’s like I said, he was trying to take over the city and that's not right. We have a wonderful government that funds Super projects, and that means we can defeat the people trying to turn this city into their own playhouse. You’re not from around here, are you?” He said, squinting his downward blinking eyes and looking me up and down.

“Are you some sort of alien?” I blushed self-consciously. Then I nodded.

“Yeah, um, I’m from the Screallek mothership. I’ve defected though, and hopefully, this means your planet won’t be destroyed. I was wondering, would you mind helping me figure out how to survive on Earth? I know a bit of your cultures but they’re all so confusing. And as you can probably tell, my English isn’t all that good.” Aquaboy put his hands on his hips, considering for a second.

“You said your name was Hazai?” I nodded. “Well, the first thing to fix is the name. Maybe something more like… Hazel. Yeah, that sounds better. Here, if you follow me I can show you to the Team Justice base, that is, assuming you don’t want to take over the city or the world?” I nodded again, following him as he led me away from the broken building and towards the centre of the city.

When we got to the HQ, Finn introduced me to the rest of the Team (Finn was his non-superhero name, he had explained to me as we walked). There was Anna, the daughter of Captain Sun, Rose, a girl who could control and grow plants thanks to an accidentally radioactive rose she touched as a toddler, Arthur, the genius technician who could create any and all the gadgets in the world, and Chelsea, a girl who was born during a solar eclipse and then hit by a solar flare when she was young (whatever those were…). Arthur immediately saw my holophile and asked me a billion questions which I couldn’t understand.

“Wait, say it slower, she’s still learning English.” Finn said, laughing a bit as he spoke.

“Right, right, sorry. My first question is: How does it work?”I took off the holophile and showed him how the electrical pulses diverted the light around the wearer ever-so-slightly so you could change certain things about your appearance. 

Then he asked how we figured it out. I told him that I was working one day on an electrical ray when I realised that if the quantum theory is correct and nothing really exists if we aren’t looking at it then maybe we could elaborate on that and change the way a thing is perceived, therefore giving it the impression of a different thing. I then showed him how I tweaked it so it would look like a watch.

“Wow, I can’t believe you figured all that out! Would you mind if I take it to my lab to study it and see if I can replicate it?” He said, his bright orange hair bouncing with his jumping motion.

“Sure,” I said, handing it over. He let out a little yelp as he touched my hand and then frowned.

“Hmm, you have a really high body temperature. If we can figure out a way to turn it down, you might fit in better. Here, come with me and I’ll show you my lab.” He ushered me down some steps and I gasped at the expanse of machinery. It was at that moment that I knew I was falling in love for the second time.