Chapter 1: Green and Shimmering
“Ah, finally a chance to relax,” the blond nineteen-year-old remarked, lying back on her towel. She closed her eyes, intent on soaking up warm rays from the mid-August sun. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much time to relax before running feet kicked sand in her face. “Hey!” She sat up, sputtering as she tried to wipe the sand from her face. “What’s the big idea?”
However, by that point, the offenders were nowhere near her. Instead she watched as six teenagers raced across the sandy beach, yelling and screaming as they played some type of tag game. One, a skinny girl with long curly blond hair, turned to gaze at the girl sputtering sand.
“Hey, Omega!” Forty-Two called cheerfully. “Come play with us!” Omega glanced towards her second- and third-in-command, both of whom were sprawled out on towels beside her. Assassin and Thursday looked back at her, identical mischievous glints in their eyes.
“Ready?” Assassin whispered with an evil grin.
“Go!” Thursday shouted. The three oldest agents left their towels and sprinted towards the younger agents, who scattered, shrieking. A short while later all nine agents from Super Spiffy Agency 918 sprawled in the sand, panting as they tried to catch their breath. Omega looked over the agents, giggling at the sight before her.
Ruka had seaweed tangled in her long brown hair, Pixy was trying to remove sand from her eye, and Kaiki was trying to pull a strand of seaweed out of the back of her swimsuit (Omega wasn’t sure she wanted to know how it had gotten there). Renn was shivering slightly after having been soaked, while Forty-Two attempted to brush off some of the sand that covered almost every square inch of her body. Dragon was still coughing up salt water from her dunking. Assassin and Thursday were rubbing their heads, having hit them together after colliding while chasing Pixy and Ruka. Omega herself was drenched from head to toe.
“This was
definitely a good idea,” Kaiki remarked breathlessly. After the last case, Kaiki had had to call
her family and explain why she had abruptly disappeared in the middle of a
crowded hallway at school. All the agents
had been delighted when her parents had agreed to let her stay in
“Well, the brass said we needed a little vacation,” Omega commented. “I certainly wasn’t going to say no.” The agents all lay in silence for a moment, before Assassin spoke up.
“We had probably better get back to camp and make dinner,” she said. She pointed across the beautiful blue Pacific waters. “We don’t want to miss the sunset.” Reluctantly, the other agents struggled to their feet and began to make their way back to the campsite they had reserved for the weekend.
Like Omega had said, orders had come down from the chief for the agents from Super Spiffy Agency 918 to take a short vacation. Chief Spartan told the girls they had done an excellent job on their last case, Skipping Gleefully Through Life, in which a damaged dimension hopper had transported the girls to a series of other dimensions, meeting many supposedly fictional characters along the way. Omega and Assassin had been especially bummed by their return and subsequent confiscation of the dimension hopper, since it meant they had to leave behind two very cute boys. Forty-Two and Ruka had been more concerned about leaving the island where it rained Skittles.
At any rate, all the action at the beginning of the summer had landed them where they were now, a deserted beach side campground. The area Assassin had chosen was beautiful by anyone’s standards and offered many opportunities for real fun, not just silly little games like “Wanna Buy a Duck?” and “King of the Jungle,” where the favorite thing to do was come up with the weirdest “jungle” animal, like a dragon or an alien. This particular site gave access not just to the sandy beach and warm ocean waters, but was bordered by a thick wooded area as well.
The nine agents quickly reached their wooded camp site, which contained a fire pit, a picnic table, one large tent, and Agency 918’s huge Suburban, which Omega had driven in on a dirt road so they would have access to all necessary equipment in case of emergency, something demanded by SSA protocol. After drying off and changing, each agent set about performing the task assigned her before they had left headquarters. Dinner that night was Mongolian Barbecue, and all the running around they had done made the girls rather hungry. The food was quickly devoured and dishes were being washed when a strangled gasp caught everyone’s attention.
Renn stood at the edge of camp, pointing at something in the woods. Omega quickly hurried to her side, as did everyone else. The first thing Omega noticed was that Renn’s hand was trembling slightly. The second thing she noticed was the rather unusual creature Renn had spotted.
Peering at them from behind a tree was a beautiful slender white horse. Now, a horse alone in these parts was somewhat odd, but could easily be explained away as a runaway, or an escapee from a nearby horse ranch. However, the thing on the horse’s forehead was more difficult to explain away. Sprouting from a thick clump of hair on its forehead was what appeared to be a spire of gold. Omega leaned forward, squinting as she tried to figure out what was on the horse’s head. Of course, everyone else had already figured out what it was.
“It’s a unicorn!” Forty-Two whispered excitedly. Indeed it was. The gold spire was actually a gold colored spiral horn, about two and a half feet long.
“I thought unicorns didn’t exist,” Dragon remarked quietly.
“Well, actually,”
Renn started, “that’s never been proven. Unicorn mythology dates back to 398
BC, when the Greek historian Ctesias mentioned having heard of a strange
creature that lived in
“Shh!”
The unicorn regarded them with an almost quizzical expression on its narrow face. Then it turned and trotted off, back into the dense forest.
“Let’s follow it!” Ruka suggested excitedly. And they did, as quietly as could possibly be for nine teenage girls, at least half of whom have been described from time to time as “clumsy oafs.”
After about ten minutes of following the unicorn through the dense forest (not to be confused with a smart forest), the unicorn stopped. The agents stopped too, though not nearly as gracefully as the unicorn. Ruka ran into Forty-Two, who ran into Pixy, who ran into Kaiki, who ran into Omega. The five girls ended up in a heap on the ground. As they picked themselves up, they heard Thursday gasp.
“What the heck is that?”
The other agents followed her gaze. Jaws dropped as they beheld a strange sight before them. A shimmering green doorway-like thing shimmered before them. Besides being green and shimmery, it was somewhat oval shaped, though with rough edges, and it glowed. As the agents gaped, the unicorn looked back at them and stepped into the shimmering green, whereupon it disappeared from view. The unicorn, that is, not the shimmery green thing. It stayed where it was, green and shimmery.
“Good golly gosh, what do you suppose that is?” Dragon asked in a quiet awe-filled tone of voice.
“I don’t know,” Omega said, narrowing her eyes at the green, shimmering glow before her, “but I believe it is our duty to investigate.”
“Huh?” Forty-Two asked, looking bewildered. Omega sighed and rolled her eyes.
“We’re gonna find out what it is.”