February thirteenth.

The sky was black, and I, werewolf Allen Reign, stood in an open field.

I couldn't see a single star. The night was blank, not cold, not hot, no stars, no wind, all I had to focus on were my thoughts.

You might expect seeing them coming would be easy, right? When they rained down hundreds of years ago during the Purge, they lit up the daytime sky in fire. But I couldn't see anything as I scanned the horizon.

I pulled my jacket around myself, but not from cold- more to feel whatever safety I could.

I was told their ship would be arriving around this time, nineteen thirty.

That's seven-thirty p.m. as my wife had been teaching our son Jaden. Jaden was with me today. He told me he wanted to know what Pharaohs looked like. Four-years-old and ever curious, even when I told him they were nothing to look at, his imagination still soared when he heard they were from space. My wife even told him that the young Pharaoh I would be looking after wasn't much older than him, which made him think they could be friends. Yeah,... not much older... by who's definition of age?

I thought back on our history. I was scared. The first time our species met, the Pharaohs had come down from the sky and nearly slaughtered an entire race known as the gargoyles. Now, I was charged with protecting the son of their country's head of state, the only child of their president. If I screwed this up, my entire world could burn.

Jaden hugged my leg, hiding himself from the cold under my long jacket. I could sense he was getting tired. I was, too; we'd been waiting out here for half an hour.

The night was getting colder, but I didn't want to shiver. It would make me look weak. I instead tightened my grip on old Calamity Jane, my twelve-gauge shotgun. Beside me stood Frank, my backup, a mutant known as a "wild man". He carried a few five and ten-pound dumbbells in his jacket- if you knew him, you'd understand.

Why were we armed? One word: gargoyles. Their remnants would have done anything to sever ties between the mutants on Earth and those in the stars.

It started to rain. Great! At least now I knew why I couldn't see the stars.

Only Frank had thought to bring an actual hooded raincoat. My cotton overcoat would soon be soaked as we stood in the open. More concerning, rain made noise, and so made it harder to hear monsters sneaking up on you... 'c'mon, Mr. Reign, get hold of yourself. You'll see them easy in this open field if they attack unless they just choose to snipe you off at a distance. Then what can you do anyway?' I thought.

And what did the rest of humanity think about all this? Oh, don't you know? None of us exist. Werewolves and gargoyles are folklore, and wild men are just people who have had too much to drink. And Pharaohs... what are those? For what it's worth, they were also often called fairies. Hundreds of years ago, humanity feared us and other mutants and would have done anything to be rid of us, often trying to kill us, calling us unholy abominations. So we spread stories about ourselves in tall tales of heroes and horrors, all too fantastic to believe. Soon enough, no one believed we were real in the first place, so in a way, everyone got their wish. We were left alone, and the normal humans believed there were no more monsters haunting the night. Keeping up facades wasn't too hard. After all, when not fighting, most mutants looked like normal humans.

I gripped my weapon tighter again, looking at my friend Frankie, who looked at me with the same toothy grin he had on the entire ride over here. Of course, he didn't actually put up his hood- constantly having to prove how tough he was.

"So hey, Mac," said Frankie, "You tried that new cola... what was it called again? The red stuff. It's cherry-flavored."

"You're thinking about that at a time like this?" I asked.

"A time like what, Al? We're standing around in a field waiting for that stupid ship to arrive or our weapons to rust, whichever comes first." Frankie looked up. "Ah, speaking of which."

A bright light showed over my shoulder, the field suddenly illuminated in a blue hue. I turned, raising my weapon as I did, snapping it into the crook of my right shoulder and aiming at the descending glowing object.

Frankie slapped my weapon to the side before I could open fire, shouting at me, "You paranoid mutt, that's the ship. Don't do the gars' job for em' alright?" Had I really allowed myself to get that worked up? I didn't normally like Frank, but for the moment, I was glad he was along.

'Still have to say, ya think sneaking up on an armed group camped out and waiting for possible conflict... maybe a bad idea?' But I knew we had to just go with it. The pharaohs were the ones calling the shots here.

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I looked back at the object and saw a large silver ship in front of me. The ship had two wings, both thirty feet in length, which faced down and forward. The nose of the craft came out perhaps only a few more feet. The wings and nose joined seamlessly several meters back, where I could not see but guessed the thrusters for the vessel resided.

I took my weapon back to a low, ready stance, watching as a door dropped from the nose of the ship. The door acted as a ramp, two men walking out of the ship before it even touched bottom.

The men were not dressed as one would suppose royal escorts should be. They wore blue jeans and red shirts, each of them. However, the clothes caught less attention than their weapons when they came to stand on either side of the ship exit. Each carried a three-foot staff with two-foot blades on each end. The top blades were half a foot wide and made in the style of scimitar swords, the bottom blades of similar length but more shaped like spear tips. Each blade had a strange blue hue, characteristic of the alloy from the Pharaoh homeworld, known as Cyra. Pharaohs were terrible with guns, at least at the speeds they could move, but given that speed, those blades could be nightmares.

The man on the right side of the platform spoke. "We were told an armed escort would meet the first son. What is this? I only see two men. One of you isn't even armed."

"These are all I'm gonna need," Frank replied, tossing a ten-pound weight in the air.

"Do you think this is a game?" asked the man on the right.

"Oh yes, I do, and it's a fun one," said Frank. He yanked the weight back and hurtled it forward like a frisbee, sending it flying at a large birch tree several meters away from our group. The metal weight slammed into the tree trunk, wood splintering, and the entire neck of the tree giving way like a heavy sledge had just smashed through it. Frankie chuckled.

I shook my head. "We also have snipers in place," I said. "But we're trying not to draw attention. Remember, the number of people, even among mutants, who know what's happening here had to be handpicked. The boy is not public knowledge."

The left man nodded. "Very well," he said. He started to shout, "All kneel and prepare to receive the first son of all Triad." I bowed and knelt down to one knee, guiding my son to do the same. Frank, however, just shook his head.

"Yeah, that's not happening," Frank commented.

"We're not bowing to him in submission," I snapped, "It's a show of respect. Now stop embarrassing us." And thus, I was back to regretting him being here.

"I'm here to represent my people, not play submissive." He shook his head. "Bowing to a five-year-old, I'm not the one being embarrassed."

"He's not five. He's one hundred, you imbecile," I said in a growl. Frank was so being so obstinate- I didn't get it. What if we went to Korea, where bowing was just the thing to do, would he act the same?

"Bring out the pipsqueak," Frank shouted to the two men. "We'll just say I'm keeping watch."

The right ship guard rolled his eyes. He then yelled into the ship, "Come forth, Kyle, First Son of the President of the Planetary Republic of Triad, Children of the Titans."

Out of the ship, he walked. I supposed he was cute.

He didn't look a day older than five, just like I expected—puffy cheeks, slightly pudgy, and bright and wide brown eyes. The boy had dark hair, and wore a red dress shirt with a pair of slacks and shined black shoes. He walked out at a brisk pace. He stopped and looked at the four of us, hands in his pockets. He gave a right-sided smile as if he were deciding what to do with us. Finally, he raised his hands, giving my son and I permission to get back up.

Now, I had to look down as the boy barely came up past my knees. His smile dimpled his cheeks, and even as he walked with an air of discipline, it still looked awkward and clumsy.

Frank walked over to him and knelt down but not to bow. He put his face directly in the child's and spoke. "Listen up, brat. You're not royalty here. Don't expect me to bow or talk all nicey nice to ya. And don't expect that looking like a kid is going to get you anywhere around me, either. Go ahead, step out of line... I'll snap your neck like a twig."

The boy stifled a laugh. "If you imagine you scare me, then my dear claud, your imagination is far richer than your intelligence." Frankie raised a finger to point into the child's face, but before he touched the boy's nose, the child disappeared in a flash of colors, appearing again five meters away, chuckling. "Don't imagine yourself my equal, infant."

"Infant?" said Frankie, getting up and glaring at the child.

I put a hand on Frank's shoulder, noticing as one of the guards had shifted his stance, aiming his blade for a strike to Frank's head. One more false move, and my "friend" wouldn't have a head at all. "Need I remind you, my friend," I said, "with their technology, there are those of that boy's race who could wipe out your entire family in less than a minute. So ya know, try not to tick off an entire nation planet, if you please." The guard seemed to relax his stance.

Kyle looked at me and then shivered and pulled his arms close, looking up into the air as if he suddenly realized he was getting drenched. His shivering caused his whole body to shake, and I had to resist the urge to offer to pull him close to warm him up like... well, like a kid.

He looked at my boy Jaden, who by this point had practically attached himself to my leg. Jaden usually wasn't shy around people he knew or other kids, but my guess was he was scared of the two men with giant bladed staffs that could have cut any one of us in two at a moment's notice... come to think of it, I couldn't blame him. "I see you brought someone my size," Kyle said. He got down on one knee to seem smaller to my son. Had Kyle been our son and just put his knee in the mud like that with slacks on, my wife would have freaked. Immediately, his outfit was ruined, but, yes, he was a boy- he didn't even notice.

Since Jaden wasn't moving away from me, Kyle walked over to him. "I'm really not a mean guy; give me a chance." He tickled Jaden's neck, making my son grin, but he wasn't letting go of my leg. "Oh well." He moved back away. "Never did have a way with kids."

"Ironic," I commented.

"You have no idea. You'll meet her soon enough, and then you'll see real irony."

"Her?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. The monster. My bod-"

An object appeared next to Kyle and shouted at me, "Hey, hi!"