Chapter 1: Darkness

Sam Hanson whistled a hearty tune as he made his rounds of the Manhattan Museum. He had been employed as a third shift security guard at the museum for nearly ten years. He liked the peace and quiet that the closed museum offered, instead of the daytime, when visitors were around. His wife had wanted him to move to the day shift, but Sam had always resisted.

As he passed into the room holding the dinosaur exhibit, the dark shadows around him came to life. Snaky black tendrils whipped out of the darkness, smashing into him with physical force. Sam was thrown backwards, skidding along the polished floor on his ass. When he had stopped, he desperately tried to unholster his gun as a figure emerged from the shadows like he was a part of them. He wore a black skintight costume, a flowing black hooded cloak trailing behind him. His face was concealed behind a full mask, but through the eyeslits of the mask, Sam could see that the man's eyes glowed an unholy red. The thick darkness flowed all around him, their tendrils snaking on the ground around him like they were a living thing.

Two of the tendrils lashed out at Sam. One of them grabbed the gun out of his holster, throwing it across the room to clatter along the floor. The other grabbed him by the neck, wrapping around it and squeezing. Sam choked as the thin tendril wrapped around his neck, his hands reaching up to try and pull the thing away. It had a grip as strong as any man though, and it refused to budge.

The man stalked closer to him, his glowing red eyes watching Sam. Some more of the tendrils grabbed at his ankles and wrists, wrapping themselves around his limbs. He felt himself being lifted up by the darkness even as the one tendril continued to choke the life out of him. The darkness lifted him before their master, bringing him closer to the man clad in shadows. They brought Sam so that he was inches away from the man's face, his glowing red eyes locking with Sam's own eyes. The man studied Sam for a moment as his tendril choked the security guard.

"Pitiful," the man said. That was the last word that Sam ever heard as the life was choked out of him. The inky black tendrils released him, letting him fall to the floor with a thump. The man strode over the dead guard, his cloud of darkness snaking on the floor all around him.

He entered the room that held a new exhibit that the museum had just erected the day before. His red eyes scanned the room as the tendrils of his darkness moved about the room, snaking gently around exhibits, feeling them. Their mere touch disabled the motion alarms that protected some of the exhibits, rendering each display free for their master's taking.

Two of the tendrils slid along a display holding a sword that had come from the middle ages. As they touched the ancient weapon, a blue current of brilliant energy lashed out at the shadows, sliding along their black surface to reach their master. The man screamed in pain as his darkness quickly withdrew from the sword, recoiling back to their master.

"Magic!" the man angrily muttered beneath his mask, glaring in anger at the weapon.

He ignored the sword, concentrating instead on the darkness that he commanded. One of the tendrils suddenly began to writhe around excitedly, drawing his attention. He strode over to the display that it had been inspecting: A vase that had come from the Mediterranean. It was clearly very old. The man looked over the vase for a moment, his glowing red eyes studing the ancient object. Then, without warning, two of his dark tendrils grabbed the vase and smashed it to the floor. The crash was loud in the quiet of the room as the vase broke into pieces. Lying in the debris of the vase was a small blue gem, the size of the end of a man's finger.

A tendril reached out and picked the gemstone up, dropping it into its master's open hand. The man clutched the gem tight in his hand and smiled in triumph beneath his mask, his red eyes glowing brightly.

Samantha was in for the fight of her life, she knew. Her very life depended on this. She had to succeed, or she would die trying, it was just that simple. But the enemy was greater than her, and it made her afraid. But she she knew she could not be afraid. She had to quell her fear and defeat her foe, or her entire life would come to an end.

Thus determined, Samantha picked up her pencil and read the first question on the test. Out of the corners of her eyes, she could see other students already writing down their answers on the test, going through the exam like it was a breeze. Miss Harris walked along the rows between the student's desks, her eyes looking over each student as they worked on their tests.

Samantha read the first question and was immediately stumped. She hated history, she mused. Nothing that had happened in the ancient past seemed to matter to her now, why should she be studying it? But she knew that she had to do well on this test if she ever wanted to be ungrounded by her mom. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the cram session that Erin and her had had the night before at Samantha's house. They had studied well, and she should know the answers to the questions before her.

Samantha skipped the first question and continued on with the rest of the test. She did indeed know the answers to some of the questions, but others came up as a total blank. Around her, other students would periodically rise from their desks and place their completed tests on Miss Harris's desk before returning to sit down. Some of them seemed so smug that they had done well on their tests, and Samantha repressed the urge to smack them around. She wanted to yell at them, "Oh, you're so smart? Have you ever saved a bank from being robbed, or stopped an old lady from getting her purse snatched?"

The bell sounded and students began to get up, filing excitedly for the door, talking to their friends and classmates. A handful of the students that had not yet finished dropped what had been completed on their tests on Miss Harris's desk before they joined the line of students walking out the door.

Samantha remained in her seat, trying to answer just one more question. A shadow loomed over her, and she heard Miss Harris's gentle voice say to her, "I'm sorry, Samantha. Time's up."

With a defeated sigh, Samantha closed the test and handed it to Miss Harris. Miss Harris, a woman who had just started at JFK High School at the beginning of the school year, was the youngest member of the faculty. She was well-liked by many of the students and was Samantha's personal favorite teacher.

"I hope that you did well on this test," Miss Harris told her with a smile. "You really need to bring your grades up."

Samantha groaned as she stood up from the desk, holding her bag of books over her shoulder. "Don't remind me. I'm grounded until they improve. I've managed to get my grades up in every class except this one. If I don't get a decent grade on this test, I'm grounded until I'm in my sixties."

Miss Harris laughed and let a hand rest in understanding on Samantha's shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm sure you did fine. If you want, you can come by tomorrow and I'll let you know how you did."

Samantha didn't have Miss Harris's history class the next day, so she agreed to come by between her other classes and find out her grade on the test. She left the classroom and emerged into the noisy, crowded hallway. School had ended for the day, and the students were getting ready to get on with the rest of their day. Samantha slipped through the crowds of students, moving towards her locker. She saw Erin standing by the locker, waiting for Samantha.

"I failed," Samantha grumbled to Erin. "I'm grounded for the rest of my life."
Erin frowned at her. "I'm sure you didn't do that bad."

"You're right," Samantha said as she packed a few of her books away in her locker. "I did worse."

Erin rolled her eyes at her best friend. Deciding to change the subject, she asked, "So what are you doing tonight?"

"I don't know yet. I told mom that I may have to stay late at school for extra credit, that way I have an excuse in case BB needs me."

BB was a code that Samantha and Erin used when the two of them were around other people. BB stood for Blackbird, a young costumed hero who was also Samantha's boyfriend.

"Oh, he'll need you alright," Erin giggled, then she made kissing noises with her lips. Samantha elbowed her, but was smiling at Erin. She unclipped her cell phone from the waistband of her jeans and hit a button that let her speed dial Blackbird's own cell phone. It was answered quickly.

"Hey gorgeous," came his voice at the other end. "School out?"

"Thankfully," Samantha told him. "Anything going on?"

Erin had brought her hands to rest over her heart and made lovey-dovey looks with her eyes, playfully mocking her friend. Samantha stuck her tongue out at her as she listened to what Blackbird was saying.

"There was a break-in at the Manhattan Museum last night. Come on over and check it out with me."

"Deal," she said. "I'll see you in a bit."

She ended the call with the press of a button, then looked at Erin. "Costume business," she told her friend, using another code that Erin and her had developed. "I'll tell you all about it later."

"Are you sure that's not just an excuse for him to get you alone for some smooching?" Erin teased.

A few minutes later, Lightburst flew through the sky above Manhattan, her glowing aura leaving a trail of light behind her. The museum was not that far from the school, so she knew it would only take a couple of minutes to get there with her flight speed. She was thankful for her power to fly, it ended up saving a lot of time getting around. Those times that she had to spend walking from place-to-place seemed to take forever now, when she knew in the back of her mind that it would be quicker to just fly there.

Sure enough, just a couple of minutes after she had left the school, the museum came into view. A couple of police cars sat in the road in front of the museum, the officers standing outside and talking with each other. She landed on the sidewalk in front of the museum, and the policemen looked at her suspiciously.

"Hi," she said to them, trying to be friendly. "I'm Lightburst. Blackbird is expecting me."

The museum doors opened and a man in plain clothes came out. Lightburst had to fight the urge to let out a shriek of horror. The man was her father, Lieutenant Mike Stewart. She made the glowing aura that surrounded her a bit brighter, praying that he wouldn't recognize her through it. She had learned early on that her energy aura tended to make her features hazy, unless someone looked really closely through the glow. She used the glow and the haze to hide her identity as best as she could, since she didn't wear a mask anymore, like she had in her very first costume, one that had been homemade. So far, no one had connected Lightburst with Samantha, but that was because she had not yet met anyone she was very close to as Samantha in her Lightburst identity. But her father was a different matter.

"You must be Lightburst," he said as he approached her. "I was told you'd be coming to help out. I'm Lieutenant Stewart."

"Yes, sir," Lightburst replied, making her voice deeper. "Pleased to meet you, sir."

He gave her a curious look, and one of the police officers nearby chuckled at how deep her voice had become. Lightburst mentally kicked herself, deciding that maybe she had made her voice a little too deep. Lieutenant Stewart held the door to the museum open for her, and the two strolled in.

"You're fairly new, aren't you?" he asked as they walked through the museum. "Reports of you didn't surface until a few weeks ago."

"Yes, that's right," Lightburst told him, making her voice slightly deeper, but not comically so.

"Well, you've been doing a good job so far," he complimented her. "Keep it up."

The two rounded a corner into another room. A chalk outline of a body had been drawn on the ground. A police officer was taking pictures of the outline while Blackbird hunched down on the ground nearby, peering around, looking for something. He saw Lightburst and Mike come into the room, and he smiled at her. He stood up and walked over to meet them.

"We have one dead guard," he told her, looking back at outline. "Looked like he had been strangled. His gun was found on the other side of the room."

"No shots fired," Samantha's dad added. "It looked like the gun had just been taken from him and thrown away, or the guard dropped it. There's no signs of a struggle either."

"How did whoever do this get in?" Lightburst asked, her eyes looking around the room.

A voice spoke from behind them. "He came in through the front doors."

The three of them turned as a tall man with an athletic build entered. He wore a costume that was very similar to Blackbird's, except his was white. The white cape flowed behind him as he approached them. Lightburst saw a keen gaze in his eyes, like his mind was analyzing facts and clues even as he spoke.

"The doors had been locked, the alarm activated," the man in white continued. "But somehow, the person who did this had managed to unlock the doors, deactivate the alarm system, and enter the building without leaving any signs of entry. None of the other three guards on duty saw anything or anyone."

Blackbird gestured to the man in white. "Lightburst, I'd like you to meet White Owl."

White Owl quickly shook her hand with his white-gloved hand. He gave her a simple nod as she stammered, "It's an honor to meet you, sir!" Even Lightburst, who didn't know much about costumed heroes knew of White Owl. He was one of the most well-respected of the costumed heroes. Neither he nor Blackbird possessed any superhuman powers, instead relying on their gadgets and their training to fight crime. White Owl had a reputation of having a keen, analytical mind when it came to detective work, and Lightburst was seeing that mind in action.

"There was a vase broken in the next room," White Owl continued. "It had been kept in a display that was equipped with a motion sensor alarm, but once again, our culprit bypassed security and was able to gain access to the vase. The vase itself was Mediterranean in origin, a thousand years old, perhaps. I'd need to inspect the remains of the vase closer to determine its exact age."

"So this person went to all the trouble of coming in here just to break a vase?" Lightburst asked. "Was there something inside of the vase?"

"That's what we're guessing," Blackbird told her.

"I've got an officer talking to the person in charge of that room so that we can determine where the vase came from," Mike told them.

"Good," White Owl nodded. "Let Chief Howard know if you find out anything and he'll contact me."

White Owl turned to leave, Blackbird and Lightburst close behind. They didn't go for the front door, instead walking to a side door used by employees of the museum. The three of them came out into the employees only parking lot.

"Do you have any idea who did this?" Lightburst asked them.

"There are a few villains who could enter the museum without being noticed and without tripping any alarms," White Owl said. "I'll begin to check what we know with the database at the Owl's Nest, see if I can narrow the possibilities. Blackbird, stake out the museum tonight. Chances are that our perpetrator won't come back, but it won't hurt to be cautious. If you see him or her, contact me."

"Gotcha," Blackbird nodded. He looked at Lightburst. "Care to join me?"

"I might be able to drop by for a bit after my mom goes to sleep."

White Owl looked at her. "Your mother doesn't know about your dual identity?" Lightburst shook her head, and the hero frowned at her. "You may want to tell her. It will make things a lot easier."

He pulled a gun-like object from the belt around his waist and fired a hook into the air, a rope trailing behind it. The hook securely fastened onto the roof of the museum, and White Owl looked back to Lightburst.

"It was a pleasure meeting you. Let me know if you ever need any help with anything."

He pressed a button the gun and he began to climb upwards, the rope being reeled inside the gun, pulling him up to the roof. Lightburst and Blackbird watched him being lifted away.

"Wait until I tell Erin that I actually met White Owl," Lightburst murmured.

Robert Chase scowled as he peered at the small blue gem, his anger mounting. This wasn't the right one, he had realized upon closer inspection of the gem. All the trouble he had gone to to steal the gemstone, and it wasn't even the right one. Sure, it would fetch a nice chunk of money on the black market, but it was otherwise useless to him.