In a two story off white bungalow that was on the edge of the city limits of Pyxis city and young Indian dy was in the kitchen finishing her breakfast. That young dy was Katherine Varma, and Katherine was currently grumbling as she looked at her phone.

  Katherine, or Kat to her friends, was seventeen and she had a warm chestnut skin tone due to her Indian heritage. She had long bck hair that was half way down tied with a dark red ribbon, her eyes were a dull shade of grey eyes, and she had a pear shaped body. On her forehead was a red bindi, she wore an off the shoulder long sleeve red shirt, and above the knee bck asymmetric skirt.

  Kat was an alien called Vulkein and she had a human shape without a shift stone due to her having a human mother. In Vulkein culture she would be called a Vulkein Fledgling, and unlock all powers of the living star alien race little by little as she aged, until she turned twenty five. For now she could only shift from her alien form to human form and limited pyrokinesis.

  Kat put her phone on the isnd in the kitchen and put her dishes away in the dishwasher, “It’s saying to rain on Saturday,” Kat muttered as she rubbed her temple and looked outside to the rain pouring.

  “What’s happening on Saturday that rain could ruin it?” An older woman’s voice asked and rounding the corner was Kat’s mother, Chanda Varma.

  Chanda stood about five feet and six inches tall, and her skin had a simir rich chestnut tone as her daughters but patches of white skin due to her suffering from vitiligo. She had a major white spot over her right brown eye, and her other eye was almost covered by her bangs. She had long bck hair that was kept out of face with a yellow bandana headband.

  She had a red bindi on her forehead like Kat and around her neck was a neckce with gold pendant with dark blue jewel embedded in it. She was wearing a light blue wrap top, simir yellow sash around her waist, and a pair of dark blue capri pants.

  “There’s a meteor shower that is happening that night, and Eris and I were pnning to make it a date night.” Kat said as she turned around to face her mother.

  “Sounds romantic, does Eris know about this pn?” Chanda asked as she walked over toaster. “I know she doesn’t like taking her Impa off road as it’s not built for it.”

  “Of course she knows, she’s the one that suggested it.” Kat said as she used her hips to fully close the dishwasher. “We were pnning to take her truck out there.”

  “She has a truck? I thought she only had the Impa.” Chanda said and raised a brow with interest. “She is finally finished working on Impa?”

  “No, she is still tinkering away with that Impa, but the truck was her side project to take a break from her main project.” Kat said and she smiled seeing her catching up with her mother in height. Kat was only four inches shorter than her mother and was hoping she would be at least the same height or taller than her mother when she turned twenty-five.

  “Do you need a ride to school?” Chanda asked as her toast popped up from the toaster. “Or do you already have a pn?”

  “Eris texted me that she will be picking us up this morning,” Kat said as she picked up her phone. “Oh heads up, you probably have a visit from her mother as she is visiting her sister.”

  “Thanks for the heads up,” Chanda said and gnced out the kitchen window to spot a familiar red impa pulled up in front of the house. “I think your ride is here.”

  Kat got up to look out the window to see Eris’ impa and smiled at seeing it. Kat rushed over to the front door and she slipped on a pair of grey heel boots that gained her two inches.

  Kat looked at her phone when it dinged, “Coming out in second.” She mouthed as she texted Eris back. Kat grabbed her dark blue hooded coat that had reflective strips simir to a firefighter would have on their coats and her bck ptop bag.

  “Bye, Mom!” Kat called out as she opened up the front door. “Say hi to dad for me!”

  “I will, and hope both of you have a good time at school.” Chanda called out and gnced out the window again. “Also tell Eris to keep that beast under the speed limit!” Chanda heard the door close and saw Kat rush to the red impa.

  Chanda let out a small sigh as the house became quiet with her alone in it. She rubbed her jaw line while her gaze drifted to a family photo hanging on the wall. ‘Hope he returns home soon…’ She thought before returning to focus on making herself some breakfast to eat.

  Kat got into the passenger side and slid in the passenger seat, “Hello there, Hot stuff~” Eris flirted and leaned towards Kat. Kat leaned to Eris and the two had a small kiss before Kat got buckled up.

  “Mom told us to tell you to keep to the speed limit.” Kat said after her seatbelt made a loud click. “Are we going to pick up Rory as well?”

  Eris shifted into drive, “Not today, it’s only us this morning, Firebug.” Eris smirked and Kat snorted at the nickname. “I always keep this under the speed limit while driving the public roads…that can be proven.”

  Kat lightly pinched Eris’ side and Eris faked wincing from the pinch. “Behave.” Kat whispered before shifting to a more comfortable position in her seat.

  “I’m always on my best behavior." Eris teased and Kat just rolled her eyes. “Anyways, do you want to drop you at the front doors or east doors?”

  The east doors were closer to the library and that was where Kat liked to work on rge essays or other homework. “West doors this time, the chess club is gathering up.” Kat said.

  “Right, the clubs are starting back up this week.” Eris grimaced and Kat couldn’t help herself from chuckling from Eris’ reaction. “Hey! You don’t have to dip and dodge all the sports club nuts.”

  Kat started to ugh harder as she had fshes of her big strong and brave Eris running away from hockey club recruiter or the time Eris hid up in the rafter of shop css when crosse club recruiter came into the cssroom to bug Eris to join them.

  Eris just snorted as she turned up the volume on her music and Kat stopped ughing as she noticed the song pying. Kat's smile grew bigger as she realized it was Elvis Presley’s song ‘Burning Love’ and Kat’s smile growing was due to this song was their song.

  Kat was sitting in front of a chess board and reading a book while waiting for her opponent to make a move. The room the chess club was set up in was once a storage room but it cleared out for one of the clubs that didn’t need to be outside. There were other tables with chess boards and other members pying games.

  Her opponent, Cale Brooks, was having a minor internal mental breakdown to his next move and what Kat was going to do. He normally was an overconfident and prideful chess pyer but whenever he faced off with Kat, he overthought everything. Kat found he had less major mental breakdown if she didn’t fully focus on him and did something else like reading a book.

  Cale finally made his move and Kat gnced down at board only to move her queen. “Check.” Kat said and returned to reading. She could still see Cale’s eyes widen and twirling his blonde locks as he thought.

  At first she didn’t understand why Cale would do this and she had asked why he did but Cale couldn’t fully expin it well. It was Rory who came up with a reason and that reason was because of the ‘Varma Stare’. Rory expined it was Kat’s facial expression that got very serious and would make it feel like you were nothing but a bug to squish.

  With some experimenting Kat found it only affected people with very sensitive emotions and while beings on Eris’ caliber found it very cute due to her soft features. If she had more of her father's or older brother’s features maybe it would have a greater effect on everyone.

  Cale finally made his move and Kat gnced at the board before moving one of her knights. “Check mate.” Kat said and closed her book. “Good game, Cale.”

  Cale let out a loud sigh and slumped into his seat as if he was melting, “Why did I have to go against you first?” He muttered and rubbed his face. “Why couldn’t I face one of the new members.”

  “Because you have a bad habit of running them off with your personality.” Kat said as moved the pieces back to their start positions. “And we need to work them up to you if we want them to join.”

  “Which is easier if they don’t have to deal with you~” A familiar female voice said and Kat felt that person hug her from behind. Kat could tell by just the smell, which they smelt like Marigold flowers, who it was and wasn’t phased by their hug.

  It was Marigold Vildiz and she wasn’t part of the chess club. Instead she was part of the cheerleader squad and Kat was wondering why she was here and not there. The cheerleader squad could train in the gym with rain and Kat thought the turkish beauty would attract a lot of new members.

  Marigold had lovely sun kissed skin tone and bright golden eyes. She stood six feet tall on the dot and had bck wavy hair that she always kept in a tight lower ponytail.

  She was wearing an orange chemise off shoulder baggy shirt that was tucked into a pair of bck fred dress pants. Under the shirt was a white backless sleeveless leotard and on her feet was leather dress shoes.

  “So why are you here, Marigold?” Kat asked and didn’t mind Marigold resting her chin on top of her head. “I don’t think the people here will want to join the cheerleader squad.”

  “We want girls to join this year, not a bunch of horny teenage boys signing up just to get close to me.” Marigold sighed and moved to bury face into Kat’s hair. “Being a Gorpsia is hard at times…” She muttered quietly enough into Kat’s hair that only Kat heard her words.

  Marigold was an alien race called the Gorpsia and on the outside they looked completely human. On the inside was a complex pnt biology and the race was only females like the Aensi. Just like the Aensi, the Gorpsia were very beautiful and needed other males from other races to produce children.

  The beauty Marigold gained caused her problems from unwanted attention from men when she started to come to the city for high school as the small farm town she’s from didn’t have a high school. At first she would scare off those men with her Gorpsia super strength, which she expins away as being a hard working farm girl, but once she joined Kat’s group of friends Eris or Rory would scare those men off.

  Kat always wondered who was stronger, Eris’ Gigatreed strength or Marigold’s Gorpsia strength, and it would be a mystery as Marigold was completely scared to get into a fight with Eris. Marigold once expined the reasons to Kat that Eris was far more experienced in fighting and that Eris is in a heavier weight css than her, even though Marigold was taller.

  “So you thought about making yourself scarce and hiding away in the chess club?” Kat asked and heard Marigold make a small grunt sound. “You could have hid away in shop css, Eris is in there.”

  “Could have but you're not building a car and warmer to cuddle up to.” Marigold said and Kat snorted from that comment. Kat noticed Cale was looking around to see if anyone else was open to py chess and his shoulders slumped when he saw no one was open.

  “You’re so lucky that Eris isn’t a jealous type of girlfriend or she would never let you get away with this.” Kat said as she reached out to touch a pawn but stopped when Marigold released Kat from the hug. Before Kat could ask, the bell rang out and signaled that the first period was over.

  Kat stood up and walked to the middle of the room to cp her hands together. Everyone looked at her and she smiled sweetly, “Thank you all for coming today and trying our club but the first period is over. The next club meeting is Friday after school. If you fully choose to join us just hand in the paperwork by that day or earlier." Kat announced before everyone started to stand up. “Have a nice day everyone.”

  As everyone was getting to leave Kat grabbed her ptop bag and walked out of the club room with Marigold. “So first css is Physics 101 or Flirting 101 for you and Eris~” Marigold teased and Kat just rolled her eyes. Kat’s ear twitched as she heard a very familiar ugh echo through the halls before being quieted.

  “Wonder what made Eris ugh this time?” Kat chuckled before waving her hand for Marigold to lean down. “Don’t tell anyone but I’ve got a tip that Mrs. Fletch is going to be forced into retirement soon.”

  “Oh? Where did you hear that from?” Marigold whispered and tried her best to slow her walking to match Kat’s pace. “Would that be conne-”

  Marigold was cut off when Kat felt a familiar strong and firm hand gently tugged her away from Marigold. “Mind If I join this conversation?" Eris asked and Kat moved to hold onto Eris’ arm while rexing her head on Eris’ shoulder.

  “Kat got some inside information about Mrs. Fletch being forced into retirement.” Marigold said and Rory lightly hip bumped her. “Hey Rory~” She returned the hip bump and both smirked.

  “I will believe it once it happens,” Rory said as slide his phone into his coat pocket. “That old crow seems like the type to die on the job.”

  “I agree with Rory, even tongue shing from my mother didn’t scare her into retirement.” Eris said and Kat shivered from the thought of tongue sh her own mother could do. “Come on, let's not be te so she doesn’t have a reason to talk down to us.”

  Everyone let out some sort of sigh in agreement and started to head to the Mrs. Fletch cssroom. Kat was hoping what she read in her mother’s office and that Mrs. Fletch would be repced by an undercover FCP agent posing as a new teacher.

  Chanda walked into her private office in FCP headquarters and she hung up her wet coat on the coat hanger by the door. Her office looked like a typical private office of a high ranking person in an office company. On the shelves on the right had books and pictures of her family outings and on the left were a couch and file cabinets.

  She sat down at her rge wooden desk and she sighed looking at all piled up paperwork. “You think we have gone digital by now.” She muttered as she moved some piles. “What did you think when you work for the government? Red tape and more red tape.”

  She tapped her desk and keyboard lit up in front of her and the hologram screen turned on. She logged in using the built-in keyboard and opened up a gactic phone app on the computer.

  “Calling ‘Captain Varma’,” The app said in a robotic voice. Chanda leaned back in her seat and rubbed her temple as the app let out the phone dial tone. The dial tone stopped and the screen turned into an image of private captain quarters on a spaceship, which Chanda knew quite well.

  She leaned forward with a soft and loving smile before the screen glitched and she heard her husband’s voice come out garbled before the call was cut off. Chanda’s smile faded and she just stared at the screen with disappointment that only a mother could give.

  Before trying again there was a knock on the door and Chanda ignored it until Amy entered the room. “Hello there, Chanda.” Amy said as she hung up her trench coat that had an empty thermos hanging out one of its pockets. “Troubles on call with the hubby?”

  “Something caused a glitch and line to be cut off before we even started.” Chanda said and her fingers tapped rapidly on the keyboard. The screen changed to report about space weather and Chanda groaned as saw the results on the screen. “There is a sor storm between earth and the Bzing Hope…and the meteor shower coming by earth doesn’t help either.”

  Amy flopped onto the couch and gave Chanda a sympathetic look, “That would do that.” Amy said and Chanda turned off the screen before moving her paperwork back in the proper pce. “They are still getting you to do paperwork, so I heard something about transferring to digital by now.”

  “It’s the government, they said they do it but then spin around to say they do not need to change anything and so on and so on.” Chanda said as picked up a piece of paper. “Oh they finally approved my idea of putting an undercover agent as a teacher in school with how many young aliens we are getting tely.”

  “That’s good but a little te to be good news for me and you due to this being our child’s st year of high school?” Amy asked as shifted on the couch to be lying on their back. “Which teacher is being repce…please tell me it’s that old bi-”

  “It is Mrs. Fletch being forced to retire,” Chanda cut off Amy and her eyes locked on Amy. Chanda always felt a little self conscious about her body whenever she looked at Amy with her unnatural beauty but that went away as Chanda remembered that Amy was an Aensi. “Are you here just to check on me or have something else you wish to talk about?”

  “Truth…I don’t know…” Amy sighs as she pys with her neckce. “I’ve just felt like…”

  “Need to talk to a friend?” Chanda asked and opened up the bottom draw of her desk to pull out a bottle of whisky with some gsses. She stood up to walk over the couch and Amy sat up to allow Chanda to sit down. “A true friend and don't have to hide true sorrow.”

  Amy took one of the gsses Chanda offered, “I don’t have many true friends…all other aliens on the pnet are scared of me.” Amy held the gss still as Chanda poured some whiskey in her cup. “Sure they are polite and not screaming and running away.”

  Chanda poured herself some of the whiskey, “Well it is understandable the fear, I’ve seen you bisect a bounty hunter, vertically.” Chanda chuckled with a smirk before it faded to a grim expression. “Or they're scared they would become targets.”

  Amy swirled her drink as she looked at it, “Maybe, are you scared that will happen to your family?” Amy gnced at Chanda out of the corner of her eye.

  Chanda’s smirk returned, “My family already has a target on its back with me being a high ranking FCP agent and my husband is a high ranking officer of the Varma Cn.” Chanda chuckled and held her cup to Amy. “Though it's hard to hit a target on one’s back when someone has your back.”

  Amy paused before ughing and clinking gsses with Chanda. “That is true,” Amy and Chanda took a sip of their whiskey and Amy stopped as gnced at Chanda's desk.

  Chanda noticed the hologram ring tone muffled from paperwork and she got up to move the paperwork to allow the hologram screen to appear. She put down her drink before answering the call, “This is Agent V, who is calling?” Chanda asked and crossed her arms.

  “This is Agent R, and we have illegal nding in section V-M2,” Agent R said. The video call showed a middle aged man and he was in a radiation suit with the hood down. “Normally we wouldn’t call you but…” He moved his tablet or phone to show the ship.

  “That looks like a Zam-28 model,” Amy said from the couch and leaned forward to get a better look. “They were outwed due to radiation leakage and they can not normally be picked up by scanners.”

  “So is the smuggler still on the ship and you need assistance in getting him out?” Chanda rexed her shoulders and put her hands on her desk.

  “No, they came out stumbling out of the craft puking and they refuse to tell their name.” Agent R said and moved the camera back to him. “We are transferring him to the medical bay. The problem is that he might be some Big Shot’s kid due to his clothing and how he was acting.”

  “So you're just giving heads up that this may get dicy or is there more?” Chanda paused from Amy’s words. “Did the radiation leak breach the helm of the ship?”

  “The helm is strong and radiation has been contained the moment we closed the ship’s bay doors.” Agent R said and pointed the camera back to the ship to show the bay doors closed. “We don’t have the equipment to tow it since Kang took it to tow the crash ship in the Hudson Bay.”

  “It would be faster to put a barrier with a cover story and wait for Kang to come back, rather than ask for a different sector for the equipment.” Chanda said and stood up straight. “Under my orders do that and say it’s radioactive space debris.”

  “Yes, madman,” Agent R said before hanging up and Chanda picked up her cup of whiskey.

  “I have a feeling this is going to be a headache…” Chanda muttered under her breath and took a sip of her whiskey.

  “Well if anything you can just use a wooden spoon to fix everything.” Amy said with a pyful smirk on her face as she took a sip of her own whiskey.

  “That only happened one time!” Chanda gave Amy a mock scornful look before cracking into a smile. “Though I may be right, the universe may need a reminder why I was banned from diplomatic positions.” Amy just let out wild ughter and Chanda joined in seconds with her own loud ughter.