Miniforce: The Return of the Dark Energy (Fanfiction)

Chapter 1 - A peculiar prophecy

The mid-morning sun bathed the cordial house in its golden rays, casting a fiery hue over the tiled carmine roof and polished glass windows.

A rainbow of used chalk tips were littered across the front porch, circling four tiny little critters and enhancing their unnatural colors.

Lucy, a small, rose-colored fox, dragged her tiny piece of cerise pink chalk in a perfect line, the faint mark filling in one of the vacant edges of the many squares chalked out on the smooth stone. The claret ribbon bow around her neck fluttered in the breeze like a butterfly's wings.

Volt, a squirrel the color of the cloudless sky above, with a bright white lightning bolt marking his forehead, playfully juggled his pale blue chalk piece. He bent down to scribble a lopsided 1 in the first box, then darted through the maze of squares with extraordinary speed, taking a split-second to scribble a number before scurrying to the next in a bright blue blur.

"And......finished." He declared moments later as he hopped from the last square, dusting his chalk-smudged paws. Every box now had an askew number scrawled into its middle.

"Don't you ever practice your handwriting?" Complained Sammy, a crimson owl with a sharp golden beak, white underbelly feathers, and a stern expression imprinted on his face.

"Who'll hop first?" Asked Volt, sending his red teammate an insulted glare. He scooped four broken pieces of colored chalk into his furry blue palms, closed his paw over them and rattled them, resisting the urge to peek – it certainly wouldn't escape Sammy's keen vision.

The blue squirrel reached into his closed fist and drew out a sweat-melted yellow piece.

"Max, your turn--" Volt turned to his yellow teammate, only to find the burly beaver snoring on the ground, the white V mark on his stomach rising and lowering with every loud, even snore.

The three of them shrugged and turned back to their game, they had grown so immune to Max falling asleep constantly that it was no longer anything out of the ordinary. Volt shook his fist again and fished out the sky-blue piece he had used to draw numbers earlier.

"Aha, my turn!" He hopped to his feet and bent his knees, bracing himself to leap, but was forced to a halt as Lucy threw out one paw in front of him.

"Wait!" She tilted her head thoughtfully. "These squares need something else."

She took up her piece of chalk and doodled a detailed, curvy heart in every corner of every box while her blue teammate jogged in place, wearing a look of utter impatience.

"These boxes are getting more crowded by the minute," sighed Sammy.

"Now it looks perfect!" Lucy beamed with satisfaction, setting down her almost spent chunk of chalk.

"Here I go!" Volt hastily took his chance before she decided to add more decorations. He leapt into the first box and skipped down the second and third with little effort, posing dramatic postures he considered stylish.

Sammy shook his head, glancing away from the immature squirrel, his velvety crimson wings folded tight.

"What's wrong?" Lucy turned to him and tilted her head.

"We can't just spend our time being so carefree--we need to train ourselves up before the next adventure cloud looms over us again." The owl confessed.

"Train?" Volt piped in, skipping back to his teammates with a puzzled frown. "What would we need to train for? The next adventure has a long way to come."

"Are we ever that lucky?" Lucy wondered.

Volt shrugged again and plopped down next to her. "We defeated Pascal, didn't we? It's not like he'll come back and wreak havoc on us again, right?"