Legend of the Gladar

Halley Blake was a typical fighter pilot Astrophysicist. Raised on Star Trek, Star Wars, The Last Starfighter, and Star Gate she grew up dreaming about the astronauts and one day going to space herself. Her family regularly visited the Smithsonian and she would wander off into the Air and Space Museum. The museum staff knew her by name and snuck her treats from the gift shop. She went to space camp every summer, sometimes twice a year just for the thrill of talking about nothing but space. High school valedictorian with all the highest honors and half a full ride scholarship later her dreams fell apart into a million, infanticimal pieces. The summer before her Junior year they arrived. First it was the Super Hero Foreigner, an alien, and he sparked everybody’s space fever. Then other aliens began to arrive to challenge him, and as his reputation seemed to grow amongst the stars so did the number of challengers. NASA stopped sending astronauts up and leaned into RND; Foreigner was incredible, and no challenger had defeated him yet, but the people of earth weren’t ready to entrust their entire fate to him. They wanted weapons of their own. Thanks to the many monsters and space pirates coming in what seemed like weekly adventures, there was a steady supply of alien technology. Before Halley could say “duel major” she had become obsolete to her only dream. Halley was grounded.

Halley Blake was not the type to give up without a fight. After spending time crying to her mom and thinking deeply and crying some more to her Dad she got up the nerve to take her fate back in her own hands. Maybe they weren’t flying spaceships anymore, but they were still flying planes, and if she finished her physics degree and learned how to fly a plane she’d be the perfect candidate for any future space endeavors. Little did she know this was the decision that would change her life forever.

“Mail call!” Her Dad yelled up the stairs to her with all the gusto of a military sergeant. She was on leave and he felt she should enjoy some of the comforts of home, if by home you meant base. There were some letters, some bills, but standing out from everything else was a box, square and wrapped in brown paper. It was tied up with strings like the lyrics to an old musical, and for reasons she didn’t understand she felt drawn to it.

“Hey Pop,” she murmured, running her hand along one side. “What’s this?”

“Hm? I don’t know, Pup.” He said, coming over to look. “It came without any kind of service label or address, funny huh?”

“Mhm.” She nodded without hearing him.

“You good?”

“It’s for me.”

“You could’ve just said that.” She didn’t respond, and took the package upstairs to her room. She didn’t hear him calling after her.

“Do you want the rest of your mail?”

Back in the sanctuary of her own room she unlaced the string and opened the box. Inside, nestled amongst crumpled brown paper, was a sphere made of eight overlapping rings. It looked made of metal, all silver. Maybe if she picked it up…

She snapped up to attention, looking all around. She wasn’t in her room anymore, and she certainly wasn’t in Kansas. Everything was black sky on a floor made of glass, well lit but by what Halley couldn’t tell. There was fog wafting about the floor, and the faintest voice spoke to itself. In an attempt to reach out she broke the silence.

“Hello?”

A small green light appeared far away, quickly racing towards her until it hovered in front of her face.

“Halley Blake?” It said with a large amount of echoes.

“Yes?”

“Are you Halley Blake? Daughter of Vance Blake and Claire Jordan?” Halley swallowed.

“Yup.”

“Halley Blake, you are our only hope.”

“Sorry?”

“They who hold this orb—“

“Excuse me—?“

“If it judge their hearts pure by light of day and dark of night—“

“Not gonna give me a word in?”

“Shall possess the powers of Gladar!”

“Are you finished?”

“You’re supposed to take the orb.” The voice said, while the strange glowing light hovered a little bit closer. The next part of the conversation saw the strange light trying to make Halley grab it all while Halley did everything she could not to.

“I’m not taking the orb.”

“Take the orb.”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“Just—“

“No!”

“Take it!”

“I don’t know what this orb is gonna do to me—“

“Luckily for you,” the light backed off and floated around. “I have prepared a small poem to help ease the transition. Ahem,”

“By light of the day,

By dark of the night,

Through storm and fire I take to flight.

To foul servants of evil’s will

Persisting from eon to Eon,

I say hark! Good has found a new Champion.”

“You can’t rhyme ‘eon’ with ‘champion’…” Halley retorted.

“So shall you fight?

So shall you fall.

For light is truest strength of all.”

Halley stood in silence, waiting for the actual explanation from the strange voice.

“Is that it?”

“Is what it?”

“That’s your explanation?”

“Was part of it unclear?”

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

“…take the or—“

“I’m not gonna take the orb!” The voice seemed to be pouting. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, strange, disembodied-voice. Can you try to explain to me— without meter and rhyme— what it is taking the orb will do?”

“Oh, yeah I can do that. Millennia ago, so they say, power was free throughout the multiverse.”

“There’s a multiverse?”

“Please focus.” Halley covered her mouth and nodded for the disembodied-voice to continue. “It was free to be used by anyone. In time beings of all shapes and sizes learned to harness it and use it for various purposes, some more wholesome than others, but all ultimately benign. Then came Nyrst. Nyrst was a being like many others, but he was twisted in his thinking. He found ways to take power from the universe and store it so—”

“Mr. Voice?”

“Hm?”

“Is there an abridged version?”

“A what?”

“An abridged version?”

“Are you in some kind of hurry?”

“I mean, kind of. Is that okay?” The voice sounded a little upset when it finally responded.

“Fine, I suppose all this rich history isn’t necessary for you to know just yet. The beautiful story short the heroine known as Gladar led an Uprising against Nyrst and overthrew his tyranny. The power he’d consolidated lay dormant until devout followers of Gladar’s teachings discovered how to harness it again, into this sphere. Here, see?” The light dropped from the air and without thinking Halley caught it. “Gotcha.”

Halley felt a rush like adrenaline, dopamine, and a brain freeze throughout her entire body before blacking out. She woke up to coolness all around her. The air was cold, but she didn’t care. She opened her eyes slowly and realized she must be dreaming. Several thousand feet below was what looked like New York City, but obviously it couldn’t be real. The plane approaching at extreme speed sure made it feel real. Reality dawned on her and suddenly she was falling and freaking out. Her hands were out in front of her face and she saw she was wearing eight rings, one on every finger. Which was weird cause she didn’t remember putting them on. She also didn’t remember levitating up to twenty thousand feet but that was a different story. She tried screaming but any was lost in the rush of wind. The bright lights of the city that never sleeps were getting closer every second and she kept not waking up from the worst dream ever. New tactic. She still couldn’t hear herself but she was pretty sure she was speaking.

“Hey voice? Gladar guy? I need some help.” The dumb dream guy didn’t answer. Okay, hang on, if this was a dream and she knew that then that means she can control it now, right? So, instead of needing help why not just fly? Right as the buildings began passing her in a blur suddenly the whole world stopped and she was suspended in midair again. She noticed the ring on her left ring finger was glowing green, but none of the others were. All eight of them were green bands, like they were made out of solid jade or emerald, but they didn’t feel like stone or metal. That’s when she noticed the gloves, and she looked up into the eyes of her reflection cast in the windows in front of her.

“Wow.” This was new. Apparently she was now wearing a green… super suit? With a cape and a hood and a little domino mask that probably wouldn’t actually hide her identity very well. It looked good. She turned about and got a good look at herself. It’s too bad this was a dream cause this costume was tailor made— it fit like nothing else she’d ever worn. The cape caught the wind and billowed behind her, shimmering green with light. Her ear caught a voice and she turned, expecting someone to be beside her, but nobody was there. Weird. She heard it again, like the sound of someone in trouble, and she followed it. The whole time she didn’t notice a second ring had begun glowing. As it got louder she flew faster until she found it, a woman crying for help as she tried to run down a street in what must have been a bad neighborhood. A group of men followed after her, apparently not feeling the need to run. The woman’s high heel snapped. The men circled around her and made horrible comments and Halley decided that was enough.

The sound of her boots hitting the pavement was just loud enough to grab everyone’s attention, and the men turned to face her.

“Hey hop along cape,” one man ordered, stepping forward and pulling out a knife. “She’s got business with us.” Halley smirked at him and the man attacked, but he went down easy; three moves and he was eating asphalt for a midnight snack. She put up her hands as if to say “you want some too?” The men began to come at her all at once, but this was her dream right? A bolt of green lightning shot from one of her rings and put out every streetlight and house for four blocks. Some kind of night vision kicked on and Halley beat up every remaining thug without taking a single hit. The lights kicked back on and she left them all tied up with their own shoelaces.

“You gotta name, Lady?” The formerly frightened woman asked, standing barefoot with her heels in one hand.

“A name?”

“Yeah, like a superhero name. Something like the Red Mask, or I guess the Green Mask for you.”

“I uh, hadn’t thought about it.”

“Well, you better think of it soon, or else everybody else will.”

“Uh, thanks. I guess.”

“Thank you, lady.”

“Do you need any more assistance, ma’am?”

“Nah, this is my block. Thanks Green Lady.” Green Lady. That’s not bad, Halley thought to herself. She watched the woman go inside and then walked off thinking about it. Green… her mind turned back to the Disembodied Voice’s story. What about Gladiator? That kind of sounds like that guy Gladar, a way to honor him. Cultish followers aside, he apparently did this whole hero deal. Green Gladiator. Halley could get behind it she thought as her ring lit up again and her feet lifted off the pavement.

Halley sank to one knee, one foot stubbornly braced against the asphalt. One arm clutched at her stomach as aches and pains reverberated up her spine. She raised her free hand in a fist, gripping white knuckles from the pain. The smallest green glow escaped from her strength ring. It had been like a dream, once.