There was one thing Alex knew for sure. She needed her friends’ help to take down Jack. She and George couldn’t do it alone. They would have to go on a quest to find everyone, without getting caught by Jack. 

The evening had set in at El Barranco Campground, where Alex and George decided to spend the night. The campground was overlooking a massive ravine in the desert of New Mexico, a few miles from the highway. 

“What was that all about?” George had kept asking a frazzled Alex. 

“Jack is back,” She said, “and he’s after our village. We need to stop him and his new space friends or the world is doomed.” 

“But he’s got a whole army,” George said, “and there’s only two of us.” 

“Our friends might be busy,” Alex said, “but this is a desperate need. I’m sure they will understand and leave their activities behind to help us.” 

They went to bed after that. The camper had two different sleeping areas. Alex took her usual spot above the driver’s seat and George slept on the bed in the back. It was better to sleep on it. 

They decided to go get Ben in Chicago first. In the morning, they were getting ready for the long road trip up there when George found a strange map on the camper’s windshield. He brought it over to Alex and showed her. 

Alex looked at it. “I think it belongs to Jack.” 

“Why does he have it though?” George asked. 

Alex opened the map and it started glowing and floating into the air. 

A hologram recording of an unfamiliar alien appeared in front of them. 

“I have located the Enchanted Sword,” it said. “Earth is the planet in which it is hidden. If you find it, you will be able to take control of everything. The planet will be yours. 

The video faded out and the map went back to normal and landed on the ground. Alex and George then realized exactly what was happening. 

“Jack’s army is after that magic sword,” George said. 

“And they probably realized that their map is missing by now,” Alex pointed out. “But since we have it, we can use it to find that sword before Jack does.” 

“Let’s get going,” George said. “But how do we know where to go?” 

“This map is in a weird language, and I can’t read it,” she said. 

“But Ben might be able to,” George told her. 

“Then let’s go to Chicago.” 

—

“Where is that map,” Jack screamed over and over while running frantically around the bus. They had been stuck behind a semi truck and lost sight of Alex. All the aliens were helping him search for the map. 

“I need this,” Jack roared, “or we can’t take over Earth and I will have let the Council down!” 

“We will find it,” said Zombie, Jack’s number one Martian friend. “Let’s just keep looking.” 

But they could not find it. It wasn’t on the bus. They had no idea it had blown out the window and was now in Alex’s possession. 

“Chances are Alex got hold of it,” Jack announced. “We are going to need to find her. Then she won’t stop us from getting that sword. But if she gets it, we are dead.” 

Luckily, aliens were fluent in tracking. They knew they could find Alex without an issue. Alien technology had the ability to hack into GPS and find out the route they were going. Jack took a look at the computer screen. 

“Gear up boys. We’re going to Chicago.” 

One day later, Alex and George arrived at the Chicago Science Center where Ben was presenting. He was getting ready to go on when Alex and George walked in and told the security officers that they were friends of Ben. 

The people at the check-in had to call Ben for proof. When Ben came to the front he was surprised to see Alex and George. They told him what was going on and asked for help deciphering the code on the map. 

“So you stole Jack’s map?” Ben asked to clarify. 

“We didn’t steal it, he lost it,” Alex corrected. “But if he finds out we have it, we could be in some trouble.” 

Ben sat with Alex and George in the convention center lobby and got to work on the map’s language. He had invented a forigen translator tool, which he thankfully brought with him. 

“This right here says that the first clue is on Mount Major, in Oregon. It’s a compass that will lead us to the Enchanted Sword.” 

“And with Jack already here, it’s a race,” George said. 

“We’re gonna get there first,” Ben told them. 

Ben had also invented a portal generator, which they could use to instantly get to Oregon. But then, a familiar vehicle flew very fast into the Chicago streets. Alex recognized it immediately. 

Jack fired the missiles from his bus ship and exploded Alex’s RV. Luna was inside, but she was able to jump out just before it exploded. Alex picked the cat up and shouted for everyone to run away. 

The bus landed in the street and chased them. The aliens shot at buildings, cars, and people. The takeover had begun. There was even a news story on the air already. BREAKING NEWS: ALIEN INVASION IN DOWNTOWN CHICAGO. AUTHORITIES HAVE ISSUED AN EMERGENCY SHELTER IN PLACE. 

People ran into buildings and chaos ensued. The aliens fired at Alex. She used her sword to block the shots. Ben had his own weapon that was more powerful and shot the bus with it a few times. 

The fight continued, and Jack tried to run over Alex and Luna with the bus. Alex jumped out of the way, and Ben opened a portal in front of the bus. The bus went through the portal and it closed. 

“Where did you send them?” Alex asked. 

“The Sahara Desert,” Ben replied. “It’ll take them a little while to get to that compass.” 

Then he opened the portal to the Oregon Mountains. Alex took one last look at her camper that had blown up before she stepped through it. 

The team ended up on a snowy peak in the middle of a blizzard. Ben worked to pinpoint the coordinates of the compass. But it was dark out and they were in the middle of a storm in which there was no way for them to find it. 

“There’s a light up ahead. Maybe we can take shelter in there!” Alex shouted to the others through the loud wind. 

They walked into the building and realized it was a restaurant. But the people inside were not exactly civil. They were mostly made up of savages who lived off the grid. But the gang walked in anyway. 

“We might want to go somewhere else,” Ben whispered to Alex. 

“I agree,” added George. 

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured them. “Just keep a low profile and we’ll all be fine.” 

The people were all dressed ruggedly. They also were willing to settle things with their fists or heavy objects. Ben, Alex, and George were at a table when a fight broke out at another table. It was minor and didn’t last for too long. 

When the waitress came to take their order, she pointed at Luna and said, “sorry, pets are not allowed.” 

“But it’s freezing outside, do we have to leave her out in the middle of a snowstorm?” Alex pleaded. 

“Unfortunately, you’ll have to put her outside,” the waitress said. 

So Alex had no choice but to put her back out there in the blowing snow. 

After everyone ordered their food, they debated whether or not they wanted to find Steve and Michael to help them. Alex still had her heart set on doing something with everyone together. Even if it was working as a team to stop Jack. 

“I guess the more people we have to fight off the army, the better chances we have,” George remarked. 

“We just need to get to that sword before they do,” said Alex. 

While they were eating, Luna was too cold to be in the snowy outdoors. She climbed up the building and snuck in through the high window. But when she jumped off the window ledge, she landed on the plate of the biggest man in the restaurant. He was 6’ 5”, almost a whole foot taller than Alex, and muscular. 

Luna ran away after falling onto the plate. The second it happened, the man got up and grabbed her by the tail. He walked over to Alex’s table. 

“Is this your cat?” he growled. 

Then the other gangs started coming over. 

“Look what we have here,” someone said. 

“Hipsters are not allowed in here,” said another. 

“We were just leaving anyway,” Alex turned to her friends. “Weren’t we?” 

The big man came toward Alex, and Luna jumped on his face to protect her human. The guy fell backward into another table and angered the people sitting at it. A full-on fight broke out. 

After that, it was total chaos. Everyone was pushing each other, throwing chairs, and yelling at each other. And in the crosshairs were Alex, Ben, George, and Luna. They ran for the exit. Ben was nervous to be around a bunch of people trying to kill each other so he was the fastest. 

Somebody threw a chair high enough to knock down all the streamers hanging from the ceiling. Ben’s foot got caught in the streamer. It pulled tightly across the room, causing half the people to trip over it. Everything fell silent. 

The group left the place after that. They found a cave in the middle of the rocks on the mountain to sleep in for shelter from the storm. 

The next day, the same day as Michael’s fishing competition, they started hiking. The storm was gone now, and a fresh layer of powdered snow covered the tops of the mountains. Yet the bottoms and the land below still remained untouched by the snow. It was as if only the top halves of the mountains had storms. 

Ben was able to pinpoint the coordinates of the clue that would lead them to the Enchanted Sword. The group entered a cave in one of the mountains bigger than the one they’d slept in last night. 

“My tracker says it’s in here,” Ben told them. 

When they walked in, there were a bunch of ancient artifacts on the wall. It was the same foreign language as the map. 

“Can you translate that?” George asked Ben. 

“I think so,” he said, scanning it with the translator. 

The translator showed the words in English for Ben to read aloud. 

“Ages ago, a group of galactic warriors forged their swords together. They created the most powerful weapon in the universe, The Enchanted Sword. With it, a single warrior could defeat entire armies. 

“Believing no one should have this type of power, a group of Martians from Mars took the sword away from the warriors and swore to keep it from being used for evil. They looked at different planets to hide it on and chose Earth. Far away and full of unsuspecting life forms.” 

Something started happening to the wall. The words started to move and a little compartment opened up. The wall spits out a compass. Alex caught it in her hands. 

“This will lead us to that sword,” she exclaimed. 

Suddenly, an aiming laser appeared on George’s face. Alex looked over at him. 

“Oh no,” the group cried. 

Jack and his bus full of aliens were flying slowly into the cavern, all with guns aimed at them. 

“Thanks for doing all the hard stuff,” Jack shouted to them from the hovering bus. 

Then Zombie jumped down from the bus. “But we’ll take it from here.” 

“You won’t get that sword, Jack.” 

“Oh, sweet, naive Alex. We have weapons already and you do not. Shall we say there’s a clear winner?” 

“No, we shouldn’t,” George said. 

The Aliens fired at them and they jumped out of the way, so the shots hit the cave walls instead. A bunch of rock started falling down from the ceiling. 

“Good one,” Jack taunted, “I’m sure those rocks weren’t important or anything.” 

More rocks fell in front of the entrance to the cave. 

“That’s our exit, come on!” Alex told the others. 

They climbed the rocks and got out through the opening, which was too small for Jack’s bus. The gang ended up trapped on the side of a steep cliff. The aliens used their guns to blast through the rock. Alex saw that Jack had gotten out of the bus, so she went inside. The others followed her on board. 

As Alex started driving it away, Jack grabbed onto the back of the bus. Alex quickly figured out how to make it fly, and they took off over the snowy mountains. Jack held on tight. The aliens had the ability to fly, so they chased the bus and shot at it. 

Alex flew in between two mountains and narrowly missed hitting them. It was difficult to avoid the shooting by the aliens. Jack opened the back door of the bus and tried to come in. Alex saw him and took action. 

“Ben take the compass and get us out of here!” Alex threw him the compass and got out of the driver’s seat. 

“I’m not really good under pressure,” Ben replied. 

But Alex had already run to the back of the bus to deal with Jack. 

Ben took the wheel, but the controls were different than the thruster he’d made. 

“Please get used to it quickly,” George said to him. 

Alex went over to Jack and tried to push him out the back door. 

“Not this time,” he yelled and pointed his gun at Alex. 

She used her sword to knock it out of his hands and it fell down into the mountains. 

“Who’s the one with the weapon now?” she teased. 

But of course, Jack had a sword for backup. He and Alex had a duel right there in the back of the bus, and it was hard for them to stand up because Ben was flying all over the place to avoid the aliens. 

The aliens shot the thruster on the bus, which meant it was down an engine. The bus started going down. Ben tried to pull up, and when he did, Jack went out the back door. He still didn’t fall to the ground, because Zombie caught him. 

Alex managed to grab hold of the door so she didn’t fall. The bus continued to plummet toward the ground. Its undercarriage hit the peak of a smaller mountain and bounced off of it, sending the compass flying out of the bus. Jack reached out and grabbed it from where Zombie carried him. Then he and his army flew away. 

“They took the compass,” Alex cried, even though everyone saw it happen. 

The city of Portland came into view quickly. The bus descended lower over it. 

“We’re going to crash into Portland!” Ben screamed. 

He used the handle and tried to keep the bus in the air as much as possible. It was headed straight for the shore of the Pacific Ocean. 

—

Michael was winning the competition. The clock was about to run out. There was no way anyone else could catch a fish in that short amount of time. 

Steve talked to Michael through a headset as he stood with the other crew members at the other end of the beach. He was giving Michael instructions and keeping him motivated. 

“You could win this,” Steve told him. 

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Michael said. 

It looked like one of the other competitors was about to get something and tie the score when a strange object appeared farther down the beach and started rocketing in their direction. None of the fishermen saw it. 

“Incoming!” Steve shouted into the headset. 

Michael looked up, saw the massive projectile approaching, and he and the other competitors moved away from the areas they were fishing at. 

When it landed on the beach, everyone saw it was a bus with rocket boosters on the back. One of the boosters was flaming like it had been damaged in some way. Three people and a cat emerged from the bus. Steve stood by Michael and they watched the bus. Three people and a cat got out, and they were shocked to see who it was. 

TO BE CONTINUED… 

Part 3 (the finale) coming in 2 weeks!