The Origin Story
Two best friends are about to change Delhi forever, and neither one of them is even from this planet.
One is a boy who isn't really a boy at all — an alien called a "Dogman," who can talk to every single animal on Earth. Birds, dogs, cats, elephants, ants, all of them. His name is Dogsy.
The other is a "Snake Man" who can talk to every snake there is — and here's the fun part — every single creature that lives in water too. Fish, turtles, crabs, frogs, even the tiniest tadpole wiggling around in a puddle. If it swims, he can talk to it. His name is Napu.
This is the story of how they met, and how Earth got stuck with them.
It starts on a quiet night in Delhi, the whole city fast asleep, when the clouds suddenly rip open and a huge glowing UFO comes spinning down out of the sky, wobbling like a top with a broken engine. It slams into an empty field with a boom loud enough to wake half the street.
The crash is so hard that a door on the ship pops open, and out tumble — completely by accident — Dogsy and Napu, landing with a thud in a bush. Before either of them can climb back in, the door slams shut again, locking the rest of their crew inside.
Within minutes, army trucks come roaring in, sirens going nee-naw nee-naw, soldiers spilling out with giant searchlights, surrounding the ship completely. They want the aliens, and they want them now.
Dogsy peeks out through the leaves, heart hammering. "Napu," he whispers, "if they see our faces, they're going to lock us in a lab forever."
"Not happening," Napu whispers back, already spotting two masks the soldiers dropped in their rush. He grabs them. "Quick — camouflage."
"Cam-what?"
"Camouflage," Napu says, shoving a mask into Dogsy's hands. "It means hiding what you really look like, so nobody can spot you. Put it on."
They pull the masks on, hiding their alien faces completely.
Dogsy shuts his eyes and calls out — not with his mouth, but with his mind — to every single bird in Delhi. Sparrows, pigeons, crows, eagles, all of them, all at once.
Within seconds, the sky roars with wings. Thousands of birds swoop down and swirl around the soldiers in one giant feathery tornado, flapping and cawing so loudly the soldiers cover their ears and run around in frantic circles, completely lost. Frantic means rushing about in a panic, not thinking straight, exactly like a soldier who suddenly has two hundred pigeons in his face. One of them even sprints headfirst into a bush. Oops.
While the birds keep the soldiers busy, Napu doesn't waste a second. He crouches by a puddle nearby and gives a soft, bubbly call. Up pops a family of frogs and one very startled turtle.
"Any of you know a way to the ship that the soldiers can't see?" Napu asks.
The old turtle blinks slowly, then points with his flipper. "Through the ditch, past the mud. Quick, before those lights swing back around."
Following the turtle's shortcut, Dogsy and Napu dash to the ship just as a pair of enormous eagles swoop down, thick ropes gripped in their claws. Napu ties the ropes tight and fast. Knot, knot, done.
"Now!" Dogsy shouts.
Wings spread. Ropes pull taut. Slowly, the huge ship lifts off the ground, rising into the sky, hidden completely inside the swirling storm of birds.
Once it's safely high above the clouds, the ship's engines spark back to life. But if the crew comes back down for Dogsy and Napu now, everyone gets caught. So, with heavy hearts, they fly off into space instead, leaving their two friends behind to keep the rest of the crew safe.
Dogsy stands alone in the field, tears in his eyes, watching the ship shrink into the stars. Alone. On a completely strange planet.
Napu puts a hand on his shoulder.
"Why didn't you go with them?" Dogsy asks quietly. "You could've climbed those ropes just as easily as I could."
Napu grins under his mask. "And leave my best friend alone on a brand new planet? Not a chance. We're making Earth our home now. And we're going to protect every kid on it — together."
Dogsy laughs through his tears and pulls Napu into a hug.
And that, right there, is how Earth got its two newest, silliest, bravest superheroes.
A pigeon drops one of the borrowed masks onto Dogsy's head. Napu laughs first. Dogsy laughs next. Their first morning on Earth begins with feathers in their hair.