Kwai (DC Comics)

The Kwai are one of the thousands of species Element Lad was ultimately responsible for the creation of after he became stranded a billion years in the past of the "Second Galaxy", in his indefinitely prolonged lifespan. They were an insect-like humanoid race, whose distinguishing features included slate-grey skin with black tattoo-like markings, dragonfly-like wings, retractable armoured exoskeletons and the ability to find any path if such existed, even without obvious tracks to follow.

Their travels usually led them to follow "feral stars" - newly appearing stars in their path - which they considered good luck. When, in the 31st century, Element Lad's home time period, they followed a "star" which was in reality the Legionnaire Wildfire, it led them to encounter the Progeny, a xenophobic beetle-like race who began to hunt them down. While fleeing from a Progeny attack which killed two of her friends, Shikari would encounter the other Legionnaires, held in stasis, who had been flung through a rift to the Second Galaxy - though displaced only in space rather than time and space. Revived, they aided her in driving off the Progeny, then followed her to their "brief-home", where they helped the Kwai to gather resources for moving on, and the Kwai helped in turn to make their heavily damaged ship functional, and created a new containment suit for Wildfire from their plastic-like "Use-weave". They and the Legion then went their separate ways, although Shikari would remain with the team.

After Element Lad - now called the Progenitor - was defeated by his former teammates at the cost of Live Wire's life, the Kwai matriarch declared an amnesty toward the now-directionless Progeny. This led many of the younger Kwai to become "Lonestars" themselves, and several to join Singularity's "Credo", a group dedicated to hunting down and exterminating all surviving Progeny.

The Kwai were then contacted by the Legion again - this time, with a view to use their tracking powers to become guides for the experimental "Threshold" teleportation system, which lacked a functioning navigation system. After consideration, the matriarch accepted, due to the possibilities the system offered for finding "new paths".