The no good, very bad day...part 2.

[basic_powers]

[OOM: Dear Journal,

I didn't get any doors to Milliways today, or for the past week, and man I really wish I could have gotten Usagi or Ray's help with what happened today.

I'm too tired to write more about it...I just wanna take a bath and go to bed...]


'Beauford Tannen' left the grounds this morning after a quick calender check and won't be back for a while.

This evening, a very tired looking young boy walks into the bar rubbing one arm tiredly before he looks up and realizes where he is.

One second after that he's looking for any familiar faces to talk to.

It's been a long two days.

Comments

[hecu_marine]

Shephard really doesn't like cursing around kids, but-

"Aw, fuuuuuuuuck."

[basic_powers]

That about sums it up, yeh.

He's just going to put his head on the table for a bit and take a few more deep breaths. The good news for him is that he'd almost done unloading from the past 2 days. The not-so-good news is that he's tired and he didn't realize it would be quite this exhausting to talk about it.

"...Could I have another Ovaltine?"

[hecu_marine]

"Don't see why not," Shephard says, and signals one of the rats. "Sounds like y'earned it, kid."

[basic_powers]

"It started out with kids on the playground disappearing...when I went to look I got teleported above the lake about 6 miles away. Me and about eight other kids had to walk back to school and explain what happened. Had to do my social studies homework for the third time too. By the time that was done, I ended up looking for Malphast, cause he was the only other one who remembered about Charles. The Charles found us and dropped me, Malphast, Cecil and Zodon into the lake...When I swam out he dropped me in again and said if he caught me around school, he'd splat anyone I told on him to on the highway."

[hecu_marine]

"Sounds like he must be a real pain in the ass at home," Shephard mutters. "Kid like that, my momma'd set him to workin' the hives a month straight."

[basic_powers]

"Hives?"

[hecu_marine]

"Sure. Momma had beehives," Shephard says. "Used to rent 'em out to farmers'n shit around the county when she wasn't usin' 'em herself. Sold the honey, too."

[basic_powers]

Okay, that actually makes a lot of sense.

"Yeh, he is, and his friends Gordo and Lawrence aren't any better. They're the ones dumb enough to constantly try picking on the kids with superpowers." One would think after the first broken hand from punching the kid in the metal egg would've taught them. "I couldn't stop him but...I thought maybe in my armor disguise I'd be able to sneak back onto the playground and learn what Charles was up to."

"'Cept that didn't work out cause I got stuck in one of the bushes and then Ambriel and Kevin found me and.. ..I still don't know how she got back to life but she said she'd been wandering the school as a ghost and that she'd heard where Charles and his cronies were hiding out afterschool. Kevin was another of the kids dropped...he's a superkid too and he wanted to get a bunch of people together to fight him..." He's just going to facepalm and groan over that one.

[hecu_marine]

"Well, that might work, but that kinda thing you got to hit somebody so hard they don't never want to git up again," says Shephard. "'n soon as you do that you're talkin' goin' to war with the guy, not just a throwdown in the schoolyard. Ain't healthy."

[basic_powers]

"I know that. But Kevin keeps reading these ..these...DUMBBUTT stupid comic books that don't ever say anything REAL. That's it's all one punch and the bad guy is down! It's NEVER like that." Minor flail as the waitrat brings over the second mug of ovaltine. "And before I could stop them, the recess bell went of and Kevin went back into the school... And I realized that leaving Kevin to do his own thing about Charles would've ended REAL bad..."

"SoI waited for them, and Kevin came out with American Eagle, Ron, The Flea and a girl who had the F.I.S.S. named Julie who hadn't picked her hero-name yet."

[hecu_marine]

"The what, now?" says Shephard. "She had a doctor look at that yet?"

[basic_powers]

"It means her power set. She's the eighty-four person to have the power combination of Flight, Invulnerabilly-tee, Strength and Speed."

[hecu_marine]

"Gotcha," says Shephard. "okay, so what'd you do then?"

[basic_powers]

"Charles was going to be at this old locked up repair shop. Once we got there I asked Flea to use his bug powers to ask the termites inside the building what Charles was saying. Except Kevin, Emerald Gauntlet, jumped the gun and punched a hole through the wall barging in before we heard anymore, and then the fighting started. And Charles was good enough at his teleporting that he could dodge the attacks that Eagle and Gauntlet threw before they ever hit. I only got lucky hitting him cause of how I fell off the side of the building above Charles. Flea got this idea to have all the fireants and bees in the area swarm on Charles, which worked for a while until he dunked himself into the lake... But I got an idea from all his teleporting. When he teleported somewhere he couldn't get rid of his momentum from being thrown or whatever...so I told Julie to fly away for a bit and when Charles appeared again she grabbed him up like I told her to, and started spinning him about in midair."

[hecu_marine]

Adrian considers this. He's seen momentum conservation do some amazing things for Chell...

"Wound up smacking into a wall like a bug on a windshield, didn't he."

[basic_powers]

"No...he dunked himself into the lake again and Julie lost her grip." There's a face made at that. "He was still dizzy as heck, but then he got smart, picking people off one by one from the group and teleporting far away with them."

"Right before that I asked Ron to fly far away and wait for my signal...after that Charles came back and began teleporting around me to get me confused...before coming up behind and twisting my arm around to my back." There's a little rubbing of the sore arm with a wince. "Then Ron flew up and punched him out...and got really upset about that before flying off. And right after that...the guys in the gold flying power armor showed up. I couldn't fight em! And they took Charles away before I could get back into contact with the Revenant about it."

"After that, Revenant sent one of his Jet-helicopters around to pick me up...and he figured out that Charles had teleported everyone to a different location where his family had gone on summer vacation."

"I owe Revenant a shin-kicking for not telling me I was flying that thing by myself the whole time I was tracking each of them down."

[hecu_marine]

Shephard makes a disgusted, gagging noise. There is absolutely no love whatsoever lost between him and any kind of helicopter, anywhere, ever.

"Man's got a fuckin' sick sense of humor."

[basic_powers]

"It took me all night to get that done...and by the time I made it back to school in my regular clothes it was already..." Yawn. "After midnight..."

"And then the door opened up in the bathroom to here..." Glance at the wall. Good. The door is still there. "...an you know th'rest."

[hecu_marine]

Shephard nods. "Got it," he says. "You need a hand gittin' up to your room? Looks like you could use it."

[basic_powers]

"Uh-huh." There's a nod as well. "It's room 238."

[hecu_marine]

"A'righty. Come on then." Shephard gets up to get an arm around the kid's shoulders. "Bar'll be here in the morning, reckon I probably will too."

Even in this place, 238 can't be that far.

[basic_powers]

It isn't, though by the time they make it up that second flight to the room fifth-down the hallway...Tyler's just about fallen asleep standing upright with the key to his room in one hand.

And scratching and grunts on the other side of that metal door.

Shephard has three guesses what that might be.

[hecu_marine]

Aw, hell. "Tyler?" Shephard says, shaking the boy by the shoulder lightly. "Tyler, c'mon, wake up. I don't got jerky'n your death lizard wants to say hi."

[basic_powers]

"snrkz...mmrmmble...Winston, sit."

Amazingly the scratching at the door ceases followed by a inquery call.

[hecu_marine]

"Don't git excited, Winston," Shephard says as he fumbles with Tyler's key hand. "We're a-comin' in."