heroes and the ever-present threat of elimination.
With all this going on, the six of us never should have had the time to make it to the Chin, but we did.
I blame Felix.
Not for making it to the Chin. He’d have done that anyway, probably just for fun. No, I blame him for convincing us, somehow, that jogging and hiking would be fun.
Without using our powers. Pre -dawn.
The man was a sadist.
“Come on guys, it’ll be fun!” he said.
“Come on guys, it’ll be good for you!” he said.
“Come on guys, what else do we have to do for fun here?” he said.
While I could answer “No it won’t” quite handily to his first two statements, he had me on the third. If the heroes had given us some video games and tablets, this would be like home and we’d never have to leave the town ruins… or Firewall would have stolen all of them from us and made them into a machine that would help her escape the island or end the world.
One or the other, it was kind of hard to tell with her.
Without those things to keep my mind busy, I’d gained a crippling case of stir fever whenever we had any downtime. It made me susceptible to such crazy suggestions as voluntary, pre-dawn exercise in the jungle of death and mystery.
So we started hiking, just a little bit at a time, clearing out bits of forest of the monsters and traps as we went, building ourselves up until we could make it to the Chin.
“Come on, we’re almost there!” Felix cried out enthusiastically, jogging ahead of us on the darkened trail, the bouncing beam of his flashlight the only sign he was still alive.
“We heard you the last time!” I shouted back to him.
“And the time before that!” Showstopper shouted more hoarsely, coughing and spitting into the bushes. In Felix’s defense, Showstopper wasn’t breathing as heavily as he used to on these hikes, so the exercise was actually doing some good.
“It’s called positive reinforcement!” he called out, laughing.
Positive reinforcement? Who the hell was he kidding? He was a maniac. Besides, I didn’t see what he had to be so positive about. Back home in Uruguay he’d been a rising soccer star, and might have actually made something of himself if his father hadn’t found out he was gay and forced him onto the streets, committing petty, superhuman crimes to survive. His life had sucked up to that, but now here he was, bright and chipper.
If I didn’t like hanging out with him so much, I might have hated him.
“I can guarantee you that once we make the Chin, we’ll have a view of sunrise like nowhere else on the island!” Felix proclaimed.
“And how’s that an incentive?” I asked between breaths.
“Where’s your appreciation of the beauty of nature?” he asked, steering clear of a humming hornet’s nest the size of a watermelon that bulged dangerously from a nearby tree.
“At home. On the Internet. Safely away from the beauty of nature,” I said.
He looked to the others for support. “Can someone back me up here? Gentlemen? Ladies? Imps?” Not even Odigjod chimed in. Just shy of a month topside had him about as sick of nature as the rest of us. Neither Firewall, balanced on the pair of robot legs she’d modified for her personal use, nor Ghost Girl looked ready to support him either.
Firewall laughed viciously. “No ladies here, I’m afraid. We are supervillainesses ! Right, Ghost Girl?”
Ghost Girl adjusted her mask as if trying to hide. “Leave me out of this?”
Firewall scoffed, “We are not mere ladies bound by society’s rules of propriety and dignity! We have no time for nature! We are ‘self-empowered’ and ‘actualized by our beauty and femininity and independent, inner-strength to be powerful, easily underestimated foes.’ At least if you believe any of that bullshit the heroes are heaping on us.”
“They actually said that?” Showstopper asked.
“With less sarcasm and anger, but yes, those words were there,” Ghost Girl replied.
“We didn’t
With all this going on, the six of us never should have had the time to make it to the Chin, but we did.
I blame Felix.
Not for making it to the Chin. He’d have done that anyway, probably just for fun. No, I blame him for convincing us, somehow, that jogging and hiking would be fun.
Without using our powers. Pre -dawn.
The man was a sadist.
“Come on guys, it’ll be fun!” he said.
“Come on guys, it’ll be good for you!” he said.
“Come on guys, what else do we have to do for fun here?” he said.
While I could answer “No it won’t” quite handily to his first two statements, he had me on the third. If the heroes had given us some video games and tablets, this would be like home and we’d never have to leave the town ruins… or Firewall would have stolen all of them from us and made them into a machine that would help her escape the island or end the world.
One or the other, it was kind of hard to tell with her.
Without those things to keep my mind busy, I’d gained a crippling case of stir fever whenever we had any downtime. It made me susceptible to such crazy suggestions as voluntary, pre-dawn exercise in the jungle of death and mystery.
So we started hiking, just a little bit at a time, clearing out bits of forest of the monsters and traps as we went, building ourselves up until we could make it to the Chin.
“Come on, we’re almost there!” Felix cried out enthusiastically, jogging ahead of us on the darkened trail, the bouncing beam of his flashlight the only sign he was still alive.
“We heard you the last time!” I shouted back to him.
“And the time before that!” Showstopper shouted more hoarsely, coughing and spitting into the bushes. In Felix’s defense, Showstopper wasn’t breathing as heavily as he used to on these hikes, so the exercise was actually doing some good.
“It’s called positive reinforcement!” he called out, laughing.
Positive reinforcement? Who the hell was he kidding? He was a maniac. Besides, I didn’t see what he had to be so positive about. Back home in Uruguay he’d been a rising soccer star, and might have actually made something of himself if his father hadn’t found out he was gay and forced him onto the streets, committing petty, superhuman crimes to survive. His life had sucked up to that, but now here he was, bright and chipper.
If I didn’t like hanging out with him so much, I might have hated him.
“I can guarantee you that once we make the Chin, we’ll have a view of sunrise like nowhere else on the island!” Felix proclaimed.
“And how’s that an incentive?” I asked between breaths.
“Where’s your appreciation of the beauty of nature?” he asked, steering clear of a humming hornet’s nest the size of a watermelon that bulged dangerously from a nearby tree.
“At home. On the Internet. Safely away from the beauty of nature,” I said.
He looked to the others for support. “Can someone back me up here? Gentlemen? Ladies? Imps?” Not even Odigjod chimed in. Just shy of a month topside had him about as sick of nature as the rest of us. Neither Firewall, balanced on the pair of robot legs she’d modified for her personal use, nor Ghost Girl looked ready to support him either.
Firewall laughed viciously. “No ladies here, I’m afraid. We are supervillainesses ! Right, Ghost Girl?”
Ghost Girl adjusted her mask as if trying to hide. “Leave me out of this?”
Firewall scoffed, “We are not mere ladies bound by society’s rules of propriety and dignity! We have no time for nature! We are ‘self-empowered’ and ‘actualized by our beauty and femininity and independent, inner-strength to be powerful, easily underestimated foes.’ At least if you believe any of that bullshit the heroes are heaping on us.”
“They actually said that?” Showstopper asked.
“With less sarcasm and anger, but yes, those words were there,” Ghost Girl replied.
“We didn’t
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