🚀 go-pugleaf

[Continued From Part One]

     "Good grief!" exclaimed Dickens, as he and the rest of the Tribe
stepped from Milton's faerie portal, onto a Windsor street. The others
silently echoed this sentiment, looking around at the sight that met their
eyes. One large bulbous and armour plated individual seemed to be having
his fun letting passing cars smash against himself, while two more - one
dressed in shining golden armour and the other dressed in a midnight black
spandex costume - spent several moments 'convincing' the occupants of said
cars to give up their wallets, purses and valuables. The road was an
elephant's graveyard of vehicles and nearby stores had been deserted as
good business sense tended to suggest that staying alive was conducive to
profit.
     Dickens leaned over to Milton, and whispered. "Wait... we're fighting
actual villains?" Milton nodded and Dickens blinked in surprise. "Wow... I
might just have to faint with the shock."
     Aphra smiled slightly and nodded to the others, whispering rapidly.
"Let's hit them quickly, before they even know that we're here. Elk,
neutralise the big one, I'll try to take down the one in armour, Milton,
the spandex-man is yours. Dickens, pacify whoever you can and Spenser, back
up anyone who needs it. Are we ready?"
     "WAIT!" said Elk far too loudly as usual. "Aren't WE supposed to
announce OUR PRESENCE to the EVILDOERS and thus ensure that this is A fair
FIGHT?" He glanced around at the other Tribesmembers, who had facepalmed in
disgust. "What?"
     "I think... we just did..." said Milton. "Elk, don't take this the
wrong way. But you're a blithering moron."
     "How COULD I not TAKE it the RIGHT way?" asked Elk.
     "You might consider it a compliment."
     "Dear, please hold your tongue," said Aphra. Milton apologetically
nodded to his leader, who turned to the larger man. "Elk, you're a
blithering idiot."
     "THANKS."
     "Don't mention it. I certainly won't.
     Meanwhile, the three had turned to face their challengers. The man of
armour plating looked at the other two, and grinned brightly.
     "Want we should rush them while they're arguing, so they never know
what hit them?" he asked.
     "Good plan, Roadblock," said the man in spandex in a quiet, cold
whisper. "On my mark..."
     "No way, Night Siphon!" cried the man in golden armour. "We're the
best, and if we start doing wussy things like attacking from surprise,
people are going to start calling us... um.. wusses!"
     Night Siphon covered face with hands as the Tribe turned to hear the
commotion. "Sungod?" he asked.
     "Yeah, what?" asked the armour-clad man.
     "You're a blithering moron."
     "Is that a crack?"
     "Yes."
     Aphra shook her head sadly. "I don't mind fighting incompetent
enemies. It's when they're like a mirror that this bothers me..."
     "Hey!" yelled Sungod, from down the street. "You calling us incompetent?"
     "I--" began Aphra.
     "Darn RIGHT we're saying YOU'RE incompetent!" yelled back Elk,
defiantly putting hands on hips. Sungod snarled and faced him.
     "You wanna fight about it?" demanded the golden-clad villain, jabbing
a finger at the distant hero. "Come on, I'll tear you apart!"
     "I'm _really_ sorry about this," said Aphra to Night Siphon, putting a
hand to her forehead as Elk and Sungod continued to posture in the
background.
     "No, no... it's not your fault," replied Night Siphon, sighing, his
cold voice seeming to warm as he spoke. "He's just... like this. All the
time. We've tried talking to him but..." The villain shook his hands in
frustration.
     "He just won't listen?" asked Dickens, nodding slightly. "It's like
you're talking different languages?"
     "Exactly."
     "Maybe you need to try to talk to him the way he will understand."
     Night Siphon paused. "But how? He never listens to us. He's always
surly around the base... he talks back, doesn't respect my leadership... I
just don't know what to do anymore."
     "You two need to sit down and try to figure out _how_ to start talking
again," said Dickens. "Until you do, he's just going to go on the same way
that he always has. Don't you owe it to both of you to try something?"
     Night Siphon sighed and nodded. "You're right. This just can't go on.
Come on, Roadblock, we need to have a heart-to-heart with Sungod before
Mister Grumpy gets out of control."
     "Sometimes I love your emotional control powers," whispered Aphra to
Dickens, who grinned.
     "Better get ready, guys," replied Dickens, over the sound of Sungod
and Elk hurling third grade insults at one another. "He should be realising
what happened any... minute..."
     "Hey!" hissed Night Siphon as he stopped in the middle of the street.
"What the devil was I doing?"
     "...now!" yelled Dickens and Aphra at the same time, prompting the
Tribe to leap forward and engage the criminals while they were off-balance.
     "Looks like THEY'RE fighting!" shouted Elk at Sungod.
     "Cool," replied Sungod, his fists beginning to glow with a golden
aura. "That's us too, right?"
     "I'm PRETTY sure WE'RE invited."
     "Let's rumble then!" yelled Sungod, as a gout of brilliant flame spat
from his fist to smash towards Elk, who frantically parried with a
snap-bolt of reality. Some flame vanished, but the bulk was missed by the
bolt, setting Elk's lapels on fire.
     "Give me your best shot," said Roadblock to Spenser, as the armoured
men closed with one another. The villain crossed his arms, inviting a blow
to his unshielded stomach. Shrugging, Spenser hefted his sword and began a
swing, only to have a beefy fist impact on the top of his skull, jarring
loose his helmet.
     "I thought... you were supposed to stand... still... and take it..."
said Spenser, reeling.
     "Eh, tried that once, started to hurt like a beast so I stopped,"
replied Roadblock with a shrug. "So instead I decoy chumps like you with
it. Night!"
     Roadblock reached out and pinged Spenser on the nose with his powerful
forefinger, knocking the armoured man backwards several meters and into a
wall, which had the effect of stopping any further backwards motion as well
as any further cognitive process that Spenser might have wanted to pursue.
Roadblock turned to look for someone else to engage when suddenly a white
shape shot by, buffeting and throwing the villain off of his guard.
     "Whoa!" he yelled, recovering his poise just as three more
pseudo-angels began a merry jig around him, preventing the armoured villain
from moving from his spot. Lashing out, he began to lay into the angels,
knocking one back even as two more pummelled around him.
     "The night is cold," whispered Night Siphon menacingly, as he advanced
on Aphra. "I am colder. I am he who draws the night!"
     "Was that... really necessary?" asked Aphra, rolling her eyes. "At
least the other two just attacked us instead of delivering such a
melodramatic piece."
     "I'm a drama major, lady," replied Night Siphon quietly, narrowing his
eyes. "I like using my degree and after I graduated it was either
extra-legal work or serve fries at McSquirrel's. So if I make a speech or
two, forgive me please."
     "As you like," said Aphra, raising her hand to encase Night Siphon in
glass. Before she could act, a field of palpable darkness drifted from the
villain to surround Aphra, clinging to her like a shroud. It was
soul-chillingly cold and she swore that she could hear the tiny voices of
her subconscious, crying out to her, reminding her of every diverse sin
that she had ever buried. Aphra felt diminishment... a loss of self... a
gradual consumption.
     Elk unleashed another bolt of reality at the dodging Sungod, and had
the dubious pleasure of watching a pseudo-angel who stood behind the golden
villain wink out of existence.
     "SORRY!" yelled Elk to Milton, who covered his eyes with one hand and
shook his head. Roadblock knocked aside the remaining two angels, rushing
for Milton as he freed himself. Sungod flared bright orange as he rolled to
the ground under a reality blast, loosing brilliant spinnerets of flame at
Elk who managed to parry two before being overcome by the rest. Yelping
with pain, the loud hero dropped and began rolling on the ground,
attempting to extinguish the flames.
     "Can we talk about this?" asked Milton, grinning weakly as Roadblock
advanced on him. "Maybe over a cafe latte somewhere?"
     "Don't drink coffee," replied the villain, cracking his knuckles as he
advanced.
     "Um... what do you drink?" asked Milton, backing away as quickly as he
could.
     "The blood of punks who try to stop me from doing my job," replied
Roadblock, closing distance between himself and Milton.
     "That's a... very interesting culinary choice."
     "Now, die!" shouted Sungod, rushing at Elk, failing to come up with
any sort of original attack-line. Elk, rolling on the ground, could only
look up as the villain prepared a gout of flame...
     ...and stopped, glancing at empty air in annoyance. He lashed out
randomly with his flames, searing the air and striking Roadblock soundly,
knocking him over just as the larger man's hand was about to close upon
Milton's throat. This gave the hero's pseudo-angels a chance to regroup and
reorganise, flitting back towards the felled Roadblock and liberally
applying taps to the head in order to render the armoured man unconscious.
     Milton blinked, then grinned and shot the exhausted Dickens a thumbs
up. Dickens, worn-out with the strain of focusing his powers to make Sungod
believe that a mosquito had continually landed on him and taken blood,
slumped against a wall to rest for a moment.
     Inside her dark cocoon, Aphra writhed in protest even as her every
fibre of being screamed to give in and submit to her gradual loss. She was
nothing... she could be nothing... it would be best just to capitulate and
let the darkness take all that she was, leaving behind a lifeless husk
purified in the essence of night.
      "Hey," said a voice from behind Night Siphon. "Got a brain teaser for
you. What's one and a half meters tall, wears black spandex, has a fetish
about night and is about to be hit on the back of the head with the flat of
a very heavy sword?"
     "Um... don't know," replied Night Siphon, smiling slightly at Aphra,
who had very nearly become his. Just a moment more and then she would be
gone, irrevocably sacrificed to the endless darkness within himself.
     "You!" said the voice, triumphantly.
     "That's not much of a brain teaser."
     "No, but this is," replied the voice, as a very heavy sword impacted
on the top of Night Siphon's skull.
     "That's... not very good..." said the villain, collapsing to the
ground in front of the recovered Spenser, who put down his sword.
     "Aphra, you okay?" he asked, rushing over to his leader. Aphra slowly
stood, shaking her head and hugging herself.
     "I'll live," she said, her eyes beginning to focus again. "How many...
are left?"
     "Just one," said Spenser. "I think Elk was taking care of him."
     There was an angry bellow as Elk flew past, propelled by a burst of flame.
     "Or was that Dickens?"
     "Waaaaaarrrrggggghhhh...." shouted Dickens, as he shot past on wings
of flame.
     "Milton. Milton had him."
     "Oof..." said Milton, as he skittered across the ground, smouldering.
     "Guess it's us," sighed Spenser, hefting his sword and raising shield.
     "Give up!" shouted Sungod, pointing at the heroes. "Or I'll... um..."
     "Yes?" asked Aphra, crossing her arms and favouring the man with a
condescending smile.
     "Give me some time to think!" shouted Sungod, wracking his brain for a
good battle call.
     "I'm not sure we have quite _that_ long," said Aphra. "Some of us are
thinking of retiring at sixty-five."
     "That's not funny!" shouted Sungod, glaring at Aphra.
     "No, it's not. Neither is the fact that you've allowed yourself to be
distracted by me while Spenser crept around behind you."
     "Hunh?" asked Sungod, whirring around to look at the utter lack of a
superguy behind himself. Sighing at the stupidity of humankind, Aphra
created an especially heavy sandbag over the villain's head, which promptly
fell and knocked him into unconsciousness.
     "Owie..."
     "Nice work," said Spenser, sheathing his sword. "Cappuccino?"
     "Let's tend to our wounded first," replied Aphra, kneeling at Milton's
side. "John?"
     "Jus'... five more minutes..." muttered Milton, slowly recovering his wits.
     "He'll be fine," replied Aphra, with a sigh.
     "Everyone else looks more or less in one piece," replied Spenser,
applying a fey salve to his companions' burn injuries. "If slightly
crispy."
     "Original recipe," replied Aphra. "I managed to miss his attentions."
     "Someone... had better call TFA to pick these guys up," said Dickens,
relaxing as the mystical ointment began to sooth his injuries. "We won?"
     "We won," replied Aphra, looking down at the villains.
     "And guess who's 'fault' it was that we won?" asked Milton, standing
groggily.
     "John..."
     "Nope, not mine," replied Milton. "We had a rallying point, Aph. No
matter what else, you give us that. Along with so much else too."
     Aphra smiled slightly. "Thank you again for your vote of confidence.
Perhaps then, you'd all agree to rally around me for a search?"
     "Search?" asked Spenser, confused. "What kind?"
     "We work best as a group," said Aphra. "Speaking of which, John, won't
you call TFA? There's a good man. But we've slowly let ourselves be
whittled away"
     "Very true," said Spenser.
     "Liz... gave herself for something important," continued Aphra. "No
matter how much her loss tears at me, I refuse to devalue that with
meaningless misery. But she left us with a legacy to maintain... isn't it
our duty to make her passage _mean_ something for more than just an
abstract salvation of the universe?"
     "That's nothing?" asked Dickens, smiling slightly.
     "I didn't mean that," replied Aphra, sighing. "But what we are... who
we are... will be one way that Liz will be remembered by those who come
after. That's why I think it's time for us to start a search."
     "Who are we finding?" asked Spenser.
     "Everyone that we've lost," replied Aphra. "Will. Ben. Joe, if he's
still savable. Susan... oh gods, Susan... the future me had a prophesy
about her..."
     "What was it?" asked Milton, closing the connection on his cell phone.
     "It's... too late now," replied Aphra, shaking her head. "But
nevertheless... we've been spread too thin. It's time to reunite. All of
us. In the memory of Liz and for all of our futures."
     "Futures?"
     "We're all foundlings, in one sense or another," replied Aphra. "What
we once had was each other. That's what we'll work towards restoring."
     "Might not be easy," said Dickens, smiling. "Neither is life. I'm in."
     Spenser nodded. "Me too. Sounds like a good way to spend a few months.
Or a lifetime. Why the hell(tm) not?"
     "If I can COME along..." said Elk.
     "Of course," replied Aphra, with a small smile.
     "You... done with your... togetherness... thing?" asked Night Siphon,
with a groan.
     "No, now go back to sleep," said Spenser, whacking him back into
unconsciousness.
     "Night nighhhh... gah..."
     "So when do we start?" asked Spenser.
     "As soon as we can," replied Aphra. "No matter how long it takes, how
challenging it proves or how many obstacles are put in our paths... we
_will_ be whole again."
     "That's... really touching..." groaned Roadblock. "Can I come too?"
     "No, now stay unconscious!" shouted Spenser, applying the pommel of
his sword to the back of Roadblock's head. "I swear, you try to have a
moment and these guys just never give you a minute's peace, do they?"
     "It's the way of the world," said Aphra absently, smiling at her
husband, who smiled back. The two clasped hands, hoping that many more
would join in the gesture before long.
***
As usual, this story is trademarked, all rights reserved 1996 to
Frobozz/Chris Angelini (email:cangelin@uoguelph.ca, homepage:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~cangelin). Everything alluded to is intended as
satire, and no trademark infringement is intended nor implied. Slowly I
turned... step by step... inch by inch...