9:00 PM, Somewhere in eastern Agorix
“Yo, barkeep! Another.”
“You sure you can handle that? You don’t look all that big…”
“I’ll give you fifty dollars right now if you cut the shit.”
“Deal.”
A drink slid down the counter, coming to rest in a gloved hand. In the other hand was a wad of cash which smoothly found its way into the barkeep’s wallet. In three seconds, the drink was downed.
“Another.”
“Dude, Thunder, you can’t handle that. That’s like your second one and you’re already acting stupid.”
“He already acts stupid! Let him drink all he wants, nothin’s gonna change.”
“Go to hell, Marn! Where’s that drink?”
“Nah, but Zoey’s got a point. You’re a fucking lightweight.”
From behind the counter, the barkeep rolled his eyes. He began to mutter quietly to himself.
“Since when the hell did you care about my well-being? I’m sitting here trying to drink off this shitty day, and ‘Oh look it’s Marn fucking Goakes the health inspector coming to make sure all you kids eat their fruits and vegetables!’”
“Sheesh, look who got sand up their asshole. What, did the ice cream man forget to drop by?”
“Fuck you!”
Zoey slammed her fist on the counter, startling the two. “Enough, both of you. Thunder, you said you had a shitty day. What happened?”
Thunder looked from her hand, still in a fist, to her face, to Marn, to her face again. “Right… well, I think it was around 1:38 or so. I’m sitting in the park catching up with Hamil when some guy starts screaming like a baby and running for his life. I’m confused as all hell until it starts getting dark as shit. I tell Hamil to take off, she does. And who else would decide to show up at that point than Carbin god damn Slen?”
Another drink slid past Zoey into Thunder’s hand. “Carbin’s the creepy guy, right?”
She got no response for a while, as Thunder was busy downing his next drink. When he finally finished, he nodded. “Yeah, that one. I think I’m his favorite target now. When I got up to fight, he mumbled some shit about his prey never getting away or some shit like that. Genuine weirdo. Didn’t manage to get me too bad, though. All he really managed was a cut on the back of my hand.” Thunder took off the glove on his left hand to showcase.
Marn scoffed. “Judging by the fact that you’re in here downing your fourth drink, I’d say you didn’t really get him, either.”
“Soon to be fifth. My problem is he employs the same strategy I do, but in a different way. I dodge shit, he just plain fucking vanishes. So I get ready to land a real good blow, and he’s just gone. For good, that time. It’ll probably be a week tops before I have to deal with him again.”
Zoey looked at the drink in Thunder’s hand. “How are you not wasted? You know you can’t handle alcohol.”
The barkeep began to snicker. “I started givin’ him apple juice after the second drink.” A shriek of laughter could be heard from Marn. “Fuckin’ apple juice?! Look at him! Big fucking macho man over there sitting in the pub downing glasses of god damn apple juice!”
“Both of you can just go straight to hell. Right now. Go on, I’ll meet you there.”
“Why don’t you make me? I’m sitting right here, you can do something about it! Or are you too scared, huh? Think you can’t take me? Think you can’t outdo ol’ Marn? You know you can’t. You can’t even beat Zoey over there, what makes you think you can beat m-“
Marn was interrupted by a blast of wind, sending him flying out of a nearby window. Quick on his feet, he grabbed a beacon from his pocket and hurled it at the ground. A bright flash came from the pub, scaring anyone who hadn’t already fled sprinting from the premises. When Thunder finally emerged from the building, Marn was slightly surprised to find that Thunder stood a little taller, with a mild wind seemingly perpetually blowing around him.
“What’s with you?”
“Form change. I’ll explain in more detail when I’m done kicking your sorry ass!”
Inside the bar, Zoey looked apologetically at the bartender. “Uh, sorry about all this. This happens like every other week. They’ll be done in ten minutes, tops.”
A crash outside drew their attention back to the street, where a large mech now stood in a small crater where the beacon used to be. A small cockpit at the top opened up, and Marn hopped in. Two rocket pods emerged from the shoulders and dumb-fired at Thunder. The wind at his feet rose up and ran through his arms, exploding out of his hands at the salvo. The unexpected turbulence sent one of the incoming rockets at the ground, creating a plume of smoke in front of the speedster. In response, the hands of the mech turned into dual miniguns. They whirred loudly as bullets began to scream out of the barrels towards the plume. However, when the cloud subsided, Thunder was not standing there.
“Heads up, you no-good dumbass!”
Marn looked up to find Thunder standing to the mech’s right. He turned to fire, but a potent blast of wind hit the left minigun, sending it firing wildly around the street. One stray bullet hit a nearby fire hydrant, causing an explosion of water to roar directly at the mech.
“That’s your plan? Fuckin’ water? You’ll have to do better than that.”
Marn turned to the stream and stomped the ground, causing a pinkish shield to emanate from the front of the mech. The water hitting the shield began to fly everywhere, soaking every window and car on the street.
“Hah! That’s how a REAL man takes care of a puny little attack like that! …Huh?”
Another blast of wind hit the leg of the mech from the front, sending it toppling down. The water hitting the glass cockpit coupled with the force of impact broke the dome, delivering a mixture of highly pressurized water and glass directly into Marn’s head. Control keyboards and monitors began to spark, prompting Marn to leave the mech.
“Look what you did, you little rat! It’ll take me weeks to fix this thing!”
“It’s what you get for picking a fight. Heh, that was pathetic! Didn’t even have to draw rocket storm!”
“Is that what you call that stupid thing? Agh, I don’t care. Can we go to a hospital or something so I can get this glass out of my head? It fucking hurts.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’ll call ahead. I think they don’t like us showing up unannounced anymore.”
1:30 AM, East Agorix Medical Center
“Hey, Marn, you feeling alright? Wouldn’t want any of that precious space in your head to get taken up.”
“Go to hell! Hurts like a bitch.”
“Maybe you should’ve thought of that before you decided to bite off more than you could chew!”
“Well how was I supposed to know you’d go fucking windy apeshit?”
Before Thunder could hurl another insult at his hospitalized teammate, Zoey walked into the room. She looked briefly at Marn before turning to Thunder. “Quick question? What even happened back there? I don’t remember you ever being able to use wind.”
“Hey, what about me?! The guy with the glass in his head?”
“Judging by the kind of shit you were talking in the bar, I’d say it’s more beneficial to have something in there than not. Now, Thunder?”
Thunder did not reply, as he was staring out the window distractedly. Zoey snapped her fingers, bringing him to attention. “Huh? What?”
“What happened back at the bar?”
Thunder shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Er, well, I said it back there. It was just a form change, nothing special.”
“So you’re telling me I could just turn on a flashlight and start hurling fireballs? Bullshit! Normal people can’t usually ‘Form Change,” as you call it. What’s going on?”
The speedster’s eyes were darting across the room. “Uh, well, you see…”
“Today, please! Or do I need to go get the pipe again?”
Thunder’s eyes widened, and his breathing quickened. “Fine, calm down! Jeez! …Ugh, sit down. This one’s more of a story than an explanation.”
“Oh no, not a story! Quick everyone, run for your lives! He’s about to talk for more than ten seconds at a time!”
“Shut up, Marn. Anyway, I should probably lead into this by saying that I wasn’t really born in a… conventional way. See, back when my parents had Hamil, they weren’t really that well off. They’d intended to have two children, so when my dad fell ill and had to be hospitalized, my ma was devastated. She didn’t want to adopt or do any other sick shit, so she figured that if she couldn’t have another kid, she’d just make one. So she somehow managed to get her hands on a bunch of summoning parts for an elemental, instead. Problem was, she had parts for two different elementals: a wind, and an electric. But she figured she’d try it anyway, and I guess it worked, because here I stand. I’m kind of a mixture of both types, but it’s really one or the other. I think it changes like every other week. At the very least, I’m not really stable enough to actually have control over the form I use.”
“So, you can’t decide what kind of a bitch you want to be?”
“Alright, you know what? Fuck it. I’m done with him. Have fun fixing your mech, asshole.”
The door slammed behind Thunder as he left. Zoey gave Marn a quick glance before following suit.
“Where are you guys going? It’ll be so boring around here without the little ass to laugh at! …Damn it!”
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