You may be asking all sorts of questions right about now. I don’t have answers to a lot of them. If I did know it all, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be winning every lottery and paying off the resulting lawsuits and hiring strippers galore. You know what those girls will do for enough money?

Me.

Okay, maybe not. Alice and ID Alice wouldn’t like it and I still have deluded hope that everything will work out on that front.

Really, here’s a question you should be asking that I can answer, eventually.

What took that dropped bomb of Flux’s so long to go off? We practically had an entire Sunday morning special in the time it took to drop down a narrow hole, bounce around without going off, and finally land far enough down that all it did was shake the earth fiercely and put a temporary halt to our conversation. I mean, that’s at least a full minute. Do you know how far a body can fall in a minute?

A long way. A long, long, long way. While eating a sandwich. And if you ever find yourself falling from orbit for a minute with a sandwich and no parachute, don’t try to use the one mayo packet on the sandwich. Enjoy what you’ve got while you’ve got it. Screaming in fear doesn’t do any good.

Which is a good motto for life. Enjoy what you’ve got and don’t waste time screaming in fear. Or mumbling, if you’re a mumbler.

Not that Laticia held the same believe because she was raging. Literally raging. Red lightbulb powers on full blast as she battered herself against the grey barrier of WhiteWash and Midnight. Never mind the vibrating ground.

Here’s an observation worth pondered. The dead mole people from before? Their blood glowed the same freaky red at Laticia’s powers. And when her powers went all green or blue or whatever kaleidoscope colors they desired, so did the blood. Also, that grey bubble mixture that came into being while the two touched hands, had thin cracks on it. Those cracks were also shifting colors in response to Laticia’s powers.

Let’s pretend that’s perfectly normal and call these superpowered collisions a metaphor. Maybe her anger was going to break through the little world they had built for themselves. Maybe Laticia’s powers were strong enough to warp the world around her just like the other two.

In my last adventure, I think I stated that coincidences aren’t. Who else do we know that changes colors at whim?

Of course, there’s two other factors that I’d put aside. One, Laticia had formed a nice crack in the earth and been shoving mole people into it. It’d been crumbling. Second, I’d dropped an explosive down there. That made crumbling worse.

My heart sunk. I yawned and wondered about having a sandwich. That thought distracted me from the others and food became paramount once again.

So, I turned away from the three girls going at it without a jello tub, faced the leading edge of a planet’s crust collapsing in on itself, and chose to move myself elsewhere.

Over the edge I went and without a second’s hesitation, jumped.

“Abandon all hope!” I shouted.

Remember that sandwich I’d been mentioning? No such luck for me.

Rocks burst lose all around me. Smaller ones pelted into my shoulder, bouncing me into a wall. My body slammed into a clump of dirt and out the other side Seconds later the hole widened to an impossible degree, leaving me freefalling into a huge cavern. One that couldn’t possibly be real.

Below were distant lights. They resembled bonfires in fields or possibly streetlights in a major city. Tall, crude buildings lined the ground with jagged holes for windows. Shadows danced on the far edges of the cavern’s walls.

Flux beeped. I twisted my body to view the disaster above me. The trio had found our hole toward certain doom. They glowed like Christmas lights.

I laughed then immediately felt guilty for being amused. They’d have to get their shit together now, literally, or all die. Based on the jaded views the other two had of Laticia’s repeated deaths, they might join hands and float away and simply resurrect her, again. The cycle would continue.

“She’s your answer.” I shouted upward. “Try keeping her alive!”

That qualified as my good deed for the current disaster. I mean, Laticia’s presence meant something. What though, utterly beyond me. Putting thought into it now while falling would be a waste of sanity.

Wind stole air from my lungs. Black spots appeared as the fall continued. The buildings were even bigger than I’d thought. Those fires were absolutely huge. We’d fallen long enough to have half a sandwich each and were nowhere near rock bottom.

“Bacon,” I mumbled. “Cheese. Lettuce.”

Spots grew larger. I wanted a magic ring that let me fly. Flux proved useless. I wanted a sandwich, as evidenced by my mind going in circles. Or Alice in a maid’s outfit with any sort of food. She’d do it too. She’d just appear out of the air, catch me, and whisk us away to a place with real meals.

“Cannon-“ I lost my headlong dive and spun in circles. The city below flipped around. Above me, then below, or to one side.

I hit paper thin bedrock but barely noticed. It didn’t hurt anything more than the rest of my life. My spin leveled out again.

Remember how long I’d said you could fall for? I’ll give you a hint. A minute.

Flux beeped twice.

Another thin layer collapsed as I careened through it. Then another, followed by an endless succession of them. With each one my body slowed. The last thing I saw was a vat of green moldy jelly quivering beneath me. A chunk of dirt hit seconds before me, causing the entire mass to ripple as my body swan dove into it’s mass.

That’s a lie. I didn’t swan dive. Unless the swan was drunk, had three wings, and half a beak up another swan’s rear end. In fact, that might have been better because with my fresh submersion came the foulest smell I’d run across in months. It crawled up my nose and made my brain go brown.

Goop swallowed me whole. My legs tensed, expecting to find the bottom. It never came. I flailed my arms to find purchase. Thick fingers clasped my entire upper arm in their palm and yanked. I clawed at the air as something gross dripped off me.

The person lifting me threw me off to the side. Slime slithered down my throat as I curled into a ball. Now I could taste brown. Foul brown that shouldn’t possibly have a scent or taste but if it did it’d be exactly like the sensations destroying my mind.

My chest heaved. Nostrils burned. Someone yelled.

“Rise sister! Gravity has brought you back to the motherland!”

A hand wiped at my face. Tingling filled my chest but it didn’t hurt. Sweet and sour flushed through my chest. I took short gasping breathes and rapidly wiped the gunk off my face. It dried quickly, become almost a shell encasing me.

“Rise and return to the fight against surface worlder scum!”

I couldn’t be hearing that right. My eyelids fluttered and a finger dug into my ear. Crunching from the half-dried substance drowned out the next few lines.

Being blinded by goop would have been better. I stood and marveled at the nonsense encasing me. A second later, three bulbs of light, black, white, and a terrified pink, slammed into the pool of goo. The surface rocked.

The absolute giant of a mole person, who had to be like forty feet tall, utterly ignored me. He reached into the green sludge pool and yanked out another creature. This one didn’t move. It got tossed to his other side, apparently rejected.

I casually wiped away the rest of the muck on my face and searched for the bomb we’d set off. The place around me had been utterly demolished. I saw the remains of our nuke, which apparently didn’t spout marshmallows. There were millions of teddy bears all over. Mole people were hastily moving them out of the pool I’d crashed into.

Two more oversized stuffed animals were thrown into the reject pile. Much smaller mole people hustled over and drug the toys away.

I looked up. Above us was pure darkness. I couldn’t tell what I’d been crashing through but assumed it to be some weird form of mole people safety net. Complete with a healing bath that recovered all my prior wounds.

Three girls were thrown to the side. Their bodies were covered in layers of gunk that made it impossible to separate them from tiny mole people. The only reason I knew who they were, was because of the angry glows to Laticia and the other two still holding hands.

“That’s new,” I said then coughed.

The giant swiveled it’s huge body in my direction. The creatures eyes popped out as it took in my features.

“You’re not sister!”

“It’s the lack of fur isn’t it,” I said.

“Invader!”

“Technically. And I’m Herald of Failure!” They had statues of me somewhere. It had to be helpful in a situation like this, located in the midst of some half demolished and teddy bear infested mole people city.

Ever seen a six-hundred-pound creature that resembled a grizzly crossbred with the dumbest looking dog in the universe, quiver in with fear? I have. It’s weird. He stuttered and pointed a meaty arm at me. “The herald of failure!”

A dozen of the workers stopped and pointed in unison.

“The herald,” they all shouted. “In the motherland!”

One took a breath. They screamed. The others repeated themselves then screamed. It’s became an echo chamber. I glanced up and tried to understand how sound bounced off the roof when it was a million miles away. At this point it finally registered that the reason for that delayed bomb detonation revolved around the sheer size of this cavern.

See? I said I’d answer that question.

Meanwhile the collective mutant moppets around us said clever things like, “He’s here!”

And, “Flee!”

Or, “Tell the elders!”

“Adam!”

I did bad math. If an object falls at a constant speed for two miles, how bad would the normal splat be? The girls had survived their decent by channeling their weird plane creating powers. I’d hit a net. But it seemed like we were missing at least two students.

“Adam!”

This time I registered a male voice hissing my name. Yes, you can his names. Ask snake people, who are mortal enemies to mole people.

I turned to see Clinton waving me toward him. Kennedy was crouched in a corner wiping muck off the girls. Hands slapped at him but he moved too fast for them to stop his actions.

One arm came up to wave. Goo squished as my arm cranked back and forth. “Hey, you made it.”

“Run!” Clinton said in a suppressed yell.

My eyes glanced left then right. Mole people were flailing about like headless chickens. The tall giant belched a girly shriek, the same sound I do on rollercoasters, passed out and fell to one side slamming into the goo. A fresh sea of ick sloshed over the shoreline where I stood. My clothes were a mess and another layer of slime made zero difference.

“They’ll get you.” Clinton said. He shook his head and yanked on his man-half’s shoulder. “Ken, he’s in shock. You have to get him.”

Kennedy barely glanced at me. “No, I don’t,” he said.

“Adam’s got to escape! We need to stay hidden.”

At least Kennedy seemed to understand my non-existant plight.

“Kennedy, what do I need to run from?” I frowned. “Certain doom?” Alice wasn’t there so flight had no meaning.

Light beamed from over a ridge. “Kill them all!” someone slurred drunkenly.

Okay, maybe they weren’t drunk, but honestly all half-understood words come out sounding a little inebriated to me. It could be the hottest woman in the world, walking a straight line and with a razer sharp focus. If she slurred at all, my first guess would be that they were drunk. And hot. And maybe open to making poor choices.

Back to the light. The overwhelming illumination started up above, brighter than anything sane should be in this darkness infested planet. A blurred figure stood in the light, waving spindly arms around.

“Be not afraid! His powers have been removed by my greater powers!”

People that slur shouldn’t use sounds that include the letter S. Such as this statement. Seems silly. Seriously stupid.

The gibbering horde took zero notice of my eye twitching ire. They prostrated themselves in waves. Soon the entire area filed with brown bundles of dirt and slobber, all bowing in unison toward the blurry shadow overlord. “Lord Shadows command us!”

Or, “Your will be done!”

And, “Death to the surfacers!”

Except the thing they were bowing toward looked nothing like a shadow person. It reminded me of a doctor being shrouded in a haze of light while preparing to drill my insides to paste.

“Go!” it commanded, waving a hazy arm.

The small army stood up as one mass, turned toward me, and hissed. Not like snakes hiss. These were angry cat people with spittle and waving paws. In unison.

Naturally, I hissed and waved back.

They charged.

“Incoming!” Clinton shouted. His arms flung outward toward the rushing tide. Small pebals zipped through the air. I pursed my lips and nodded in approval as the first two plowed through mole people heads.

He’d found a useful way to use the Metalkensis, by turning buck shot into a more lethal weapon. I wondered if that had started before or after school, or maybe he’d raided the moon while we were there.

Kennedy ignored me. His body blurred and the girls grew cleaner. Laticia sat on all fours, shaking her head from side to side. The other two were curled in a fetal position, facing away from each other. Midnight’s body vanished first as Kennedy whisked them away to safety.

The back row of mole people got their projectile vomit guns. I hissed at them too but the action had never been that effective.

“Kill them all!” the shadowy overlord yelled.

Shrill cheers rose from our foes, despite their front line being pelted to death by tiny pieces of scrap metal. In a few more seconds, WhiteWash vanished.

“I’ll kill them all-“ Laticia’s declaration ended in an abruptly girlish shriek. She vanished. I caught a brief snapshot of Kennedy running by with the girl over his shoulder.

The large giant snorted awake. The ground rumbled as he flopped to one side. I stood still, hoping something interesting might happen. It didn’t. His arm fell meters short of me. He had been tall, but not enough to make a cool thud.

The screen of small metal bits grew thicker. Mole people were attacking in droves. Clinton’s arms were stretched out wide. Blood from mole people wiggled as small bits of fine dust came separated out and clumped together.

“Nuh uh,” I whispered in awe.

Clinton seemed to be forming fresh bits of metal using his powers, from the blood of hi sfallen enemies. That had to rate as damn hard core. Though, anyone who tells you there’s metal, specifically iron and stuff, in blood, is technically right. It’s also a stupidly minute amount, like maybe enough for a few pellets in each person, at most.

The screen formed of congealed bits of blood thickened. Goo guns splattered against it, sending shards down to the ground.

Clinton fell to his knees, but arms still held out, grasping at unseen forces. I stood there, wishing for popcorn.

All three girls were gone. A pile of foes continued to lob glowing projectiles at us. The screen blocked most of them, with only small droplets making it through.

“Don’t let them escape!” the shrill overlord demanded. My head snapped to lock onto our enemies commander. A few possibilities clicked, none of them good for my small squad of students.

Clinton vanished. A dozen of the tiny pebbles swirling around hung for two seconds then collapsed.

“His weakens!” their master cried.

They remaining mass of mangled mole people surged forward.

“Not a shadow lord!” I bellowed.

To their credit, only a few mole people stopped to look in the direction I’d pointed. The rest continued to charge. By then, a heavy weight had oh-so-gingerly slammed into my stomach and off I went, suffering yet another round of whiplash as Kennedy sped me away to join the others.

The landing was equally kind to my back. My body careened into a mound of vaguely soft dirt. A second of dust like dirt fluttered all around me, getting into my nose and eyes. It, combined with the leftover green goop, well it worked out well for me.

“Ow,” I said while coughing. And, no, that’s not how calm I actually was. Real me had been a lot less articulate and spent a few minutes barking up the remaining madness from my lungs and trying to clean grime off me in case Alice showed up.

As if I could be that organized. By the time my brain actually did string two thoughts together, I caught the tail end of Kennedy glaring at me. He turned sharply toward the other male. His boyfriend stood with both hands against a wall, fingers curling into the soft dirt. Dark liquid dripped down from his eyes.

So, Clinton was doing great after his needless defense of me. Which I tried to tell him not to do. Any pain he got in “defending me” was his own damn fault.

And of course I felt guilty but let’s focus on what they were saying instead.

“You pulled iron from them.” Kennedy frowned briefly then reached out for his partner. “You idiot.”

Clinton shuddered and lifted an arm off the wall to grab at Kennedy. “Swore I’d never do that. I promised,” he continued to mumble to himself while burying his head into the other man’s chest.

I snorted, got glared at, and went back to cleaning myself up.

“I know,” Kennedy said. “But you did what you had to keep us alive. The girls needed a distraction. We’re lucky that all those space gerbils focused on our teacher. Defending one person is way easier, remember that lesson?”

“We should have run sooner,” Clinton responded. His shoulders quivered.

Kennedy kept on listing reasons that everything had worked out well. The girls had fallen from an incredible height. Clinton had been the one to see them and get into position near the safety net, pool, thing below. They’d found us in the pile, while staying hidden. They’d moved mounds of dirt around to confuse the other mole people nearby, who were busy trying to clean up muck from their crumbling city.

In short, he was trying to help his boyfriend feel better about everything. Which was so disturbingly positive I don’t want to relay the entire conversation. Because positive people give me hives.

The girls were in a circle talking. None of them touched each other. I couldn’t clearly hear their words but it sounded like one of those “much needed conversations” and Leticia wasn’t yelling or punching Midnight, or me. That served as progress. All five of my students had made the field trip with me. I’d be willing to bet none of them had to ride in a glorified tin can to get here either.

Minutes passed while they did their thing and I stared at Flux. And yes, it just appeared. Red robotic eyeball whirring at my face like the messy state of my body had been incredibly fascinating. I flipped the camera off. Flux beeped and bobbed, then spun around to see what the others were doing.

All these people had their stupid messy relationships, but at least they were together. I had Alice, when she wasn’t out to stab me, when she was around. So, I mourned my torn pants and their new green stains and pretended that I didn’t deserve to be left out.

Eventually words really registered. “We safe?” Kennedy asked.

Clinton snorted and thumbed in my direction.

I waved. “See, he gets it. I’m not safe to be around. You should have left me behind to be all Agent of Chaos or whatever.”

“Can’t,” Kennedy said then frowned.

The girls stood up and walked over. There they stood, in a line, Leticia, WhiteWash, and Midnight. They kept glancing at each other but didn’t exchange words. I suspected they were in internal thought land, or hive mind speaking, or simply dazed.

And if you’re wondering how I could see down here in this dark hellhole of mole people, when we’d been whisked god-knew-how far from the mole people city, then let me share the latest development. Leticia glowed, with a strand of white tucked behind one ear, and a black strand behind the other. The other girl’s tips were multi colored too, and glowing.

Whatever they were doing had progressed. I think it was meant to this whole time and never should have been just the WhiteWash and Midnight falling into some personal world.

I stood up slowly and pretended nothing hurt. After a minute of annoying silence, I said, “Hey, serious question.”

Clinton and Kennedy tilted their heads toward each other in confusion. It was adorable.

“Wasn’t part of this plan to have Flux copy a second mothership core and shove it somewhere?”

Flux beeped then slowly panned through the room in search of sexy toasters.

Clinton sniffed then answered, “Lady Alexiandria did say something like that.”

I pointed to the rummaging robotic eye. “How is Flux going to give them a copy of anything if it’s right there?”

Flux beeped then spun in a proud circle around us. I say proud because he spent the entire time tooting in short bursts.

None of the others hand an answer. I sighed and waved at my personal stalker. “Flux?”

It stopped spinning then whirred its lenses at me. I blinked slowly and rolled my eyes. “Did you give Lady Alexandria or my sister or anyone a copy of that engine?”

Two beeps came in response.

“Did anyone bring a way to get in touch with the others?”

My students stared at each other.

“So, we all came out here without any safety net. No plan to get home, and a key component of this revolves around someone far, far away from us, using an item they don’t have?”

“That sounds about right,” Clinton said. I reminded myself that he liked to state the obvious.

“I’m sorry guys, I can’t be your teacher anymore.”

“Why?” Kennedy asked.

“It’s impossible to defend us against this level of stupidity.”

This is why I hate superheroes. They’re so used to their powers carrying the day that they all leap before they look. Which isn’t at all hypocritical of me to think because I certainly hadn’t leapt off a cliff without so much as a glance downward.

“Funny.” Clinton smiled. “That’s exactly what our first teacher said.”

Jesus.

Did you hear that? I’d once thought Walker wanted me to help these kids, but I was beginning to think he wanted them to self-destruct away from the classroom, and somehow shanghaied me to do it. The only reason he would have picked me was because I’d survive the process.

I blinked very, very slowly, then stormed off in search of a god dammed sandwich. Or a plan B, or C, or whatever letter we were one.

***

With Great Power Comes Great Stupidity

A possibly satirical piece from The Potato

Ten out of ten crazy cat ladies agree that the number one cause for their animals’ unease comes from the neighborhood super powered person. Not because they stop muggers, but because they often stop muggers using the foundations of a building.

The violent collisions often result in vibrations being sent up throughout the building. Cats are naturally more attuned to the movements of the ground beneath them. As a result, their precious barf factories are in a nearly constant state of panic.

Earthquakes are a primal fear they say. Not unlike the budding fear that some man in tights is going to hover outside their bedroom windows, oblivious to their immaculacy chiseled rears being viewed for possible flaws.

Most cat owners agree that every powered person needs an unpowered friend to confide in. Someone to tell them that not ever cat needs to be brought down from the tree but shaking it violently until the cat falls. They, the cat owners ogling perfect rears, are offering to help by suggesting humane alternatives that don’t put the fear of violent earthquakes into their precious furballs.

One such foundation, Grandmas Apply today, and get your very own slightly unhinged normal person ready to tell you how to use your powers. Applicants be aware, said grandmothers may have certain clothing optional clauses. These are naturally to help show their support.