Teamwork

            “Come on. Show your face, coward!” Tony screamed without losing his focus on all that was around him. He stood still and remained silent, emptying his mind to be alert for any movement within his proximity. To his left he heard a demonic hiss that gargled as the sound wavered from left to right. Tony turned around abruptly to follow the sound, but nothing was in sight except for the thick smoke that was starting to fade away. As he squinted to where he last heard the hissing, a sudden whistling noise drifted behind him, and the only thing Tony could do was to spin around before a big white boomerang flew out from the smoke in an upward angle towards him. The inside curve of the boomerang struck Tony right under his chin, dragging the boy’s head, followed by the rest of his body, up to the Cloudy Cliff’s wall. Tony was then pinned to the cliff side, suspended by the neck from the inside arch of the boomerang, with his feet a meter off the ground. Tony struggled to get out, but the boomerang held him tight.

            “Ugh! Where the heck did that come from?” Tony asked himself while still trying to pull off the boomerang that nearly strangled him.

“From who else could it come from, little boy? I hope you didn’t actually think lizaards were so easy to get rid of?” A creature said, coming out of the smoke with the familiar grin and advancing towards Tony. The silhouette was not near what Jaw looked like, but a certain aura from him was quite similar.

“H-how did you change so much?” Tony asked with his legs swinging aimlessly in the air, hands gripped firmly on both extremities of the boomerang that were nailed to the cliff’s wall.

“What you saw before was my weaker hiking form. With those dangerous fangs it would have been a hard task to mount this cliff, don’t you think?” The shadowy figure said, revealing a pinnacle-like claw as his right hand. “In this predator form, though, killing is a lot easier, and a whole lot more fun.”

The smoke was not completely vanished and the new Jaw was still too blurry to closely determine what he looked like. The only things he had seen well too clearly were the claws on his right hand that looked pretty damn spiky, and he needed to pull himself free before he would become the test of its sharpness.

“My design is the most perfect for a warrior. This flawless body is indestructible to a kid like you!” Jaw explained, and held out his right hand before him. “I was created for the very purpose of this moment, and I will now enjoy it up to the very end…”

The new Jaw walked towards the Hero, with a confident grin, and an urge to torture. He readied his claw; prepared to thrust it, slash it and squeeze it among the child’s every limb before he’d finally rip his head off and give it to his master.

Out of instinct, Tony screamed and kicked his feet in the air while he pulled his lower body up, making it look like Liu Kang’s bicycle kick in Mortal Kombat. Jaw laughed at the boy’s panicked reaction. That was until he got a foot in the face. Blood instantly leaked from the snake-like creatures nostrils.

“Damn you kid!” He yelled in anger and embarrassment, “You won’t get lucky the second time around.” Jaw shot out a tail that had the same sort of pinnacle claw at its end than that on his hand. With his long tail, his body was way out of reach for Tony’s short legs. “Yaaa!” Tony screamed without slowing the pace of his wild kicking. The claw jetted in Tony’s direction with snapping speed, and its speed doubled when it got bounced back by Tony’s kicking tantrum and into the unfortunate reptile’s face again.

Jaw screamed and bent down to the pain and insult of his own blow. He stomped in circles, screaming at the tree, the bushes, and even at the rock he furiously kicked to calm himself down. “No no no, this is not how it’s going to happen! I will not be ridiculed by your childish fooleries. I will end this here and right now, and no kicking will stop me. I don’t care about the consequences. No one hurts my pride!”

Jaw held out his right hand. In the center of the lizaard’s held out pinnacle claw was a small hole, and out of it was growing a red ball of light the size of a golf ball, and you didn’t need to touch it to see how bloody blazing damn hot it was. The ball was becoming bigger and bigger every second, and the bigger it became, the more Tony wrestled against the boomerang nailed firmly to his neck.

            “This is it! This is it! Come on you’re gonna die god damn it!” Tony yelped to himself in despair. Jaw’s red ball of energy was becoming huge and Tony was giving up hope.

“Ha-ha! Your spitfire friend won’t be here this time to get you out of this one! Cry and die, that’s the only choice you’ve got left. You can’t get away!” The killer said, with only its creepy, yellow fluorescent eyes standing out from the smoke.

Jaw pointed his clawed hand at the Hero, with the beam at the end of it, which was at least twice Tony’s height and length. The claw on his arm opened wide, and Jaw was ready to shoot his target, but then an irregular strong wind blew, tipping Jaw just a little bit, followed by the sound of a supersonic jet.

“What the--“Jaw started as he turned around to see what made this tumult. The noise of a hard impact occurred and the ground started trembling a bit, as if a meteor had landed a little farther ahead from the two fighters. Jaw’s red beam slowly diminished to its unthreatening golf ball size, and then vanished as he lowered his hands and adjusted his yellow serpent eyes to predatory mode. He turned around, ignoring his nemesis, as he stepped slowly towards the gloomy collection of trees that were nearby. Tony, after his long, exaggerated sigh of relief, turned his focus back on the shadowy creature that had just turned its back to him, but he still couldn’t quite figure out what it looked like in detail.

“Gotcha, sucker.” A voice whispered from beside Jaw, and then a monstrous red-eyed tiger leapt out from the smoke and landed with both its paws right on Jaw’s two shoulders, and it made him fall back with an angry tiger on top of him; an angry tiger ready to rip him in two pieces with one swipe. To the hind leg of the tiger was tied a brown rag that was wrapped over what seemed to be clothes.

“This is gonna taste bad.” The tiger said before it roared and pulled its head back to then strike its sharp teeth down in Jaw’s face. Jaw raised his left forearm to cover his eyes, and right after a split-second thought of: “Okay, I’ll just eat his arm first,” The feline smashed its teeth onto something that felt like a rock and was definitely as hard as one. The tiger roared as it pulled its whole body up on two legs in pain, and Jaw took the occasion to slip his feet off from under the tiger’s waist and then kicked the animal with both feet in its plexus. The tiger fell on its behind and instinctively rolled back onto its four feet in hunting stance once again.

Jaw hopped back on his feet and checked his wrist for any sign of fissure on his forearm shell, and with relief, there was no scratch. He didn’t want to ruin the perfection of his narcissistic little self. The lizaard had a shielding exoskeleton on both of his wrists that looked like thick wrist bands. He was designed with those for defensive purposes. He possessed the same types of shells on both of his heels also, which made for deadly roundhouse kicks. The angry creature drew out his sword from the sheath on his side and started running, sword in the air, towards the tiger. The tiger stood still and waited for the lizaard to come, and as Jaw arrived and dropped his sword down to hopefully split the animal’s skull in half, the tiger instantly transformed into a raven and darted off in the sky, making the wrapped cloth that was once tied to its leg drop to the floor, and making Jaw swing his sword into nothing. The raven dove back down, and a couple of meters before reaching the ground it switched back to its original, naked human form. He landed on his feet and immediately advanced with a roll to soften the impact of his fall. As the boy rolled back on his feet, he skittered to the wrapped cloth he had been holding on to, and unrolled it to uncover a pair of cargo pants and a worn out red t-shirt, almost pink from staying in the sun too long. He jumped in them, and as soon as he was all dressed up he ran like a bullet towards his enemy. As Jaw stood bewildered by the unexpected event, the boy tackled him elbow first in the ribs, sending him tumbling a couple of meters further away. The blond boy, with glittering red pupils and a little taller than Tony, was then examining his teeth with his hands, still not sure if they were broken or not from Jaw’s wrist shell.

“Hey, could you be…” Tony started, still hanging on the cliff wall by the neck, dumbfounded.

“Well, I’m Pascal, and who are you?” Pascal asked, as if it was clearly obvious that anyone should know his name. He was very astounded to see someone else of his kind in the forest, and also astounded that all his aching teeth were intact. He wished for this moment for so long, and there it was finally. Another human being.

“I’m Tony... w-well anyways I think we can figure this all out later, now can you get me outta here?”

“I can always try… how the hell did you get like that? And why’s that lizaard after you?” A discriminatory you was frankly pronounced in his tone.

“Hey look! We don’t have time!” Tony snapped, “I’ll explain this later! First off is ripping that boomerang off of me!”

Pascal grabbed the boomerang by both ends and pulled with all his might. “Hnngh! I don’t think it wants to get off.”

“Try harder!”

 Pascal put his left foot on the wall and pushed himself on it and pulled the boomerang at the same time. With plenty of weird noises and funny faces, a cracking noise was eventually heard, thus giving hope to the boy. He then pressed his other foot against the wall leaving him off the floor. He pulled even stronger, and then the boomerang suddenly yanked out of the wall, and Pascal smacked back-first to the floor with the boomerang in hand. Tony then fell to his knees, coughing and holding his aching neck.

“Yes, I did it!” Pascal said while he got back up and held the boomerang proudly in the air, Legend of Zelda style.

The boomerang suddenly started to shake in Pascal’s hands. The boomerang was moving away, dragging Pascal with him while he still held it up like an acquired item.

“Huh?” Pascal then let go of it.

The boomerang instantly flew in a spinning maneuver in Jaw’s direction as if it was a magnet. The two boys looked up to where Jaw had previously crashed, and now he was fully up with the boomerang in hand, looking angrily at the young nemusians. They could now see Jaw really clearly, with his snake-like head, having the same Mohawk but blue, with a purple shirt and brown shorts. He seemed to have some sort of small tentacles in the back of his head, and he now had smooth, grey snake skin, with incrusted lines that made a pattern resembling a palm tree’s trunk along his legs, arms, tail and neck. He had purple heel and wrist guards which were attached to him in the same way that a turtle has a shell attached to its back. He had one hand as a pinnacle claw, and the left hand as normal as a human’s, but with a reptile fang at the end of each finger. His long, slim, serpent-like tail featured a skeesh at its tip that was similar to the pinnacle-like claw on his right hand. He had a boomerang socket on the left of his waist, and a sword holster to the right side of his waist.

“Now excuse me, but where the hell does this little crap come from?” The new Jaw demanded.

“I’m the Hero,” Pascal exclaimed, chest up in the air and fists posed on his hips, “And unfortunately for you, you’ve been sent here just for me. Don’t you worry; you’ll have more than enough of me at the end of the day.”

“Hey wait a minute here, that’s not right.” Tony jumped in, “I’m the Hero.”

“No you aren’t.”

“Sure am.”

“Sure not!”

“Ahem, I guess I’ll just kill both of you grunts. That’ll solve the intrigue!” Jaw blurted out as he threw his boomerang at Pascal.

“Only heroes can do this stunt!” Pascal said, looking at Tony while front-flipping over the flying boomerang.

“You didn’t see what I can do.” Tony replied with a forced grin, as he really didn’t know himself what the hell he could actually do.

“Oh okay, so the helpless Hero just got saved by I, a normal little earthling that can fly and transform. That sounds logical, of course. I didn’t think of that.” He shot back at Tony, with more sarcasm that the real Hero could handle.

“Huh, arguing about who’s the ‘Hero’ when you can’t even understand the basic laws of physics. You know, what goes around, comes around…” Jaw responded, with a smirk of his own.

Pascal then called out to Jaw, “My nemusian powers look like they greatly surpass any powers from your kind. Are you sure you’re part of those beasts of legends that destroyed every planet and such?” Pascal normally wasn’t the flaunty guy, but he never had the chance to show off to someone before.

“Watch out!” Tony screamed, but it was too late. Like a normal boomerang, it always comes back to its thrower, and so it did, by knocking Pascal right behind the noggin throughout its trajectory. The boy had lived too long in the woods to know about the physics of a boomerang. The strength of the seemingly enchanted boomerang had made Pascal stumble to the ground and scrape his way up a couple of feet, digging up in the dirt and grass, rising up some dust and earth.

“Ha-ha, let’s see who surpasses who!” Jaw retorted. The lizaard walked to the cloud of dust where Pascal had been struck, but all that was left was a dug up dirt hole the size of a ten year old boy.

The boomerang went flying back in Jaw’s hand. He almost had the time to put the weapon back in its socket, but a small and powerful hand snatched that arm and pulled him, making him spin around, and in a second came a swinging arm, hand first; a hand that transformed into a fist, and a fist that transformed into a punch in the face. The pained lizaard held the side of his face, staring at a second dirt hole at his feet. Pascal pushed the reptile on both pectorals, making him back up a few steps, and then he launched a mighty round-house kick right in his ribs, making the monster fly in Tony’s direction.  As Jaw flew by beside Tony, Tony caught him by the tail, leaving Jaw to a halt as soon as the tail reached the end of its flexibility, and he then fell flat to the ground.  The boy picked him up by the collar and held him up with his right hand.

“How indestructible! Or flawless, was it you said earlier on?” Tony claimed while holding him up, the creature’s feet mopping the ground. At the same time, Jaw’s pinnacle-like skeesh opened and darted to Tony’s head, and it snapped shut on his face. Tony, who couldn’t see anything with Jaw’s clawed tail attached to his face, let go of his collar. As soon as Jaw fell back to the ground, he swung his tail behind him, throwing Tony on Pascal and making them clunk like bowling pins.

“Ow, man what’s your head made of?” Tony asked angrily, rubbing the side of his head.

“It’s made out of hero.” Pascal responded, sounding witty when he was only trying to conceal the pain of Tony’s skull against his.

The heroes got back up and saw Jaw running towards them with his sword. He slashed horizontally at Pascal, but the boy was able to duck in time, and then throw an upper-cut in Jaw’s now unguarded chin. The impact made Jaw back up a couple of steps but before he could even restore his alertness, Pascal advanced towards him, grabbed the arm that had the sword and twisted it around his back to make an arm lock.

“Gah! Oww! You little runt!” He squealed before dropping the sword. As soon as Tony saw this, he happily dashed for the sword, but before he could bend down to get it, he received another strike to the head by Jaw’s skeesh while Pascal was still holding his arm down and twisted. Tony backed off and fell on his arse, still insulted from the blow.

“Pascal! Cut his f*****g tail!”

Jaw was about to grab Pascal’s head with his skeesh, but the boy saw it coming so he let go of his arm and rolled to the left to free himself from danger. Jaw, now free, let out an “ah!” of relief while he bent down to get his sword with happiness. An unexpected green flash from the left picked him up and hauled him deeper in the forest, not even leaving him time to touch his sword. A fluorescent emerald crash was then heard and seen in the middle of the woods, followed by a strong screech that sounded like “WHAT THE HELL!”

“Nice job!” Pascal cheered, “What was that?”

“It’s the Atomic Green Laser, pretty useful ey? Now that we’ve got his sword, he’s half as strong.” Tony said.

“Right, so you’re not an earthling either… then you’re a hero from what planet?”

“Nemus!” Tony snapped.

“Nah, sorry, the place is taken. You sure are really strong though. You could be, you know, the Hero’s sidekick like in Catman and Bobin!”

“Batman and Robin,” Tony corrected, “No, you got it all wrong. I got the proof that I’m the Hero, I can explai--

Before Tony could finish his sentence, Pascal popped back into a raven and all his clothes flopped to the ground. He started flying around Tony’s head. “Can you do that, huh? Can you transform, Mister I’m-the-Hero?”

“I won’t even try. But can you do this?” Tony replied. He walked up to a tall tree and circled his arms around the stump. He pulled so hard while pushing back with his feet that the tree concocted a loud, cracking noise and it completely de-rooted itself from the ground. The tree then tipped its weight forward over Tony, and with his confidence to the maximum he held out his hands over him to support the tree’s fall.

As Tony lay squished in a pretzel position under the fallen tree, he yowled in panic. “Oh my god I’m gonna die help me help me! Please I can’t feel any limb except this immense pain in my back and it’s starting to grow in my neck too…oh, I see black… puddles of rainbow colors and hey, here’s a sheep galloping down the train track…” And as Tony went on wailing about pain and imaginary animals, the second hero changed back to a boy, got dressed (becoming a tedious routine), pushed the tree aside with his palms and uncurled Tony’s carcass as much as possible. Tony gestured him to wait with a crooked, broken forefinger, and after a minute or so, the first hero stood back up, looking as fresh and new as ever.

“Okay, you win on that one.” Pascal said, covering his mouth.

“Ha, you can’t pluck out a tree.”

“Sure I can, but that distortion trick and then getting back up to normal again, hell no.” He said smiling, and then they both broke out in laughter.

As both kids were laughing off their non-existent victory, the sky started turning orange, and when our heroes saw it, the serious was back in their faces again. They looked at each other, and then at the source, which came from Jaw’s crashing site, and before they could investigate any further, an enormous orange magma ball came their way. The beam was far too big for Tony and Pascal to dodge either way, so they had to run for their lives. As they were running, they were trying to find a solution to get rid of that big flaming ball that could melt anything in its touch; probably the strongest version of what Jaw had intended to launch in Tony’s face earlier.

“Hey, the cliff wall!” Tony shouted as he was panting, running and pointing at the top of the Cloudy Cliff. They both jumped off the ground and started flying to the top of the cliff. Pascal reached the top, watching the magma ball about to blast beneath him, but then he looked around. Tony wasn’t there.

“Pascal! I can’t make it!” Tony yelled from below who was still halfway from reaching the top. He didn’t have time to master his flying skills and his speed was not good at all. Pascal tried to dive and go get him, but he realised that the magma ball was way too close and it would just be a futile sacrifice. He flew back up so scared and full of adrenaline that he tripped and fell forward as he landed on the top. While ducked on the ground, he covered his face, ashamed of his failure, and waited for the big bang.