Departure

The boys stood there, gazing at the bloody, immobile corps in the mud. Pascal wanted to touch it, and Tony insisted on cutting him into little pieces in case he’d become an avenging zombie one day.

“He won’t come back, see?” Pascal kicked the dead lizaard in the ribs. “Your turn.”

 “No, I’m not touching that.”

“You are Nemusian, right?” Pascal asked, becoming more serious.

            “Yes, well kind of, I’m also a human.”

            “A human? Like, a nemusian sexing with a human and having a kid?”

            “No…but how does a guy living in the woods like you know that stuff?”

            “Cloudfire taught me a lot of stuff. But he said I can’t do it until I’m married.”

            “My father was a super powerful nemusian with two Birth Powers and with them he teleported me into an earthling woman’s belly, and I was born on Earth because of that.”

            “Really?” Pascal said while he focused on searching Jaw’s corpse.

            “Uh-huh it’s true.”

            “And what about me then?” Pascal asked him, as he dug his hand in a pouch on Jaw’s pants.

            “What do you mean? I’ve got no idea, you’re the one who has to explain that to me.”

            “That’s easy to say.” The blond boy muttered. He found the syringe that Jaw had stung him with, and he saw that it was now filled with thick red liquid. “Even Cloudfire doesn’t know how I survived. He told me that he and I were the only ones who had escaped the explosion, but now we know that wasn’t true.”

            “All of this has been happening so suddenly, I don’t understand half of what’s going on.” Tony whined. “This monster that’s been trying to kill us all day…I’ll probably be traumatized for life because of this, and all this alien story is confusing. I was taught all my life that aliens don’t exist.”

            “Tony, he stung me with this. What the hell is that? Look.” He then exposed the needle with thick blood jammed in the small fluid tank.

“He stung you? When did he do that?”

Pascal explained the part where he had left off running after Jaw, and now that the whole battle was concluded and filled on both sides, even more questions stirred up.

“Why would he want that from me?” Pascal wondered.

 Tony thought about the question a little more. “…You know what DNA is?”

Pascal shook his head in mystification.

“It’s something in the blood. It’s used to make clones and stuff like that. But people say it isn’t true, that it’s only in movies. Do you think he wanted to make a clone of you?”

“If that’s really it, then there could have been evil copies of me everywhere….awesome!”

“No man, it would be pretty bad.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

 “Well whatever his plan was, it ain’t happening!” Tony affirmed. He broke the syringe in half, letting all the blood it contained fall to the ground. and then they both held their fists in the air to celebrate their victory.

“Now let’s go find Cloudfire and tell him all of this!” Pascal said enthusiastically, grabbing Tony by the arm, and with his superior strength, he lifted the earthling right off the ground and left off flying.

“Nooo!” Tony screamed in horror from high up in the air, “My arm’s gonna rip off! I’m gonna s**t in my pants!”

            Seconds after having left the ground, Pascal remembered, so he halted his flight and dropped his head down in dismay. “Oh…right.” He said, “Cloudfire’s gone.” He was trying to hold back his tears, but Tony was wiggling incessantly under him.

            “Pascal! Let me go, my arm hurts and this is way too scary!” Tony was yelling as he dangled by the arm that Pascal was holding. Disheartened with memories, Pascal unintentionally let go of his arm and Tony was sent pummeling straight down.

Of course, the frightened boy screamed the whole way down, and as he dropped to his death, the usual green flash appeared once more. The Hero landed on both his hands in a handstand position, then instantly flicked backwards on his feet, and dashed back up into the air as quickly as he touched the ground. As he ascended back to Pascal’s level, he grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him.

“Hey.” Tony said with a monotonous face and tone, “You almost killed me right there.”

“Sorry,” Pascal grinned apathetically, “It’s just that… you were flying not too long ago so I forgot, I was thinking of something else…”

“I understand the shock, buddy, especially if it’s the only person you ever had, but you nearly killed me in the process so watch yourself.” Tony added.

“Okay I get it but hey, look, there was some smarts in there.” He replied, with an unconfident finger up in the air, “You’re actually flying now, so you’re back in nemusian mode.”

“You could’ve killed me!”

“But it didn’t, right? The Hero wouldn’t die in such a miserable way.”

“Dude, with all that happened, I think I’m immortal. Or else I was just very lucky.”

“I don’t know if I’m also immortal, but one thing’s for sure I can’t heal myself like you do. You saved our asses down there because of that.”

“Well I gotta admit you also saved me from a lot of delicate moments!” Tony replied.

“Yeah man! I think we make a great team!”

“An epic duo!”

“Yeah, whatever that means!”

The boys flew to the closest shore so they could lie under the sun and figure out what was the next step. They stood there and gazed at the clouds, trying to sort things out in their heads.

 “So…you don’t know the story of how you got here? Tony asked him.

 “Nope, not much to tell you… I’m a stranger to this planet and to my own. I don’t know my relation with either one. Cloudfire told me I arrived here in a spaceship during a war on Nemus. Supposedly Nemus doesn’t exist anymore, because of lizaards. We were all supposed to be dead.”

  “But some of us did survive, like me and you.” Tony added, “So the question is, are we the only nemusians on Earth? And how much lizaards could there be on Earth?”

“Maybe it was the only one left.” Pascal suggested.

“No…” Tony said silently, thinking with his head down. “It’s another one that brought me into this forest, so it’s undetermined how many there are, especially since Cloudfire told me they can produce offspring without copulation. I know for sure that there’s at least one left somewhere on Earth.”

“Copulation.” Pascal said, as if he had just invented the word himself but didn’t find a meaning to it yet.

“Having sex, reproducing…”

“Oh, okay! That ‘extracting semen from your sac and into the mouth of another mate’ thing?”

“Well, uh…that’s a way to do it, but it won’t result in any babies.”

“So then, why do they do it?”

“Hey, I don’t know I’m just a kid. Where did you learn about that?”

“That’s what Cloudfire told me.”

“…Umm, then that is strange.”

“So kids don’t reproduce?”

 “The point is, the lizaard that brought me here could have produced an unknown amount of kids.” Tony said, trying to get back on track.

“Which means they’ll all want to kill us?”

“Not only that, but they’ll want to rule over this planet. It’s in their nature to crave for power and superiority. They’ll do exactly like they did back when the other planets existed.”

“And if they rule…what does it change?”

            “You don’t want that… it could probably be the end of the world as you know it.”

            “Well the only world I’ve ever known just got destroyed so it shouldn’t be that bad.” Pascal replied, and then he started realizing how bad it was.

Pascal was staring at the ground in shock, and Tony didn’t really know how to respond to that, so he looked upon the area and spotted a funny looking dead tree with a big hole in its stump. He thought this could cheer up or at least distract his friend. “Hey man, look at that funny tree over there, I think we’d be able to build ourselves a secret base in there!” Tony asserted.

“What? Really? Show me!” Pascal answered, fully alert.

They scurried to the said tree and Pascal dove head-first in the opening before Tony could examine if there even was any space in there. It seemed there was because Pascal somehow found his way into the empty insides of the tree. He poked back out with a big smile. “Ah man!” He exclaimed. “Having known all this time, that could’ve been a cozy, durable, and effortless bed!”

“You… should see what kind of bed I’ve got at home.” Tony snickered.

“You think that I’d be able to be unnoticed too? Out there, in the big world where you are?”

“Of course, but you have to act normally. You and I possess things--we do things-- that humans don’t. We’ll have to keep an eye on that. Once I get back home, I’ll have to keep everything that happened here a secret. You have to do that on your side too, alright?”

“So you’re going back home…” Pascal said, looking deceived.

“Well duh! I’m already in a big heap of trouble right now and I absolutely have to catch up with my homework or else I’ll be in even more trouble.” Tony also terribly missed his family and friends, but he couldn’t say that to Pascal, who had just recently lost the only person who loved him.

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I hope we’ll see each other again someday! We’ll get to kick even more reptilian a*s!” Tony said cheerfully.

“So this is where we part ways, right?” Pascal asked.

“Well, yeah, pretty much.”

There was a little awkward moment, because Tony was done here and he had to leave for home, and Pascal wanted to come, but was scared of what waited outside of the island. He only traveled out three times to other places. Of course, he didn’t have a clue about the names and places he went to, and he didn’t tell Cloudfire about them. He’d say he’d go hunt for a massive amount of food, even though he’d come back with not that much for the time he was absent. He always kept Cloudfire’s words in mind, and hid from everyone on top of roofs or in alleys, and waited for night to come down and explore, and even then, he still couldn’t move that freely. He searched garbage cans and anything else he could find on the street for some new discoveries. That was all he knew about the big world. But now, there’s someone telling him that it was actually possible for him to blend in with the crowd without any worry, and he could finally live the life of an earthling. Pascal didn’t have a choice but to ask, with a little shyness in his voice, “…Can I come with you?”

“What? But, you won’t have a house, food, clothes and uh…”

“Well, I don’t really have this here anymore now.”

Tony had no idea what he could do with him once he arrived home. He couldn’t introduce a new friend to his parents after being missing for weeks, plus he couldn’t tell them Pascal had no parents, no house and all. But he couldn’t leave him there. He wanted to show him to Sidrik. He wanted to show Pascal some games and adventures they do, show him what a game console is like, teach him how to play soccer…and plenty of things that every kid should have done by 10 years old! “Alright then, I’m bringing you to the big world.” He said, then lifted off, ready to leave. He turned around and added, “In exchange, you’ll have to teach me how to transform.”

“Heh, I’ll also teach you how to fly.”

“That’s one of the first things I learned.”

“Ha! You call that flying?” Pascal then lifted up, and blasted off past Tony and into the big blue sky.

“I’ll win!” Tony shouted trying to catch up on his new friend.

Past the Brazin Islands was now an endless calm sea, drifting slowly to the north wind’s company, the direction in which the two heroes were flying to eventually catch some land. Little rock formations and small islands popped up to break the blue affinity, and from so far up they only seemed like small little poops floating on top of a large swimming pool. Their height was past the seagulls, and as they looked down at the flock below them, a smidgeon of revenge took upon Tony’s regards for all the innocent people who got their shoulders or head bombarded by white gooey balls of s**t. The boy unbuttoned his pants, flew a little further ahead than the flock below him, and released the tension that tickled him for about half an hour. It didn’t take long for the pattern of white seagulls to disperse and start screaming like when they fight over a sandwich crust on the beach. He continued pissing on them and laughed until he saw Pascal to the side looking at him like he was a complete idiot, so he put it back in his pants and told him that he wouldn’t understand Canadian humor. The sun was strikingly blinding and the sky was as clear as could be.

“Ah…” Pascal started, “What a nice sunny day.”

“Oh damn! I forgot about that…” Tony said, and then clapped his hands twice once more. The sun quickly came down and there the day transformed from a nice, hot sunny day to a chilly, orange sunrise. The sun was back where it was supposed to be, according to the time on the clocks from all over the world. Such drastic changes like that are not only dangerous for the peoples’ health and sanity, but also to the humans’ doubt of extraterrestrial activities upon this planet. The sun’s celestial movement was maybe back to normal, but the event would be marked in this planet’s history forever, and tons of  money would be wasted for researches on this particular supernatural event. The answer simply lay in one little boy, and as he thought about it, the little boy understood the potential consequences of his actions, and he swore to never move the sun anymore. Tony was realising that he’d have to be very careful with his powers.

He couldn’t wait to finally see his friends, especially Sidrik, and tell what happened. But they absolutely had to keep it secret. What good are friends for if they can’t even keep secrets? Thinking about it, he remembered all the times he told the gang which girl he had a crush on, and the girl would suddenly know about it at recess. Same thing when he sees the twenty or so fingers in the class pointing at him when he clearly told everyone to shut up about the penis drawing on the chalkboard. Maybe, just maybe, he’d have to reconsider disclosing it to anyone. But then again, what harm would it do to tell all his classmates that he’s a super strong super hero? Everyone would respect him, idolize him, and he could get all the girlfriends he wanted. Even the old secondary kids would respect him when he’d make a demonstration of splitting a cafeteria table in half. He imagined himself flying on top of his school’s roof to get all the roofed balls, a term to refer to all those hundreds of balls that people threw too high while playing A*****e. The landing spot for all those balls, the roof, was considered the Ball Paradise. All the kids would then gather around the wall to receive their share of balls, and he would be considered an icon for everyone, popularity would surround him, and he could become rich! He was just fantasizing, obviously, because he knew that he couldn’t actually reveal his Birth Powers. He remembered what Cloudfire told his partner about not being seen. Cloudfire was wise, and he surely had a reason to hide Pascal for so long. He looked at his new partner flying beside him, and that’s when he realised it. “By the way, what happened to your shirt?” He asked him.

“My shirt? Oh right, I forgot it.” Pascal said, finally noticing his bare n*****s.

“Well, we should head back and go get it.”

“Nah, don’t feel like it.”

“I’m not bringing you anywhere without a shirt on.”

“Aw, come on…”

 

 

***

 

Tony’s father was mad. Now that he chugged five cups of coffee, that his fingers were trembling with artificial energy, that he was finally ready to start the day, the f*****g sun decided to go back down. During all this time, Tony’s mom had not stopped crying and rolling in her bed trying to shake off the horrible scene that she saw on television the day before. She was able to go take a look at the channels to hear the official confirmation that time had come back to normal and everyone had the day off of work and school, but time, no matter how much it would change, could not bring back her son, and thus, it was useless news for her. It was now 5:00 am, too late to go to bed, and too early to be up. “Bullshit,” He told himself, I’m goin’ to bed.” And so he went to bed, rolling from one side to the other not only due to caffeine overdose, but also because of the incessant sobbing of Tony’s mother beside him. Because of his stubborn nature, he stayed there and forced himself to snore, and eventually, after hours, now that it was daylight, he finally fell asleep in the most fucked up day of his life. The days of mourning were to come.

Sidrik was calm. He was worried about his buddy but he didn’t believe he was dead. Maybe kidnapped, tortured and raped, but not dead. He knew that Tony would come back with a funny story. Nonetheless, Sidrik always kept his senses. He knew that panicking and ruining his everyday life because of a lost one would not make the lost one come back. Not from self-centeredness , but because of knowledge of how futile and time wasting it would be, he would not be the one trying to lead the group of panicking people back to reason and safety. No, he’d be the one doing his own business and it’s not his problem if all the others die from stupidity. But Tony was worth saving. But Tony, as it happened, was not anywhere close right now. He stroked his hair back for a better view on the Gameboy screen, and kept playing away like a warrior. Anyways, Tony wasn’t dead; he felt it. Warriors feel stuff like that. Of course he hadn’t seen the news, and not everyone could recognize the bloody boy instantly from so far away. Only the senses of a loving mother could recognize her child from a mile away. Sidrik was now at the final dungeon of his beloved Zelda game and Mr. Bark hadn’t even busted him yet. Slashing his way through the last fortress, he sighed to himself for not being able to show his skills to the person he had trusted the most.

Mr. Bark was happy. There was still Phillip. There was still Scott, Keven, Bradley, and a whole other bunch of troublemakers. But Tony wasn’t there. Everything seemed, though it was not, calmer than before. Kevin was barking like a dog, while Scott was talking Grace into prostitution due to her premature breast growth, and she responded by smacking him in the face and that lead to Scott screaming exaggeratedly to top over Kevin’s barking, and Bradley was laughing, well, more like squealing, as he always did. Phillip was fighting with Anthony in a hug & push duel until Anthony got fed up and kneed the boy in the balls. Phillip screamed like a girl in response, and the other girls kept chattering in the background. But that did not matter to Mr. Bark, even though his assignments were flying everywhere in form of paper airplanes or in crumpled balls.  He sat on his rolling office chair, back turned to the class, with head rested in his palms as he smiled and stared above as if a belly dancer was exposing herself on the tiles of the ceiling. His deep hatred for Tony had an unknown root; it could have been due to his past experience with Tony’s older brother Jimmy, but then again, Tony had a reputation of his own. The whole gang had a reputation, but they were not as labeled as Tony was for every single movement that happened in the classroom. Bark’s year would be a good one now that he got rid of the sole person who disrupted his teachings. He could finally enjoy his days without having to come back home cantankerous from all the exhaustion he suffered from work, having to scream all his anger at his black sucker fish that he named Bob. Indeed, one day, while he was shopping at Wal-Mart for Kraft Dinner Tuesday, he crossed paths with the fish aquariums and as he mumbled in misery, one big plecostomus sucked at the aquarium’s window as if to get his attention, and it meant everything to Mr. Bark. He bought the fish instantly and since then he shared all his misery with his best friend Bob.

Mr. Bark finished daydreaming on his office chair, turned around to get a good look at the class, and decided to get a sip of his coffee that was posed innocently on his paper-packed desk. As he grasped his fingers around the cup’s handle, all the class remained silent and stiff as if about to see the final revelation of a soap opera. He squinted suspiciously at the whole class while slowly raising his cup up to his mouth. Without leaving his gaze from the students in front of him, he gently tipped the cup and got a good load of vinegar-filled coffee up into his mouth, and then he instantly spat it back out all over his paperwork.

“Who did this to my coffee? Tony, go to the office!” Mr. Bark blared out, with drool leaking from both sides of his mouth and stains of coffee on the shirt that his grandmother had knit for him.

“We all miss him too, sir.” Sidrik said, without even raising his head from his Gameboy screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

***

 

The two heroes were flying over the sea, and then Tony revealed the truth to Pascal.

“Umm…To be honest, I have no idea where we’re going.”

“Well, aren’t we going to your home?” Pascal asked.

“Yeah but I don’t think you understand how big the world is.”

“Okay, but you do, so we’re fine.”

“Pascal, I have absolutely no idea how to get back to my place.”

 “Really? Well what do we do then?”

“The first thing we gotta do… is figure out where is North America.”

“Oh, North America? I know that, I think it’s over there.” Pascal said, pointing in a direction where only water seemed to exist.

“You know what North America is?” Tony asked, surprised.

“Oh yeah, I’m pretty sure I went there once. It’s somewhere over there.”

“Okay, if you say so…”

“Alright! Let’s go buddy, we’re gonna find it eventually. Off to the big world!” Pascal exclaimed wholeheartedly as he flew away, and after a moment of hesitation, Tony decided to follow him into the unknown.