The Epiphany Of A Stoned Bug

"You know, I think he's reached the deep end..."

Po shook his head at his avian friend. "No, I think he's just on something."

"Liquor?"

"Nah..."

"Drugs?"

Po thought for a moment. "Maybe..."

"Who's on what now?" Viper slithered up to Po and Crane, overhearing part of their conversation. When she noticed who and what they were talking about, she blinked, confused. "Um... What is he doing?" she mentioned to the familiar small green figure outside with her tail.

"We think he's gone off the deep end," Crane explained simply.

"No no, he's just on something," Po argued, shaking his head.

"Well... What?"

Po shrugged. "Beats me."

"Well, I'll ask him." Crane turned his attention to that small figure standing outside. "Mantis!"

The bug turned, playing with a strand of string. "What is it Crane? Can't you see I'm busy?"

"What in the world are you doing?"

"Oh!" Grinning, Mantis hopped over to the three of them, who had been watching him from inside the door frame. "You mean this?" He held up the string.

"Yeah, that."

"Are you on something?" Po asked, rather bluntly.

"Uhh... No." His stunned expression quickly went back to that grin. "I just had an epiphany! That's all!"

Crane raised an eyebrow. "An... epiphany?"

Mantis nodded, smiling widely. "See? Watch!" He puffed out his chest, holding the string up high. "I am-" he pulled the string, and out popped two large, colorful pieces of cloth from either side of his back, appearing to be wings. Oddly enough, they were shaped as butterfly wings... "-Butterfly Man! Dun duh duh daaa!" he struck a heroic pose.

There was a long moment of silence from Crane, Po and Viper. Po backed up a little, while Crane and Viper stared at Mantis with wide eyes.

"Yep, he's gone off the deep end," Po stated, hiding behind Crane, positive that his friend had surely gone crazy and was no longer, mentally, there.

"No, he's defiantly on something," Crane disagreed, his beak hanging wide open in shock.

Viper would be the one to get the answer out of him herself. "Mantis?" She asked slowly, carefully.

Mantis stayed in his superhero pose, but glanced over at her anyway. "Yeah, Vipe?"

"Did you drink something?"

He frowned, a bit offended. "No..."

"Did you eat something?"

"No..."

"Did you smoke something?"

"Err..." he hesitated, a guilty look on his face. "...no.." He glanced between the stunned faces of his friends, now fully offended. "What makes you think that I'm on something?"

"Hmmm... Maybe because you're dressed as a butterfly," Crane replied, matter-of-factly.

Mantis scoffed, waving off Crane's example. "Everyone does that..."

"And you're calling yourself 'butterfly man'..."

"It's my super hero name!" the bug protested. "I am-" using one of his new 'wings', he brought it over his face, concealing himself in an over-dramatic, mysterious fashion. "-Butterfly Man!"

Crane sighed, placing his wing over his face. "Oh Lords have mercy..." he sighed, shaking his head.

Mantis dropped the wing, crossing his pinchers over his chest. He glared at them. "You guys don't believe me, do you?"

There was no verbal answer, but the guilty, stunned and confused expressions mixed equally on their faces suggested the answer.

"But I am-" Using of his 'wings', he concealed his face again. "-Butterfly Man! I'll show you!" He turned and began to hop outside quickly, and it took a few seconds for Viper to realize what Mantis was planning on doing.

"OH MY GODS!" She shrieked, slithering quickly after him. "He's going to jump off a cliff!"

When her words sank in, Crane and Po quickly followed suit, all the while Po began calling out, "We don't support your drug habit Mantis! Don't commit suicide! WE LOVE YOU!"

When they reached a nearby cliff that appeared, physically, to lead hundreds of feet below, they noticed Mantis standing over the cliff. He closed his eyes, spreading his 'wings'.

"Suicide is not the answer, Mantis," Po explained slowly, on the verge of tears.

"Who said anything about suicide?" Mantis asked, not turning to face the three. "I'm going to show you I can fly!" Out of the blue, he started singing, while preparing to jump, "I can fly, I can fly, I can fly, I can fly, I can-" He hopped off the cliff, spreading his 'wings', feeling the cold air breeze past him as, for one second, and only one second, he actually flew freely, "FLLLLLLY- AUGHHH!" That one second went by quickly, and immediately his singing was cut off by screaming as he fell.

Po fainted, Viper screamed and rushed over to the cliff where Mantis made an unknowing suicide jump, and Crane only stared with wide eyes, beak hanging wide open.

When Viper looked over the cliff, and glanced down... Her racing heart, the tears that were surely about to fall at the thought that her first real boyfriend had just accidentally committed suicide by throwing himself off a cliff, were cut short, and instead were replaced by relief... and un-amusement when she noticed a small green body, lying on hard ground just five feet below...

Mantis was lying face first on hard, solid ground, after slamming face-first into said-ground. He looked injured, but, while moaning in pain, he still held up one mangled pincher, shouting out, "I am... Butterfly Man!" His pincher fell back to the ground beside him, a sign he was now knocked out after impact, though he still continued to moan in pain. "Owww..."

Viper closed her eyes, no longer frightened by watching him jump off a (very small) cliff, but instead frustrated. "He's alive," she called out to the shocked crane and surely passed out panda.

Still shocked by the accidental suicide he was sure he had just witnessed, Crane stuttered out, "H-he is?"

"Yeah," Viper sighed, "He's just injured... and incredibly high..."

A/N: Random idea I got in biology today and HAD to write. XD And yes, Mantis was obviously on something... (coughcoughweedcough), you decide. Lol, in his size, a five feet fall IS a suicide jump. XD

The song he sang was supposed to be the song sang in "Peter Pan". You know, where they're all flying, singing, "We can fly, we can fly, we can fllly!" Yes, that one, only edited down to Mantis singing it as, "I can fly, exc..."

Kinda based on the whole Muscular Beaver thing from the show "The Angry Beavers". The only way Mantis would call himself a superhero is if he were on something.

You all know Dag's most memorable line: "Muscular beaver, WHOOSSSH!" XD