JMJ

Chapter Ten

Internal Twister

ACE

First there was pain. Then it was over. First agony, then… had that been real? I had been powerful. I felt so much power rippling through me I had to wonder if that was what Mojo had felt when he had made himself a giant stupid ape so he could cosplay as King Kong over the City of Townsville.

What had I been cosplaying as?

The Blob?

The Incredible Melting Man?

Hulk on a bad day.

Something closer to that last one, except… muckier.

Yeah.

I was flying. I was swooping. I heard the city, felt the city, I was almost one with her again. It felt… well! Amazing. I could feel the stars through the smoggy clouds above the city. I could feel the power of the earth molten and alive below me. I could hear voices.

"There he is!" "Are you sure?"

A dream? Nah. Those are those guys! I thought, though thinking felt awkward, and it was difficult. The scientists that're after me.

I swept like a panther right at their truck. Right through their truck like it was made of cardboard, but even before I noticed them I had been running.

Running from what? I didn't know.

Time and space was basically slushed together into the goop of my mind. Actual events were impossible.

There had been Snake. There had been his mom, and then?

I stormed right through the science geeks' truck?

Yeah. But between that?

I swallowed hard. It was thicker than peanut butter, but if it had been peanut butter it sure was well past the date and had been growing with some molded jelly too. I felt heavy and stiff like a rusted, grounded plane. A beached whale bloated in the baking sun. I licked my dry lips.

Huh.

My teeth weren't fangs.

That might not have been the first thing that other people might have noticed, but I'd had fangs for three years. It had almost been more natural to have them back since the lab with Dr. Form than have them lost again almost like I was missing teeth. They felt sore, though, like I'd been clenching real hard.

I rubbed my cheek.

I blinked a little, feeling the sun filtering through the crevices of buildings, and I was on a blacktop. A brick wall was behind me and I was curled against it and a trashcan like a washed-up dog. Normal city humming and beats, though distant, played to the beating of my pounding heart. My beast-self had apparently found someplace out of the way, anyway. I didn't feel like thinking about it hard once I realized that.

Thinking hurt.

I wasn't feeling well. I was also feeling strangely guilty. I didn't like it. Ace did not feel guilt. Ace was the leader of the Gangreen Gang. Guilt was not part of his cold-blooded nature. Ace didn't care if little kids cried at his feet. In fact, he liked it. He ate it for breakfast with the milk of old folks home's medical bills after taking someone for a ride in a wheel chair.

No guilt.

Too tired for guilt.

I longed for repose. Blankness. I vaguely remembered the scientists saying my brain would fail me eventually, but even that gave me only a weak fear at the moment. Even irritation was too much.

I curled up again exhausted.

I heard a scuff, but ignored it.

I could smell something pretty bad, but I knew that was just me. My heightened senses as a beast had been dulled all around after whatever I had just gone through last night. It made me feel incapacitated.

Just rest. The blacktop as my pillow? Fine, fine, anything!

The scuff dared to sound off again as though just to tempt my wrath.

I moaned. It meant to sound like a warning, but I'm positive it was more like a whine of an overtired toddler.

"Is that you, Ace?"

I blinked into the blacktop.

Was I dreaming or had I just heard…?

I lifted my head further along a shadow— a pretty small shadow like some little lost kid had just gone round the wrong corner, but I knew those shoes. I knew those pants and that school uniform-type shirt with the torn-off school logo. But, y'know, I could never not place that accent and that voice that went with it all.

"Lil' Arturo?!" I croaked.

Tiredness forgotten… well, almost— I sat up. Plopped back down on the blacktop, I glared at him, sizing him up, and there wasn't much to size, of course. Even sitting slouched I was higher up than him.

"Yep, that's you!" declared Arturo.

"What're ya doing here?!" I demanded.

"Walking," said Arturo.

I sniffed. "Yeah."

Silence.

"What… happened to you, huh?" asked Arturo.

I glared at him.

"We thought for sure you went someplace to crawl away and die so that no one would see your last gasping breath, but you been really waiting to die this long and you haven't?"

I still glared at him.

I'll say it. I didn't like how he was looking at me. Not one bit. He was examining the state I was in and not looking happy about it. He even backed away just a tiny bit. I pretended not to notice and tried not to be bothered by the fact that I didn't know what I looked like myself except that I was still that funny yellowish color.

"So… where's Grubber?" I asked holding out my hand with a shrug.

Arturo's eyes leapt. He suddenly looked even more uncomfortable. Maybe it wasn't the way I looked, after all, that had him jumpy.

I glared again, this time with grave suspicion.

"Oh, he's…he's…" Arturo was looking everywhere but at me so that he looked like some cat clock without the grin.

"What? He's in prison too?"

"No." He looked at me again.

"Then what?"

Arturo nodded with a kind of consent. "I'll just take you to him, okey? Okey."

I paused. "Vale descuento."

Arturo blinked. "That means, 'Discount coupon'."

"Oh. Well, then, okay! Lead the way already!"