When Erewhon saw that Catherine Cobert was awaiting him in
Gatwick Airport, instead of Kimiyo, he felt the tingling warmth
in his chest go cold. He was disappointed, but he knew he'd
see Doctor Light soon; so, it didn't really
matter. When Catherine told Erewhon that Dr. Light had been
hospitalised - she'd dislocated a shoulder and had taken a rough
landing on her head* - his soulself retreated from the android
body he'd been residing in; the 'droid didn't matter. When Cath
tried to explain that the doctors thought she'd be fine - that
she'd be able to leave the hospital in a few short days - Erewhon
didn't hear, because he had already bolted; Kimi's children
would be safe in the airport with Catherine; none of them mattered.
The invisible, intangible Erewhon soared over crowded streets
under bright daylight. He saw a mugging; it didn't matter. He
made his way to the hospital, and began passing through walls,
invading patient's privacy; it didn't matter. He went from room
to room, from nurses' station to nurses' station, looking for
the whereabouts of Kimiyo. He saw a man who was badly burned,
a woman who was missing a leg, a boy finding out that he has
cancer and a daughter grieving over her father's death; none
of it matter. He had to find
Kimi.
When Erewhon came upon a woman in her late-twenties talking
to her comatose husband, something did
matter. Although he had no recollection of ever seeing her before,
he somehow knew her.
Engaging his turquoise-coloured hard-light hologram, he questioned
the woman, "Alanna?"
Startled, she looked up at the ghostly form. Recognising him
from a news program as an EuroGuardian, she offered, "Uhhh...correct...that's
me."
Alanna. The woman from his dream*
- his memory?
"I - I'm sorry for bothering you," Erewhon said politely. He
wanted to talk to this woman, but he knew that there was something
else he had to do. "I have
to...have to...uhm...see a friend now..."
Staring at Alanna, Erewhon backed out of the room. He smiled
just before he left, but as his hologram has no face, Alanna
didn't see it.
*(Dr. Light was injured, and Erewhon had
this dream last
issue - Brendan)
There were seventeen suspicious-looking brown stains on the
ceiling. Blue Jay knew this for a fact, as he'd spent the last
five minutes staring at the ceiling of Dr. Light's private hospital
room. He was alone with Kimi in the room, which held five chairs
positioned around Light's bed in a semicircle.
"Can I get you a magazine?" Jay asked Kimiyo suddenly.
"No thank-you," she replied. "Robert brought me a whole stack
of HeroStyle Weekly."
"Hm," Jay nodded. Feeling awkward with nothing being said, he
asked, "Hm? I thought HeroStyle
was a monthly magazine...?"
"It is. HeroStyle Weekly
is a separate publication. It's new," Light responded with a
smile on her face. "Robert started it once he took over Revson;
it focuses on newspaper-style articles reporting the public
goings-on of super heroes. It's been getting gossipy lately..."
From the pile beside her bed, Dr. Light tossed to Blue Jay the
most recent issue, which had a scantily-clad Supergirl on the
cover. "Robert hasn't been as involved in the company, because
of his duties as the Fox, and the magazine has a new editor.
It's trashier now - almost like a tabloid. It even has pin-ups
of models wearing costumes based on popular heroes and villains."
Flipping back to the pages of pouty models, Blue Jay rolled
his eyes. "I'm surprised it wasn't Robert himself who introduced
soft-core porn to the magazine."
"That was rather harsh,"
Dr. Light said sternly, but a part of her had secretly thought
the same thing. It was a part of her she had thought to be dead
and buried...until Avryss dug it up. From the corner of her
eye, Dr. Light spotted a familiar turquoise glow. It was comforting,
like a childhood nightlight.
"Erewhon?" Kimi asked, with a strong sense of relief in her
tone.
In an instant, Erewhon was hovering by her side - his hard-light
arms wrapped around her chest, and his face against her good
shoulder, as she hugged him tightly.
"Kimi I was so worried when Catherine told me I'm so glad you're
okay Don't ever scare me like this again!" he mumbled into her
shoulder.
"I've got sandwiches!" Maya announced, smiling broadly as she
entered the room, with a small bag in one hand. Power Girl followed
her in and grunted, carrying four larger bags. "Did I say 'I'?"
Chandi asked. "I meant 'we.'
Y'know...I must've confused the royal 'we' with 'I' since they
mean the same thing. It's not like we're Royals; I figure I
shouldn't use the royal 'we'...y'know?"
Tasmanian Devil entered the room, holding a tray of sodas, and
muttered to Robert, "Overcompensated giddiness to hide her concern
for the Doctor?"
"Ya think?" Crimson Fox whispered back, carrying only his credit
card. Brother Manindra followed the EuroGuardian, holding absolutely
nothing. They were all dressed in street clothes, with their
costumes underneath, except for Manindra. He wore his only dark
blue robe.
Erewhon was standing by Dr.
Light's side now. When the others arrived, he had unconsciously
pulled away. "Isn't it a bit late for dinner?"
"We were hungry," Power Girl replied with the only answer she
thought was necessary. "Some
of us did actual super-hero-ing yesterday. We weren't lucky
enough to be vacationing in Japan," Kara taunted with a wry
grin.
Suddenly, Dr. Light asked Erewhon, "Where are my children?"
"At the airport with Catherine," he explained. "I had to get
here right away to see how you were."
A small part of Kimiyo was angry, but the rest of her beamed
a smile.
A short, red-haired nurse strolled into Dr. Light's room without
knocking. She announced, "Visiting hours are almost up. I'll
have to ask anyone who isn't family to leave immediately."
Dr. Light looked around at her team, and smiled. "...They're
all family."
"Even so, I'll have to ask that only one of them spend the night,"
the nurse insisted.
Brother Manindra laughed a sinister laugh, which made Power
Girl wonder if an insane super-villain had trained him. He had
only spoken in hushed tones to Chandi previously, but now he
spoke in a deep rich voice. "Family? You are barely a functioning
team!"
He laughed again. "You are, in fact, a group of unstable, self-involved
vigilantes, who are constantly in danger of flying apart. The
only thing holding you together is the nostalgia you all have
of your 'glory days' - when, by default, you managed to be the
Justice League. Of course,
even when you were at the top, you managed to sully the name
of the Justice League. You may not like to hear it," he said
to all of them, but to Power Girl in particular, "but it's a
good thing Superman and the others took control of the Justice
League from all of you. ...Oh...I'm being unfair, aren't I?
They didn't take the League from any of you,
since all of you had already given up on the League, if I read
the records correctly.
"Look at you all. I mean, really
look. Power Girl is bipolar. Dr. Light would rather hide in
her lab than lead this team, but all any of you see is that
she does a good job in the battlefield. Blue Jay is such an
obvious angry closet case. Tasmanian Devil creates such an air
of civility about him - he is well read, friendly, polite, and
he has got a beast inside that cannot break loose. When he does
let it loose, though, there is hell to pay. Do you even remember
any of your recent fights, Hugh, or are they all blurs? Did
you even notice that you struck Power Girl when you were fighting
Count Vertigo? Erewhon is so concerned with who we was that
he can't see all that is wonderful in his life. And Maya. ...Maya
is the most pathetic of you all. She has such amazing potential,
and yet she wastes it with this
bunch."
Manindra laughed again, and then hit the ground - unconscious.
Sneering, Chandi shook her fist at Manindra; "I didn't waste
this potential." In a second,
Maya was smiling like a pop star and turned to Dr. Light. "Goodnight,
Kimi. We'll be back tomorrow morning...unless we're on Apokolips
or Atlantis or Almerac."
EuroGuard returned to their sonic sled on one of the hospital's
heli-pads, and soared off in the direction of the Justice Castle.
Erewhon remained at the hospital with Dr. Light, but sneaked
out of her room minutes later, once she quickly fell asleep.
Erewhon drift into the room of Michael Randall. Alanna Randall
was seated next to Mike's bed, and was whispering to him softly.
"It's been four years, hasn't it?" Erewhon asked tenderly.
Alanna looked up, recognised Erewhon, and nodded.
"Why do you still come here?" he queried.
"I like talking to him. Maybe all those books and television
shows are right, and he can
here me, and it helps him. ...Besides, we never had many friends.
We just had each other. I won't give up on him."
"What do you talk to him about, 'Lana?"
She winced. "What did you call me?"
"Alanna."
"No. You didn't. You called me 'Lana'." Turning away from Erewhon,
she thought, 'Mike used to call me that."
"I apologise. I promise it won't happen again."
Hesitating for a moment, she replied, "Well...mainly, I talk
to him about my book - the book I'm writing..."
"About monkeys?"
"...Yes. How did you know
that?"
"Dreams."
The sonic sled sat cooling on the Justice Castle's landing
pad. Maya, Manindra, Fox and Power Girl hopped out of the aft
section, while Taz and Blue Jay remained sitting in the piloting
section.
Hugh had asked Jay to wait a moment, as the other entered the
castle. He cleared his throat; "Uhm...Jay...about what Manindra
said...about you. I think he phrased it, 'Classic Closet Case?'
Is there...uh...is there anything you'd like to talk about?"
"What is there to talk about?" Jay responded flippantly, looking
Hugh hard in the eyes. "I. Am. Gay." In a heartbeat he got defensive.
" I just...don't...don't date much...or at all. Whatever." He
shrugged and faked an awkward chuckle.
A smile began to creep onto Hugh's face. He thought, 'He
already knows me, he's single and he's gay? Why didn't
I know this?'
"Seriously, who would want
to date me?" Jay started, getting bitter. "The life of a super
hero is much too dangerous to involve a civilian, and how could
a fellow hero be impressed with me? I can shrink and flutter
about. Hell, not even a non-powered guy would be impressed with
that. And..."
Hugh scoffed unconsciously, sounding more hostile than he intended.
"A relationship isn't based on...impressing another person."
"Oh? And how many guys are lining up to date you, Mr. Wolf-Man?"
Taz gaped at Jay. "...I've been working on these - these breathing
exercises to control..."
Disgusted by what came out of his own mouth, Jay apologised,
"I am so incredibly sorry.
I think I use humour as a...y'know...defence mechanism, and
my sense of humour is very...um... cruel. I've just been feeling...I
mean, I have difficulty...I...uh....Dammit. Gotta go."
"Please come again soon," Karen Huggins said in an obviously
rehearsed sweet voice to a woman who had already walked away.
"Or don't," she added with a roll of her eyes. She was a bank
teller at C. Hoare & Co., and she hated her job. She only showed
up for work because it paid well, which allowed her to attend
University during the day. Her parents would have paid for school
if she had stayed in Bombay with them, but there were too many
difficult memories for her there. She preferred living in London,
the city of her birth.
When the phone rang, and Karen answered it, her manager looked
her over up and down. He wasn't interested in the curves her
tight pink suit showed off; he was simply curious about how
long it had taken her pick that suit out in the store. He wondered
how much time it had taken
for her to put her shoulder-length blonde hair up into such
a perfect bun.
"It's for you," Karen said to her manager. "It's the same man
who called you earlier."
"Oh no no no, it's too soon!" her manager whined.
In a POP three costumed men
appeared in the bank's foyer.
A hooded man, wearing blue body armour, stepped forward. With
lightning crackling around his team, he asked in an amused tone,
"Must I say it?"
"If you won't, Major, I will," a man wearing brown armour snarled.
"Everyone shut up and get
on the ground!"
The hooded-man, Major Disaster, sighed at his brown-clad colleague,
Multi-Man. "Which mood swing is this?
Flair-for-the-dramatic?"
Multi-Man growled at the Major, and back-flipped away from him,
landing a flying kick in a security guard's chest.
"Right. It's a bezerker rage," Major Disaster deadpanned, as
he watched Multi-Man kick the security guard on the ground with
as much interest as one might watch a Public Television Telethon.
"Big Sir," Major asked of his purple-spandex-clad partner unenthusiastically,
"go rip open the vault, as we didn't give our dear colleague
enough time to do so."
Major Disaster and Big Sir looked to the bank's manager, the
semi-retired Clock King. "Time
is my life. I had the vault's timing mechanism reprogrammed
15.7632 seconds after you called me earlier...but
it still isn't going to open for another...3.9452 seconds. You
wasted valuable time by arriving before it opened."
From her spot on the floor with her too-much-perfume-wearing
co-workers, Karen couldn't believe these criminals were still
talking. She considered taking them out with a few of her flame
bolts, but she had hit the red button a second after they teleported
into the bank. The police were on the way, and she wasn't sure
how she'd explain four flambéed crooks. If only she had brought
her costume with her...
"I am truly sorry about this, folks," Major Disaster announced
to the innocent people cowering on the floor, as Multi-Man was
moving about the room as quick as the Flash (if he had a thumbtack
in each foot), knocking them all unconscious with jabs to specific
pressure points. Disaster continued while Big Sir and Clock
King began bagging the cash, "I have to ask that none of you
attempt to stop us, or alert the authorities, or else we'll
have to kill you all. It's nothing personal; this is all a matter
of self-defence, really. Because, if we don't get this money,
my co-workers and I are all going to die."
"...Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. IdiotIdiotIdiotIdiot," Blue Jay muttered
to himself like a mantra, as he flew circles around the Justice
Castle. As he began to feel foolish for overreacting, he fluttered
down to the roof, and simply stared at the ground, panting.
Still sitting in the sonic sled, dumbfounded, Hugh cleared his
throat again. "Is...Is there something wrong?"
'Tell him you're lonely,'
Blue Jay thought to himself. 'Tell him
you're sad; tell him you're scared; tell him what a pathetic
hero you are; tell him you hate your costume; tell him anything!'
Abruptly, Jay told him, "Please accept my most apologetic...uhm...apology.
I guess...I was upset that there was this huge part of me that
you didn't even know or suspect about. And if you
didn't know, how likely is it that any of the others know?"
"Well...tonight seems to be a quiet night. Maybe you should
go down there and tell the rest of them," Hugh suggested.
Comforted, Jay suggested with a cocked eyebrow and a wry grin,
"Or we could go down there and show
them."
Tasmanian Devil blinked.
"I was joking..." Blue Jay
assured his stunned teammate. "Are you blushing?!?"
Taz started to shake his head 'no,' when Power Girl soared up
from the staircase, grabbed Taz by his wrist, and took off into
the sky. Taz held onto her left hand, as Maya held onto PG's
right hand. It wasn't until Crimson Fox followed Kara up, and
hurled himself off the roof with a jumpline in hand that Blue
Jay realised he should follow.
With a flutter of wings, he caught up to the Fox, and Jay asked
his teammate, "Why aren't we taking the sled?"
"Bank's right around the corner," Fox explained quickly. "We'll
get there faster than it'd take to find a parking space!"
EuroGuard gracefully stepped out of the sky amid the emergency
services on the ground in front of the bank.
Releasing Tasmanian Devil and Maya, Power Girl ordered, "Jay,
Fox, I want you to..."
Kara stared at something over Blue Jay's shoulder, and cocked
her head to the side, unsure if she was hallucinating.
The other EuroGuardians turned around to see the red
and silver armoured man who was walking towards them.
When the armoured man recognised the EuroGuardians, there was
only one thing he could think of saying:
"Hokey Smokes!"
Next: Dr. Light is in the hospital,
old friends have showed up unexpectedly in London, more EuroGuardian
secrets will be revealed and the Injustice League continues
its crime spree. There's only one thing EuroGuard can do...
Kareoke!
Please note that there is no EUROPINION this month, as there
have been no letters. All questions, comments, suggestions and
hate-mail can be sent to globalguard@hotmail.com
EuroGuard
Glory is fleeting. Obscurity is forever
