Reality Check

The Supervillian

Walking On A Dream (by Empire of the Sun)

"We are always running for the thrill of it, thrill of it. Always pushing up the hill, searching for the thrill of it . . ."

___

"Bethany!" a girl's voice shouted, unmistakably Gwen's. As the figure got closer, Bethany could see that it really was Gwen. In spite of the bad turn of events that her life had recently taken, she was overcome with joy. She hadn't seen Gwen in three years, and it was an enormous relief to finally see her again. Yet another friend that Nobody had taken away from her.

A huge grin on her face, Gwen was flying in the air at a speed that was nearly as fast as lightning, and Bethany barely had time to regain her senses before the other girl barreled into her. She gasped in surprise, quickly digging her heels into the planet's rocky surface before she hugged her back. Bethany closed her eyes, simply enjoying the embrace for a moment before reality came back. Her heart pounded in her chest. She wanted to stay there, hugging Gwen forever to make up for the lost time.

When Gwen was around, Bethany automatically felt more positive. Gwen was the happiest person she knew, and just being around her had helped Bethany improve as a person. It made her feel even better that all of her best friends — Owen, Kiel, and Gwen — were finally in one place. Hopefully, none of Bethany's friends would be separated from her, either. All of them meant so much to her. Out of all of her friends (not including Orion, who she considered a brother), she was closest to them.

"I can't believe you're here!" Gwen exclaimed, pulling away a few seconds later to stare at Bethany. "I knew you'd come back! Wow, I have so many questions. How did you get here? What happened with you turning into light? Did you get taller, or am I just imagining things? You look like you've been busy!"

"It's a really long story," Bethany replied, offering a small grin back. "And I'll tell you the whole thing in a minute, I promise. But we're going to need your help with something. Something big."

"We?" Gwen asked, and behind them, Owen cleared his throat.

"Hi," he said, a smile on his face.

"Oh!" She quickly turned around, rushing forward and throwing her arms around both Owen and Kiel. "Owen, Kiel. It's so nice to see you again. I'm sorry, I didn't see you at first!"

"That's okay," Kiel said. He looked a bit confused, which made sense, given the fact that he'd only met Gwen once, and Bethany hadn't been with him then.

"Wait, you've met Kiel before?" Owen asked.

"I have!" Gwen nodded enthusiastically. "We met when we were both captured by Nobody. It happened a couple of years ago." She looked at Kiel. "I see that Bethany's here, so how did your spell work out?"

"It worked out a lot better than I thought it would," Kiel said, scratching his head. "It took me three years to perfect it, but it worked."

Deciding that it was too complicated to explain her, Kiel's, and Owen's entire story to Gwen, Bethany chose to bring up their plan to defeat Nobody. "We're actually here for a different reason. You know Nobody?"

"He's the villain who said he was planning on taking over the worlds," Gwen confirmed, knitting her brow. "Is he still going to do that?"

"Yes, and worse if we don't stop him." Bethany took a deep breath. "Gwen, we need your help. Nobody has gotten way too powerful, and he's going to wipe out your entire world, including all of the others, using something called 'pure possibility'. Then, he's going to rewrite the worlds into whatever he chooses, and it's likely that no one would be coming back from that. Me and Owen tried stopping him a few days ago, but we failed, and now we're going to need a better plan and all of our friends if we want to defeat Nobody. I know this is a lot to take in. It's going to be dangerous, so I completely understand if you don't want to com—"