This is the eighth chapter. Sorry for the wait. Garth's superhero name will be revealed in this chapter. Hope you enjoy it.
A few days later...
Garth was having a nap on a sofa in the main room, think about that that was on his mind. He was wearing a black shirt and khaki shorts. Suddenly, Ben then opened the door the poked his Stone head through the doorway. "Garth! Come look at this!" He said loudly, which made Garth open his eyes and bend his upper body up, and made him turn his head rightwards to face him. "Oh. Uh,...okay." Garth replied as he got up on his feet and followed Ben to the other side of the room, Sue and Reed also in the coming near them. Garth then looked at the TV they were both staring at, and saw Johnny wearing his blue uniform, but with a 5 in a light blue circle on his left chest, at some kind of sports place, surrounded by females. "He didn't." He heard Sue mutter. "Oh, yes, he did! Flame boy never listens!" He heard Ben growl. "What did he do to his uniform?" He heard Sue ask, referring to the symbol. Garth then realised that Johnny didn't exactly have the skills to put something like that on his uniform, so he moved over to Reed, stood in front of him, grabbed both front sides of his lab coat with both hands, moved them away from each other, revealing he was also wearing his blue uniform, with the same symbol. "You really did that, eh?" Garth asked him. "He was badgering me." Reed replied, before Garth then turned around and kept watching the TV. "It's sort of Armani meets astronaut." Johnny spoke. "So, what are your superhero names?" The female reporter next to him asked. "They call me the Human Torch. Ladies call me Torch." Johnny answered, the second sentence make a lot of the girls around him go "ohh". "What about the rest of the team?" The reporter asked. "That's the Invisible Girl." Johnny answered, when a picture of Sue from the bridge affair showed up on the screen of the stadium, which was also showed on the TV screen. Garth could have sworn he heard Sue mutter "Girl?", but he focused on the screen, worried how this might go. "What about your leader? Reed Richard's? I hear you call him Mr Fantastic." The reporter said. "Could have been worse." He heard Ben say. "I guess." He heard Reed say, and Garth did nod, as it did kind of fit Reed. "Is it true what they say, that he can expand any part of his anatomy?" The reporter asked Johnny, the girls muttering. "Well, I've always found him to be a little limp." Johnny said, which made the girls giggle. "So what about him? The furry, flame proof guy?" The reporter asked, showing a picture of Garth, which made him gulp. "Oh, him? He's the Furball." Johnny answered. "How dare he!" Garth growled, his eyes narrowing and his hands clenched into fists. "What is that? What do you call that thing?" The reporter then asked, the screen showing a picture of Ben on the main screen. "That's it. The Thing. You think this is bad? You should have seen him before." Johnny said, as if he'd just come up with that. "Okay, now I'm gonna go kill him." Ben spoke, before Garth looked leftwards and saw him walk towards the door. "Count us in." Garth said, as he then started walking after him.
Eventually, they arrived at the sports arena Johnny was leaving, people cheering at him all around him. "There he is." Sue said, pointing her right index finger towards him with her arm outstretched. Garth and Sue and Reed then moved over to him "Johnny..." Sue began to say. "Can we talk about this later, guys?" Johnny interrupted her. "No, we can't talk about this later. What were you thinking?" Sue asked him. "Where's my ride?" Johnny asked as he stopped by the curb. Suddenly a large bundle of red metal resembling a car suddenly landed in front of him, and rolled around a big, the alarm chirping as it stopped rolling. Then Garth saw the license plate hit Johnny's left side, but he barely reacted, thought Garth smirked at the sight. Garth then looked leftwards to see Ben looking angry, before he stared walking over towards Johnny. "You think that's funny, pebbles?" Johnny asked, before Sue then stepped in front of him, after after her, and Garth moved to Sue's right. "Johnny!" She spoke. "What?" He asked his sister. "You gave us names? You don't think! So now your the 'face' of the Fantastic Five?" Sue asked, pointing at the symbol. "Your even using that stupid nickname?" Garth asked, his eyes narrowing. "A face that's about to be broken!" Ben growled. "Look, this isn't permanent, Johnny. We need to be careful until we're normal again." Reed said to him. "What if I don't want to be normal? I didn't turn into a monster!" Johnny shot back gesturing at Ben with his right arm. This made Ben move his right arm as if he was about to punch Johnny, but he stopped halfway.Ben then turned around and then started to walk away. "Johnny, say your sorry." Sue said as Ben kept walking. Suddenly, Johnny then shot a ball of fire at the back of head, which made him turn around to look at them. "Huh? Did you just..." Ben began asking, but was cut off when Johnny shot another ball of fire at him at his face. "That's it, Tinker Bell! You wanna fly? Then fly!" Ben cried, walked up to Johnny, and then punched his right fist forward, but Reed had moved in front of Johnny, so Ben just punched Reed's rubber body, but Johnny was still knocked back, and landed on a Burger King advertisement board. Johnny recovered, stepped down from the board and began walking towards Ben. "Wait a minute, guys. Ben, don't do this." Sue begged. "Let's see if we can get blood from a stone." Johnny said, still walking. "Let's see. Bring it, Burnout!" Ben said back. "You two need a time-out!" Sue yelled as she got in between them, making Johnny stop, and she used her forcefield ability Reed had told Garth about, to stop Ben from stepping forwards, before he turned around and walked away. "Talk to Blockhead. He started it!" Johnny protested. "I don't care! Damn it, Johnny!" Sue said sternylu before she walked after Ben, leaving Garth and Reed with Johnny and a crowd of people behind them.
"What?" Johnny asked rhetorically, referring to the stern look Garth had on his face, before he walked around the wreckage of his car. "You need to control yourself and think before you act." Reed said wisely to him, also stepping around the car. "Yeah, but that's your problem, you always think, you never act. What if we got these powers for a reason? What if it's like some higher calling?" Johnny asked. "A higher calling? Like, getting girls and making money?" Reed asked back. "Is there any higher?" Johnny then asked, which made Garth roll his eyes. "Johnny, for the last time, we are not superhero's!" Garth then snapped. "And aren't superheroes supposed to keep their identities secret?" Garth then thought in his head. "Then what about the bridge?" He heard a boys voice in the crowd behind ask, which made him turn his around to face the crowd. "We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time!" Garth yelled. "You know what, Reed, Garth. This who we are. Accept it. Or better yet, enjoy it." Johnny spoke to them, before he started to walk away. "How can I enjoy looking like this?" Garth yelled back at him, pointing at his face with his right index finger, before he signed and then started to walk away from the area. But he didn't then that he was being followed by several people. It wasn't until a few minutes later that he realised he was being followed, when he heard a lot of footsteps behind him, turned his head leftwards to look at the people behind him, his eyes widening on sight, his mouth gaping open. Turning his body around to face them, he quickly and frantically looked left and right, and to his right, saw a black umbrella leaning against the wall besides a man chatting on his mobile phone. He grabbed and umbrella, ignored the guy saying "Hey!" , held the umbrella out in front of him, opened it, and pointed it at the people in front of him. "Back! Back, all of you! Leave me alone!" He shouted, moving the umbrella up and down several times as he spoke. The people all took a step back. With a huff, Garth then closed up the umbrella, shoved it into its owners chest, who then held it with both hands, and he continued walking.
He kept walking down the street for several minutes, before a black limousine then moved in front of him, then turned leftwards and moved its left wheels onto the pavement, right in Garth's path. "Hey! What gives, dude, eh?" Garth asked in annoyance. The passenger window then opened, revealing Victor. "Oh, Mr Voom Doom, sir." Garth greeted in surprise, his face lightening up, becoming less grumpy. "Garth. Get in." Victor said to him, before he opened the door. So Garth then got in, sat in the seat opposite Victor and fastened his seatbelt. Then the limo then reversed a little bit, then turned rightwards and got back on the road. Inside the car, Garth could see the scar his boss (who are a black jacket on top of a grey shirt, with his hands gloved) now had doing down the right hand side of his face, which people had said, seemed to humanize him. "People are right. The scar does look good on you." Scar said, starting the conversation, but somehow he thought the scar looked metal grey, not blood red. "Well, we can't all heal, right, Garth?" Victor answered with a chuckle. "What are you doing here?" Garth then asked, wanting to cut to the chase. "I was worried about you. My employee." Victor replied. "My boss worried about me? That's great." Garth muttered sarcastically. "I hear you even grow back body parts. That's amazing." Victor said with a slight smile. "It'd be a lot more amazing if I didn't look like this. But, trust me, Ben's taking his more seriously." Garth replied, pointing at his face with his left index finger. "Funny you should say that, considering... it's cured your... condition." Victor then said, which made Garth's face still, and his eyes widened. "Oh, come on, don't look so shocked. You seriously think I didn't know about it?" Victor asked rhetorically. "I know it's not easy, especially for someone who has what you have, or had. Things aren't that different for Reed, Sue, or Johnny. At least they kept their looks, but to you and Ben..." Victor began saying, before Garth help up his left hand, making him stop. "If your trying to cheer me up, your doing a jolly good job." Garth interrupted. "Besides, I know that compared to Ben, I got it easy, but still..." Garth added. "Hey, I know what it's like to lose something you love, see it go away and never come back. Like your parents." Victor then spoke, which made Garth's face still again, but this time he had a solemn look on it. "Can we not talk about that? Besides, Reed is working on a cure. I'll be back to normal in no time." Garth said confidently, though in truth, he had no idea how far Reed was to getting the machine to cure them ready. "I hope so, for your sake. And if it doesn't, then... you probably got nothing left to live for, except being furry for the rest of your life. But something tells me you already got nothing." Victor then said, which was the last straw for Garth. He then turned his head leftwards, facing the driver's window. "Stop the car." He spoke to the driver, and a few seconds later, the limo pulled over to the curb and stopped. Garth then got out of the car, which drove away after he closed the door. Garth thenstarted walking down the street, looking down at the pavement, thinking about what he'd just heard. Strangely, deep down, he felt that Victor was right. So he then made a decision.
And that's the eighth chapter. Hope you enjoyed it. Sorry if it was too short, but I couldn't be bothered to write anymore. Anyway, Garth's superhero name is "Furball". Hope you like it. I don't know when I'll do the next chapter, so please be patient.
COP26 has now begun in Glasgow, Scotland, here in the U.K. I'll be watching the news a lot these next two weeks, hoping that's it's a success, or at least doesn't end in failure. The politicians have to wake up and get serious about climate change, and dealing it with it, so that our children and our grandchildren can have a less ruined world!!!!!