He was panting by the time he made it to the beach, almost throwing himself into the cold sand and wheezing. But he sprinted toward the group, his brain whirring. Quinn hadn't come out of the opening yet. It would've been through a hole of trees by the end of the rocks. He would have sprinted out past Felix and toward the group.
Or maybe - duh - he'd found a safe place to watch them, from a distance so he could stay out of their way but still analyze every detail. I'll be on the front cover of the paper, Felix couldn't help but worry. My banefade face. They'll know I'm real.
He couldn't stop going hysterical. Should he stay or go? Keep Quinn away from the danger or let him spread the banefade identity all across the world? But Quinn didn't actually have his camera with him, did he?
No, but he had his word. The Banefade is Real, the title would read. Green skin. A face like a beaten dog. Words were enough.
"That's the spirit!" Hen was calling from ahead, his arms open in welcome. A smile gleamed across his face. "I didn't think you'd come so naked."
At first he didn't know what that meant. And then he knew. "Well, I can't be seen with as you a human." Felix was wringing his hands and spinning in circles. His eyes hit every crevice and nook along the railing that lead to the streets of the city. They were empty, without camera flashes and without a bush of red hair.
Hen was looking into the sea and its trees. "Are you ready?" Hen nodded toward the man in all black, but was talking to Felix.
"Ready? You haven't told me what we're doing."
"Something you've been waiting for for a little while. Something I've been waiting for for a long while. Something all four of us want dearly." His smile was like a part of his DNA. Like a bird had feathers, I'lloozjhen was a grinner.
Four?
He turned to see two other humanoids. The first was the tentacles woman on tv. He gasped. "Poli?"
She turned to him with a charming smile. She no longer had tentacles on her back, but her hands still had glows to them. "Hiya, darlin'."
"You attacked my friend!" he burst. "Er. You made other people attack my friend!"
Hen laughed and intercepted. "You know he was lying, right? That was just a cover-up, so you'd stop yelling at him and wrongly throw pity instead."
"How would you know about my roommate?" he asked first, but then processed what Hen'd said. Quinn was lying? Why? "But Poli made people go nuts, whether it was my friend or not. She's evil!"
"That was also an illusion. No one was meant to get hurt and no one really did. It was just a ruse to get in Quixotic's head."
Felix's teeth unclenched. It was all about getting back at Quixotic? Really?
And the Felix noticed the fourth humanoid. A man in a black cloak had two giant vials strapped to his arms. Metal openings, like the tips to frosting tubes, were connected to the ends. Wires ran from each to needles sticking out of his upper bare arms, while goopy semi-liquids sloshed inside the tubes in green and blue gradients.
"Chemical representation," Hen said. "We call him Chemi."
The weird part, yet, was that there were groups of fish flopping in the beach sand and Chemi was shooting spurts of the liquid at them, like bullets from a gun. When they hit the fish, the fish spasmed. Then, their scales turned green and puffed up. Then they grew legs, like crabs. Hen came over to pick one up. It stood in his hand and stared, but didn't move.
By then there were at least ten green, crab fish scuttling over the sand around the group.
"I don't understand." Felix said, but didn't mean to. The thought was just so loud in his head, that the words slipped out.
"Chemical adaptations, DNA tests... Nothing important. Just a bit of fun." And then he put the crab back on the sand and, when he stood back up, smiled at something behind Felix's head. "Oh, but it looks like the real fun is just getting started."
Felix spun around and his heart dropped, as if his heart going limp at the sight of Quixotic, was some sort of bodily default setting.
Chemi ran at Quixotic the moment their eyes met.
At the moment, Hen was already sidetracked, clapping and yelling toward the two like a sports fan on the sidelines.
First Chemi smacked his arms into Q, the metal contraptions giving heavy blows to his gut and face. "Don't you remember what it's like to feel powerful like this? Sad, isn't it, that you can never come back?"
Another hard blow and Quixotic blundered to the sand. Chemi's offense barreled at the speed of light, puncturing down with one of the vile guns into one of the red arms. In less than a second, Q cried out as his right bicep puffed up in a red and green mashup.
The fish, at this point, had ballooned much larger and sharp teeth were poking out of their snapping lips. They surrounded Q and started clamping their jaws around any limb they could reach. He yelped and threw himself to a standing position as fast as he could, but three were still clamped onto his arms and legs.
Felix wanted so badly to cheer, but he clamped his hand over his mouth to keep from hysterically laughing at the same time.
"What are you up to?" Quixotic growled at the group. He was tearing one of the fish off, but it came off like a leech. Lots of blood - all of it glowing an abnormal red. It was the bright red you would expect from a flaming humanoid.
Hen whispered to Felix, "Notice how he attacks us first, but doesn't ask for a reason to do so until later. It's how you know he's not a real hero." And then he acknowledged Q's question. "As the only guy out to stop us, you're also the only enemy we have to deal with, so we came to make a special point to you."
Chemi was still throwing himself into the fight, with punches and kicks and all the weak things a person could do in a superhero battle. But he also wasn't that bad at any of it. His nose was bleeding convulsively, but Quixotic's arms were shredded from fingernails dragging across them and it looked looked like he was about to pass out.
Felix felt like he might go unconscious with him. He wanted Quixotic to pay for what he'd done, but the idea of all this violence made him feel queasy.
"Why are we doing this?" Felix blurted at Hen.
"He burnt your house down. Chemi and Poli don't think Jupiter needs a 'superhero' who can't do a single thing without fame in mind. He's a stain on the galaxy, and the only way to get rid of his tough-guy image is to fight him out of it."
"And why do you hate him?"
Hen was quiet for a moment, just staring with blank eyes at the two wrestling in the wet sand. Then he said, with more calmness than Felix thought he had, "He was a friend of mine, but he didn't think people needed to be saved from each other. He thought evil came from the one or two thugs on the streets who stole purses, but he didn't realize that every human has the opportunity to become that thug. We were a team for a little while, until I came up with a plan - the plan we're pursuing now - to keep everyone in Jupiter from stepping out of line."
Felix was in awe of this blue man standing before him. "And then he left your team?"
"And now we can't stand looking at each other."
Quixotic and Chemi yelled in the distance. Chemi at this point looked badly burned.
"But why do they have to get hurt?"
"Society thinks superhero victories come from physical wins. So, even if we already beat him behind closed doors, with emotion and logic..." By kicking him off the team. "We also have to make a spectacle of it, so the public knows Quixotic isn't their hero. He's just some kid in tights."
Felix snorted, but couldn't help but to think of what Quinn was seeing from wherever he was. And he couldn't wait to see what he was writing for what would probably be the front page.
Quixotic threw Chemi down with a hard blow. It didn't look like he'd be getting up any time soon, but Quixotic was looking wobbly on his feet. The fish were biting a his heals. He squashed four of them in retaliation and they all exploded in a burst of green goop. Felix expected that's what he would look like if he'd gotten squashed in his banefade form.
"What do you want? Exactly." Quixotic called to Hen. "To make a point?" He raised his arms to show that he was ready for Hen to come at him, and lit them on fire just as fast. "The villains always bring the story forward by demanding something, so what is it you're demanding from me? You want the brain straight from my skull? The stumble to my step?"
"I want you to shit your pants." Hen pulled out a gun and walked toward them at a slow gait. Then, he cocked the gun and pointed it at Chemi's head in the sand. "And get outta here."
The gun went off and the remaining fish made a screeching noise as Chemi failed to move. They scattered and disappeared into the tide of waves at the end of the shore.
The laughter fell from Felix's face and he fell to his knees. He didn't realize he'd done it, nor that he'd started screaming and shaking.
Q's fire went out. "I-. I thought you needed him. You need all five representations to form the bond..."
Hen smiled, but shook his head and clicked his tongue. "But that's the catch. You act like we still need you, like you have something over us, but I don't need anyone. Every representation is replaceable, just like you've been." Hen tugged at Felix's collar and set his hand on his shoulder. "Meet the new Art, Q." Then, he pulled his foot back and - before anyone could blink - he kicked Quixotic so hard in the ribs that he flew multiple feet through the air and fell with a wave of sand exploding around him. "And scram."
This was Quixotic's last ounce of defense and energy. The kick was it. Enough. He wobbled up and looked at Hen a moment and then turned and started walking back to the city. He disappeared behind the buildings.
Felix stared at the sand, yelping when Chemi sat up in the sand and began to laugh. Poli and Hen joined along, heartily.
An illusion. A fraud. Mind tricks.
"You should see the look on your face!" Hen said.
What was really happening, was that I'lloozjhen was setting up a mind war - one brick at a time.