Written by Everyone
King Matt rested his elbows on the table and his chin on his hands. "So.... that's my story...." he said, after recalling the tale of why he came here and what was going on for the last hour.
Mylinh looked positively bored as she sat there. She wasn't one to really listen to King Matt. Only tease him. Apparently, much of the League became bored halfway through, much to King Matt's annoyance.
"So..." said Jake, breaking the awkward silence, "Do we get to fight stuff?"
King Matt sighed and brought his head up. "Yeah, in some circumstances, you'll have no choice, like with what happened with Brinn and the Fake." King Matt still felt really horrible for nailing Christy in the face so many times with his Pocky Sword, even though he hadn't known it was her at the time.
"What I want to know," said Jaccie, still adjusting to the new sensation of interpreting conversation through a partially computerized mind, "is how we're going to hide our identities."
King Matt looked to Jaccie and smiled. "Well.... We could make it like Sailor Moon or X-Men, where we wear costumes."
"Who says we have to hide them?" replied Jesse, "I mean, the whole superpower thing is freaking AWESOME!"
Brinn looked at Jesse nastily. "Yes, but we also have that problem of having friends and family, you twit."
Christy stifled a giggle as Jesse just ignored his comment.
“And furthermore," continued Brinn icily, "In comics and cartoons, such as the King's Sailor Moon and X-Men, the real purpose of secret identities was to hide from your enemies, not your friends. The whole concept of separating your crime-fighting life from your personal life."
"Oh, right!" said Christy, "Like in Spiderman! He had to hide his identity so that the bad guys wouldn't hurt his loved ones!"
"Aren't you smart."
"Aren't you grumpy," replied Christy cheerily.
"You would be too if you'd spent the last 48 hours in a semi-conscious state while some wacko drained all of your memories!"
"Now, now!" said Mylinh.
King Matt slammed his fist on the table, causing the fighting to cease. "Enough! This is the LAST thing we need!"
Everyone looked guilty, and Brinn looked really sore.
"Now.... I need to go out to the store. Somebody drank all the milk last night," he said giving Jake a nasty look. "I'll be back."
Jesse laughed at Jake and Jaccie did too. "Come on guys. Let's go get our costumes ready!" she said cheerfully as everyone got up.
"This reminds me so much of Mystery Men, and King Matt is like that one guy," Mylinh said dopily.
"Yeah," said Christy, "that 'one guy'. I know exactly who you're talking abou--"
CRASH!
Suddenly, the wall on the Western side of the Headquarters of dorkdom was reduced to a pile of ash.
King Matt groaned irritatedly as he looked over at Western side of the wall. He found remants of a bomb laying beside it and gave Mylinh a heated glare. "I'll kill you Mylinh!" he said before chasing her with a giant Hammer he pulled out of nowhere.
"It wasn't me!" shouted Mylinh as another bomb came crashing through the gaping hole.
"EVERYONE HIT THE DECK!" screamed Jaccie.
Jake immediately threw himself down but somehow still managed to trip over Jesse's foot. Bombs kept flying in and started ticking irritably.
"Augh! No! You guys are supposed to fight back, not take cover!" King screamed at them as he hit one like a golfball with his Holy Pocky Sword. It flew back hitting another one causing them both to go back the opposite direction.
"Well, we're taking cover so as to not have our limbs forcibly removed by way of heavy duty explosives!" Mylinh retorted.
"If we don't do anything, we'll be blown to pieces!" Jake snapped back.
Christy's face had felt like it was on fire ever since King Matt had taken it upon himself to beat it to a pulp. She had a difficult time being forgiving about that, especially with the flying debris and spike in temperature. Gritting her teeth, she used a handily detached chair leg to send a couple more bombs hurtling back to wherever they came from.
A pair of bright green eyes stared in from the massive hole that was once a rather thick metal wall. These were joined by another, and then another.
King Matt swore under his breath, and Christy grunted in agreement, "I remember these. They can--"
Suddenly, a small creature that appeared to be a cross between a pile of scrap metal and a giant iPod leapt into the room en route to Christy's throat. The thing didn't get a chance to know what had hit him--Jake was in it's way and sending it against the wall with a well-placed swing of the overhead projector.
"--jump," finished Christy.
"Jake, you're going to be replacing that projector!" grunted King Matt as he swatted away a mini legion of the iScraps with his sword.
"Better that than replacing my girlfriend," replied Jake with a grin.
"Ain't he cute?" squeaked Christy as she hammered away at a particularly nasty iScrap.
Jaccie rolled her eyes as she fired a bunch of homing missiles from her robotic arm, sending the iScraps packing. Luckily for all of them, King Matt had shown her a selection of nifty weapons that she could use. Jesse was telling a very lame joke, causing the jumping iScraps to fall and whimper. Everyone groaned at the lame joke as Jesse just laughed.
King Matt rolled his eyes as he heard Jesse start the joke. "Why did the Cheerleading Captain put a ghost on the squad? Because the team needed more spirit!"
Jesse howled as he slapped his knee in hysterics. Mylinh laughed too, which was not a big surprise to all. A quick vat of Hydrochloric Acid sent another iScrap packing.
"Aaand you're done!" Brinn was relying on his throwing arm and lots of quick kicks to keep the iScraps at bay, not yet being at a point where he trusted his psychic abilities.
"Done listening to you tell me what to do, maybe!" a grin spread across his face as he spotted something sitting across the room, "Hey Jake--"
Jake's eyes followed Jesse's, "Yeah?"
Jesse pointed to his raquetball racket, "Wanna go get me that--"
Sssshhhzooom!
In a flash, Jake was standing next to him, wielding two rackets, "Yeah?"
"Yeah!"
And in an instant there was a serious game of Raquet-iScrap going down in the HQ.
"Boys," commented Jaccie, testing out her new arm on an unlucky pack of Scrap.
"Boys," agreed Christy.
King Matt grinned as he put down his Pocky Sword. "You guys think you can handle the iScraps on you're own?" he asked.
Brinn nodded, "I think we've got it covered."
Jesse hit one back really hard with the raquet.
"Yeah! Now get us some food!" he told King Matt bluntly.
The King frowned but shrugged. "Alright. Make sure the Headquarters doesn't become too shambalistic before I get back!" he said, walking out the door.
King Matt strolled down the sidewalk. It was dark outside and the streetlamps were on. He turned to corner to find the street eerily empty. Whistling nervously, he quickened his pace. As he kept walking, a silky voice floated from the shadows.
"What's up Slick?"
King Matt turned around to find a shadowy figure standing in the street, looking very pleased. King Matt frowned as he faced the figure. "Who are you?"
"Now, now Slick. I can't tell you that; It's against the rules. But...." the dark figure narrowed his eyes, "You're ruining my fun with the iScraps. That's not nice..."
As the figure flashed him a toothy smirk, King Matt realized he hadn't brought his Pocky Sword. Crap.
"Now see, I don't like it when people mess with my fun, Slick, so I'm going to have to teach you a lesson..."
The figure darted at King Matt and both of them fought hand to hand combat.
Panting slightly from the effort, the figure smirked another toothy grin as he glowed blue. King Matt shuddered as a weird blue line scanned his body and watched helplessly as figure suddenly transformed into an image of himself, except he was a complete shadow. The Shadow tried to fight back, but King Matt quickly finished him off, leaving the Shadow in the street hurt.
"Well, I'm off to the store. See you around, Slick," King Matt grinned nastily before heading off.
The Shadow stood up and gasped, letting out King Matt's voice. "W-What happened...!?"
**Back at Headquarters a little bit later.**
Jake groaned loudly as his stomach rumbled. "Is Matt back YET!?" he whined, causing everyone to frown. "Maybe if you helped rebuild the wall, he would get back faster!" Jaccie yelled as the team built up the wall. The iScraps had mysteriously stopped attacking right after King Matt left.
The mini iScrap invasion had ended with little trouble. There were only about fifty of them, sent in with no apparent purpose but to annoy the crap out of the leaguers. Of course, given the fact that Jesse and Jake played raquetball with them and the rest of the league had been bored to begin with, they actually entertained them more than anything. Well, aside from the fact that one of the unfortunate Leaguers had learned the hard way that the things cannot only jump, but the big ones spit a nasty stinging goop when provoked.
"Agh, my face..." moaned Christy, lacking the patience required to wait for Mylinh to finish her anti-sting glycerin soap.
"Hey Christy, does your face hurt?" Jesse grinned.
"Yes, and to hell if I care that it's killing you."
Mylinh went red.
"I hate it when people know the punchlines," muttered Jesse.
"I hate it when people provoke my girlfriend," came Jake's response.
"I hate it when we get attacked by a swarm of iThing's and I'm stuck cleaning up the mess," Jaccie definitely looked in a hateful mood, despite the domestic quality of her robotic-arm-turned-debris-vacuum.
"And I hate it when my Leaguers eat all of the food and don't finish rebuilding a wall!" Glyde said nastily, as he walked in carrying a couple grocery bags.
Jake howled in delight and ran over to the food. Nobody saw a shadow duck in behind him and hide.
"Ah ah ah! No food until the wall is rebuilt! Only good little boys get to eat food," Glyde said with a particular iciness as he held up the food.
Jake muttered something that sounded close to, "Stupid Kings and their stupid-" before Christy covered his mouth and pulled him to the wall where he quickly sat down and readied himself to do as little at possible.
Glyde gave Jake a particularly nasty glare.
Jaccie looked over at him, "Why are you being Emo like Brinn?" she asked.
Brinn rolled his eyes and set one of the wall supports upright with his powers.
Glyde met Jaccie's eye with an unfriendly sneer, "Who said I was Emo? I'm just being myself..."
King Matt, still a shadow, growled low under his breath as he behind a couple boxes.
"Besides," noted Christy, "Emo Brinn wasn't even the real Brinn, it was that identity snatching thing that was eating Jaccie's memories."
"Oh, yes, I forgot about that," Glyde said, busying himself with picking up some fallen debris.
Jesse gave Glyde an odd look, "Right, because that wasn't traumatic or a week ago or anything."
King Matt felt his hopes raise slightly. It was unlikely and certain unexpected, but the Leaguers seemed to be catching onto the fact that the person who'd come back with groceries was not the person who'd left for them.
Glyde frowned at Jesse. "Of course I remember. It was a very traumatic event. It's when you all developed your powers."
Jesse nodded and went back to work. King Matt cursed under his breath. Wrong! Glyde was wrong, why hadn't Jesse or any of the other Leaguers said anything?
Glyde kept the team busy for a while rebuilding things and cleaning. Finally, he let them at the food he bought. With King Matt's money of course. The real King Matt, trapped in the form of the Shadow obviously wasn't very happy. This wasn't good. Not at all.
"Well," Mylinh said as she sat munching, "now everything's cleaned up, does that mean I can go home?"
"Ye-" began Glyde.
"No," said Christy sharply, "No one can go out alone until we get to the bottom of the iScrap attack. In all honesty, Matt-- I mean, Your Highness--you shouldn't have gone out. Who knows what could have happened to you?"
While Christy chatted away, and Brinn tryed to float a pear, Jaccie tried to scan Matt
For some reason her computer readout would glitch every time and she's come up witha scattered jumble of crap
"This is weird...." Jaccie mumbled to herself.
Glyde perked his ears up and looked at her nastily, suddenly knowing exactly what she was up to, "You're scanner won't work. The Holy Pocky Sword prevents any electronic scanners from discovering anything about me."
King Matt, still in shadow form, heaved in anger.
Jaccie mumbled under her breath. Jesse suddenly got he uncomtrolable urge to tell a joke.
A sure sign of evil.
"Guys....why- the- evil..."
"Uh oh....." Jake covered his ears.
The Leaguer immediately took up battle positions, but no iScraps attacked and no other attacks came.
Jaccie glanced at her arm, the shock setting was switched on.
King Matt watched felt himself becoming increasingly agitated as the League fumbled around blindly. He couldn't very well waltz into the open and take back his body. If anyone could actually see him, he seriously doubted they'd believe he was the real King when there was a perfectly good flesh and blood edition of the Ruler standing before them. Too frustrated to continue spying, he quietly snuck out of headquarters and onto the dark street. He was contemplating his next move when the sound of soft crying caught his attention. He walked over to see a short, dark-haired girl on her knees crying quietly.
"My young dear, what's the matter?" King Matt asked as he crouched next to her.
Startled, she looked up at him and he recognized her as someone he knew from school.
The young girl sniffed and wiped her eyes. "Well.... I was brutally attacked by this weird man earlier. He called me Slick," the young girl said.
King Matt's eyes narrowed for a moment, it had to be Glyde.
"You're Sarah Kay, right?" he asked her conversationally.
"Yeah..." she hung her head, "I can't believe someone would just attack me randomly. He was so odd, and he kept saying I wasn't even the person he was looking for. He stole something very precious to me," she told him, holding a black case on her lap. "He stole my Oboe...."
"This is a job for the League of Dorkdom!"
Sarah Kay looked up, surprised, "What?"
"The--" King Matt realized that he wasn't in the mood to launch into another expository speech, "oh, heck, nevermind... The thing is, I really can't help you."
"Well obviously, you're a shadow....but a nice one, which is a delightful change from all the mean shadows"
"Wait..." King Matt stammered, suddenly surprised, "you can see me?"
"Oh yes... see, that's why my oboe was so important to me, because it--this is complicated, but it helped me defend myself against the bad Shadows."
King Matt smiled in spite of the situation. Those abilities...
"Sarah Kay, I might not be able to get your oboe back myself, but I have friends who can, if you'll just come with me!" King Matt reached for her hand
"I can't take that....you're kinda nonsolid"
"Oh....yeah...follow me! To the League of Dorkdom!"
"Wha-"
"Nevermind," King Matt cringed, "this way.”
Sarah Kay was puzzled as she followed King Matt, but she felt that he would help him. They stopped outside a building that looked like a large, high-tech house.
"Is this... the league?" she asked curiously.
King Matt nodded, "I need your help. That mean shadow... He stole my body, and, from what I can tell, nobody knows his name. I've heard that if nobody in the world knows your name, you can use unstoppable magic, but..." King Matt said sadly looking at the house.
"Alright then! I'll help you retrieve your body back, but.... We need my Oboe. Without it, I can't do a lot against shadows," Sarah Kay said sadly.
King Matt nodded as he opened the door and slid in, the young girl behind him.
Jaccie registered the entrance.
"Jesse, come with me," she said, leading him to the kitchen
"So the chicken-"
"Crossed the road to get to the other side," she said with dwindling patience, "There's a girl."
"And then why did the hippo cross--"
"Oh, never mind!" Jaccie whirred annoyedly and led Jesse back to the meeting room.
Jaccie walked back to the freshly fixed wall room, "Christy! Here. Now."
"Can I come? Oh wait, I'm already there!" Jake's laugh could be heard inside the kitchen.
"Get lost slime!" Jaccie targeted him.
"Look I'm already out. Again."
"Anyways....Christy-"
"Ladies, is there a problem?" Glyde stood in the doorway.
"No, not at all King Matt. Just some girl talk." Jaccie smiled.
Glyde frowned. "Well, I'm sure whatever 'girl talk' it is, I can listen.”
Jaccie cursed inwardly, he had her cornered.
She looked glanced over Glyde's shoulder just in time to see a familiar girl look fearfully at her. Jaccie raised an eyebrow and saw a shadow which looked oddly like King Matt rush by, seemingly dragging the girl along with him.
"Well?" Glyde said impatiently.
Christy looked uncertain.
"Nothing your highness...." Jaccie said, silently taking note of everything that was going on. As much as she wanted, it was too dangerous to mention anything to anybody with King Matt acting strange.
Glyde placed a long black instrument on the table.
"What's with the Oboe?" she asked, not even trying to mask her annoyance.
"Oh...I took up the intrument."
"Since yesterday?" asked the overly chipper Christy, "No more french horn?"
"Yes. I decided to switch since I was never that good at it."
Christy was about to say something, but stopped.
Jaccie, meanwhile, was noting the girl's look, the girl who was now fully hidden behind the curtains... a favorite lame hiding place of King Matt's.
"Well," she began, giving the Oboe an odd look, "Whatever you want us to do with it can wait. Excuse me, your highness..."
Glyde glared at Jaccie and walked off over to Jesse.
Christy gave Jaccie a reassuring look and nodded. Taking a quick scan to make sure no one was watching, especially not that suspicous King Matt, they swiped it.
They returned from the kitchen to find Jake and Jesse giving a slow motion racquetball demonstration. Needless to say, it wasn't going all that well, especially considering that Jesse had to stop every few seconds to tell a joke. While everyone was distracted, Jaccie walked over to the curtain and grabbed the young girl by the mouth, dragging her into the next room. A shadow followed. The door closed quickly.
"Idiot girl!" Jaccie yelled as she pushed the girl in front of her. "That's the lamest hiding place ever! What if you got caught!?"
Sarah Kay's eyes welled up with tears, "B-but see, King Matt is a shadow and he needs my help but I can't help him because a bad Shadow stole my oboe and I need my oboe to help him--King Matt I mean--but I can't because I can't hold off Shadows without it and now a shadow has it only I think I saw someone else take it in after--"
"WOAH. Slow down!" Jaccie blinked, "You're heart rate is jumping off the charts--Mylihn got ahold of my hardware."
"What?" The breathless girl asked.
"Mylihn, resident doctor, she programmed at health thingy majig and now I can sense you're heart rate."
"Well sorry but I am in an-"
"BREATHE! I swear I'm going to be reading bouncing lines for the rest of my days!"
"Sorry but see I need-"
"Yes your oboe to change the shadow King Matt into his body again."
"How did you know!?" The girl asked.
"Only the REAL King Matt would hide in the curtains....as always!"
King Matt scoffed.
"F---- you Jaccie," he said flat out, causing the girl to laugh uncomfortably.
Jaccie laughed as used her heat vision to focus on The Shadow. Sarak Kay was in awe.
"We can't take my body back until we know the Body Thief's name!" he said testily, looking at Jaccie. "Someone, somewhere knows. But that doesn't really help us."
Jaccie frowned, organizing her partially digital thoughts. So they had yet another Fake amongst them. Well, Christy had the Oboe, but Sarah Kay was no good with her nerves so jumpy. Something would have to be done about her.
**Meanwhile**
Brinn sat in his corner, hovering the pear, "Stupid girl talk, stupid boys, stupid Eponine complex."
Glyde hurried over.
Brinn glared at him, "Stupid-"
"SO whats got you so down Brian?"
"MY NAME IS BRINN!"
"Yes Brinn, Ummm-"
"Stupid name, stupid-"
"I'm going to go--" Glyde turned to take his stolen oboe....but it was gone!
Glyde's expression was a cross between horrified and horrific as he let out a furious yell.
All the League Members looked over. Even Brinn was surprised. If they didn't know better, he would have sworn that King Matt's eyes had flashed blood red.
"Conference Room.... EVERYONE NOW!" he screamed with venom in his voice.
Each member hurried into the conference room. Jaccie heard the call as well.
"Damn it...." Jaccie said. "You two stay here. Matt, if anything happens, summon a Septron or six to distract while I steal the
Oboe."
The shadow nodded as Jaccie hurried off. Sarah Kay seemed a bit anxious. A bit being an understatement.
“WHERE IS IT?”
Brinn, suddenly cheery because he always found angry people entertaining, replied “What?”
“SOMEONE TOOK IT!”
Jaccie enterd, “What’s going on?”
She sensed Christy’s hyperness seeping into her heart rate. So it’s about the oboe...
“YOU TOOK IT!” Glyde poinced at her.
Jesse hit Jake hard in the face with a random racquetball and athe force propelled Jake into Christy, who changed Brinn’e floating pear ito a goose, which somehow resulted in Brinn getting pissed off and freezing the whole room....well all except Jaccie.
Well, that was new, though Jaccie amusedly as her scanners checked up on the frozen Leaguers. Aside from being immobilzed they were fine.
“Hold it as long as you can, Brinn!"
Jaccie rushed to Glyde, hitting him with her now metallic fist and knocking him unconcious. Using her borrowed time, she darted over to Christy and pulled the oboe out of her sleeve.
At Jaccie’s quizzical look, Christy claimed through icy lips, “Don’t ask. It just got up there.”
Jaccie turned back to Brinn, “Okay you can let them go now.”
Brinn shuffled his feet, “Well see. I umm kinda don’t know how...”
“Oh NO! I can’t miss racquetball time!” Jesse complained, his urge to tell bad jokes had faded as Glyde had slipped into unconsiousness.
Brinn sauntered over and wrapped his arm around Jesse suggestively, “Oh don’t worry hun, I can keep you company.”
Jaccie rolled her eye as Brinn draped himself over her boyfriend. She hurried to the room that held the anxious Sarah Kay.
“Okay so I got the Oboe. What-” but Sarah Kay was frozen solid.
“Whatever that freezing attack was, I think Sarah Kay got the worst of it,” said King Matt, coming up from behind her, “But look at what I can do!”
Smilig, he slipped through a wall.
“KING MATT! This is no time for finding out you can travel through solid objects!”
“But but....”
“NO. We have a frozen league of Dorkdom and Glyde will be coming back to consiousness here sooner or later.”
Cue Mylinh entering unexpectedly: “Looks like Brinn figured out how to freeze the mortal body. Of course I could have done it better if I had the power, but-”
“Mylinh....Shut up.” Jaccie stormed past her and back into the conference room.
“Brinn come on, we have to go figure out the unconsious thing’s name and then get King Matt in his own body. I swear he’s more emo then you are like this!”
“I’m not emo!” Brinn pouted.
Jaccie rolled her eye, “Let’s go Faerie Boy. Don’t be Todd.”
“How am I-”
“Just move!" she turned and called into the other room, "King Matt, travel your transparent host body in here and let's go figure out this situation before the body thief wakes up.”
King Matt’s voice was heard, “But we need Sarah Kay...”
“Do you want to get this over with now?”
“Yes....”
“GOOD. Let’s go.”
******
Christy's nose had been itching for the past few minutes. She knew there was nothing she could do but ignore it, and she'd tried. Just when she thought she couldn't bear it any longer, she reached out her arm.
“Hey! We’re not frozen any more!" Jesse began to prance around.
Jake’s hand finally came to rest over the red splotch that was appearing where the racquet ball had hit him.
Christy checked to see if the King thingy was still out, as she turned her back, the Pear tuned Goose gave a loud sneeze.
One of Poser King Matt's eyelids shot up. Then the other.
Glyde/Poseur King Matt, both his eyes open, scanned the room. Christy was busy being entertained by the Pear Goose’s sneezing fit, while Jake had tackled Jesse for hitting him in the face with the racquetball. Stealthily Glyde lifted himself off the floor and approached Christy.
Christy, sensing something wonky with her crazy O!-Senses, spun around just in time to see the Imposter King Matt raise a hand to strike her. She ducked beneath his hand, grabbed his forearm and flipped him into the table, the wood buckling beneath his wieght. She flipped onto the table and placed the heel of her shoe against his throat.
“Going somewhere?” Christy asked with a smug grin.
“Um, well... I was... uh...”
“I didn’t think so.”
Jake and Jesse, hearing the fight behind them, got off of each other and ran over to help.
“What can we do to assist you, sexy?” Jake asked, appearing at Christy’s side.
“Well, for starters, you could tie him up.”
Jake pulled out a bunch of rope conveniently in his pocket and walked over to Jesse.
“Him meaning the guy I’m standing on, not Jesse!” Christy squeaked.
Jake removed the rope from Jesse’s wrists. “Okay, that makes more sense.”
Jesse glared. “Yeah, it does, Jack-Ass. Hah!! Get it? JACK!! Jack-ass? HA!!”
Christy rolled her eyes and returned her attention to the newly-bound imposter lying on the destroyed table.
“Okay, let’s see if we can do this the easy way. Who are you?”
Glyde smiled evilly. “I’ll never tell.”
Christy sighed. “Fine. I tried.” She reached over, plucked the Pear Goose up off of the floor, and sat it on the imposter’s chest. “Go, Goose, go.”
The Pear Goose nodded, and began sneezing in the imposter’s face.
“AGH!! GOOSE GERMS!! GET IT OFF!!! AGH!!!”
“Are you going to tell me who you are?” Christy asked politely.
“AGH!!!!”
Christy sighed again. “Fine. Be that way.” She turned to Jesse. “Jesse, give us the worst joke you have.”
“Don’t you mean his best joke, then?” Jake asked, laughing.
Jesse punched Jake in the nose, and Jake collapsed on the floor, unconcsious.
Christy rolled her eyes. “Men... Jesse, joke?”
Jesse cleared his throat. “Okay, stop me if you’ve heard this one. An Imposter King Matt and a Pear Goose walk into a convent...”
“AGH!!” the imposter screamed. “I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!! I’D RATHER COMMIT RITUAL SUICIDE THAN TELL YOU ANYTHING!!”
“Oh, don’t worry, that won’t be necessary,” said Brinn, striding into the room with Jaccie.
Christy waved at them. “LOOK! I totally did this all on my own! HOW COOL IS THAT?!?!?”
Jaccie patted her on the head. “Good job, dear. Here’s a cookie.” She threw a cookie up in the air, and Christy began to bound after it, before realizing she was being patronized, at which point she sat down on the floor pouting, yelping when the cookie landed on her head.
Brinn strode over and sat on the Imposter King Matt’s chest, pushing the Pear Goose out of the way. It landed on the floor with an indignant squawk/sneeze.
“So I’ve heard that we need to know your name to get rid of you,” Brinn said cheerily.
Glyde’s expression hardened into a glare. “Why do you say that?”
Brinn laughed. “Oh, don’t play coy with me, honey, I can see right through it. It just so happens that Jaccie, being half computer, searched some randomly placed databank in her brain, and found something on you Fakes. We need to know your name to be able to reverse the possession of your victim. The problem is, only one person knows each Fake’s name.”
Glyde smirked. “You’ve certainly done your homework. But you still don’t know my name.”
Brinn frowned. “That’s true... unless it starts with a ‘G’ and ends with a ‘lyde.’”
Glyde gaped. “Wha... how could you...”
Sarah Kay walked into the room, magical oboe in hand. “Luckliy enough for us, your mother knows your name. She just so happens to be in my mother’s book club, and wouldn’t shut up about how proud of her Fake son she was.”
Glyde glared at Sarah Kay. “You little brat, I hope you-”
Sarah Kay silenced him by hitting him in the head with her oboe. “Stop. Now, luckliy enough for all of us, I brough the real King Matt with me.”
Jesse looked around. “I don’t see him...”
Sarah Kay. “Of course not. You’re a boy. Just kidding, he’s a Shadow, and I have a gift which allows me to see Shadows.
So, yeah, it’s confusing, don’t ask.”
Jesse nodded. “Okay.”
Sarah Kay whipped out a reed for her oboe, played a tuning note, and then smashed the bell in Glyde’s head, and then into Shadow Matt’s head. There was a flash of light, a huge POP, and King Matt was lying on the floor, with Glyde in all his Shadowy Evilness lying on the table, still tied up.
Then, Mylinh burst into the room, waving a piece of paper.
“Where were you?” asked Christy, suddenly remember that her face hurt, really hurt.
“You were gone?” asked Jesse.
“Oh, uh, I hate all that fighting stuff so I was just in my room... looking up things on the new high-speed internet.”
“Mylinh only has dial-up,” explained Christy gravely.
“Wait! Let me get this straight--” King Matt stood, inspecting his newly un-shadow-...ified form, “We were being attacked by a rogue body stealer--”
“Heh heh, Rogue.”
“Shut up, Brinn! We were being attacked by some freak inhabiting MY body and you were surfing the net?!!?!?!?!”
“...Yes. BUT I FOUND SOMETHING COOL!”
“It wouldn’t happen to be that King Matt is being inhabited by a rogue--”
“Heh heh, Rogue.”
“Not you too, Christy!”
“Sorry.”
“Ahem... IT WOULDN’T HAPPEN TO BE THAT--”
“No need to yell, Jaccie!”
“I CAN YELL ALL I FREAKING WANT IF YOU KEEP INTERRUPTING ME!”
“Or I can freeze them!”
“Shut up, BRRRRRINN!”
“Oooh, rolled R’s. She couldn’t do that when she wasn’t half robot...” Christy trailed off when she noticed Jaccie’s robotic eye
glowing red in her general direction.
Jaccie rolled her eyes (well, eye, the other one is just a digital image, but now I’m being ADD), threateningly flashed her creepy laser-targeting thingy at everyone and turned to Mylinh, “Now, before we get interrupted again and I forcefully remove the head of whoever talked... did you know that--”
“Matt was being inhabited by a body-snatcher named Glyde? Yeah, I found it out off a ‘body-snatcher awareness’ pop-up ad.”
Jaccie narrow her... eye, “O...kay.”
“Yeah, but I figured you guys would find out eventually, so I just stayed upstairs and kept surfing. AND I FOUND SOMETHING COOL!”
“What?”
Jaccie spun around and faced Matt, “What did I say about INTERRUPTING!?!?!?!?!”
“I sense a rampant use of puncuation,” muttered Jesse.
Suddenly the room was filled with violent gold light and Matt was standing on the overturned conference table, “ALRIGHT THIS IS GETTING OBNOXIOUS! I KNOW YOU ALL ARE TALKATIVE AND EXCITED ABOUT DEFEATING GLYDE AND WHATNOT BUT THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE A LEAGUE OF SUPERHEROES!”
"I sense a rampant use of capit--"
"JESSE!" King Matt's mystical sword glowed with greater intensity, causing Jesse to flinch and stare down at his feet.
An extraordinarily awkward silence loomed over the room as its inhabitants, aside from the red-eyed half-robot and the wild-eyed sword-man, bit their tongues and exchanged worried glances.
"Mylinh, you may say what you wanted to say now, " came the King's surprisingly authoritatitve voice.
"Oh no, it's not that--"
"I don't care if it's exciting or not, you will tell us what you found that was so much more important than helping to protect your fellow Leaguers and their property."
Mylinh nodded, not sure if she liked the newly stern edition of her section leader, "Well, you know how we never used to hear anything about body stealers or iScraps or the MMFs before this happened, and then suddenly they're everywhere?"
"Go on..." said Matt, barely allowing her time to trail off.
"Well, I found this news article that says the cause of all this trouble may be caused by the movement a huge body of... what was the word I was looking for?"
"Paranorm...adsism... things?"
"Uh... no, " said Mylinh, shooting an odd look across the table.
"But that was a nice try, Jake, " said Christy, feeling it was safe enough to slip in a side comment.
"I think..." Mylinh paused, "I think they said it was like antimatter, because it either didn't take up space or have mass, it was in this cloud of... space stuff that's started floating around the earth..."
Everyone except King Matt looked completely lost, "What color was it?"
"Um... purple."
"Ooooh, " said Brinn.
Mylinh gave him a confused look, "But that's just a rumor, it's probably not the cause--"
"It's precisely the cause of all of this--" King Matt glanced at Jake, "the word's paranormal-- activity! That purple stuff you're talking about is what occurs when our universe crosses the iUniverse."
A collective "Uh, what?" swept across the room."
Matt sighed, "You see, as I told you before, there are hundreds of thousands of millions of universes out there, but, the thing is, there's only so much Space, so all the universes overlap each other. We can see it or sense it in any way, but our universe is occupying the same Space as thousands of other universes, and they're always moving around in Space. Well, certain Universes are parallel with each other, meaning they began the same way, just took different roads later on..." Matt glanced up to see if anyone was lost, surprisingly, everyone except Jake seemed to be following, even though Mylinh and the shivering Sarah Kay seemed oddly disturbed, "And when two parallel universes cross, they react to each other. When our universe crosses paths with the iUniverse, it forms an odd purple cloud that can be seem in both universes."
"And... what does that mean?" asked Sarah Kay.
"It means that now is the perfect time to journey to Septrona, because the distance between here and there is minimal, but--"
"But what?" asked Christy, "And why haven't we ever talked about going to Septrona before?"
"Well..." for the first time in a long time King Matt seemed very uncertain of himself, "I don't exactly have a way to move from one universe to the other."
"But how--"
"The Septronians have the technology needed for iTravel. It was their King who brought me there in the first place, and whenever I needed to get back, I just had to ask iDoe--"
("iDoe?" whispered Jake to Christy, who nodded.
"Yeah, um, she's like his eyes and ears out there in the iUniverse."
"Oh."
"--to open a way through, but... she can't anymore."
King Matt decided at the last minute not to mention that she had refused to give him passage because she was fairly certain he'd be ambushed and killed the minute the stepped into Septrona. And that had probably been true at the time, afterall, he was a little shaken up by the news and was more or less on his own, but now he had all of The Seven behind him, for Sarah Kay, with her unusual abilities, was no doubt the last of them. He stood a much better chance now... if only he could find something that could open up a way to get through...