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befuddled_mage's journal
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relaxed
frustrated
amused
thoughtfulMy short story
The Ringers
Maryann turned left off of the highway onto a little dirt road that made its uneven way through the densely packed trees of the forest. If it hadn’t been for that weird stone archway, I could have driven past this road a dozen times without ever finding it. Maryann squared her shoulders, set her face into a look of determination and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. Well, I suppose that’s just one more thing I’ll have to ask them about when I get there. First, Sarah cancels our weekly movie night. Then Dale stops showing up for work. And I’d swear that was Marco that I saw at the store without any eyebrows. Yet when I try calling them to see if they’re ok, none of them return my phone calls. Maryann sighed and relaxed her posture. Well today, I’ll finally get my answers.
Maryann was jolted out of her contemplations by a series of thuds hitting the roof of her car. She was about to stop and investigate, when something small and furry slid down her windshield to rest on the hood of her car. By the time she realized that it was a squirrel that had landed on her car, two more squirrels had climbed down off of the roof to join the first. For the next several minutes, the squirrels just sat on the hood of the car, occasionally looking back to stare at Maryann, but more often than not, staring fixedly down the road in the direction they were headed.
Maryann wasn’t particularly worried about the peculiar behavior of the squirrels, until she realized that they weren’t alone. Noticing a flash of movement next to the car, Maryann looked over and saw that there were several deer running along the side of the road. She checked her rear view mirror and saw a large bear trundling along so close to her car, that one lunge would have easily removed her back bumper. She leaned forward and looked up through her windshield to see dozens of birds of various sizes flying over head.
Maryann was just starting to get nervous, when the road emerged from between the trees, and all thoughts of strange animals flew from her mind. At the end road sat a two story house that captivated Maryann’s attention. It sat on top of a slight rise, and the trees kept back from it for at least a hundred yards in every direction, almost as though they were afraid of being cut down and used to add to the monstrosity they surrounded. It was clear, even to Maryann’s untrained eye, that the house hadn’t been built all at once. It looked as though it had started out as a modest, one story, country home, and then someone had decided to make improvements.
There was a room coming off of the side of the house that looked disproportionate compared to the rest of the first floor. And the second story looked nice in its own right, but it didn’t seem to quite match up with the first story; the boards used as siding for the second story were made from a different kind of wood than the boards used on the first story, and the windows on the second story were just a little too tall and a little too narrow when compared to the beautiful bay windows on the first story. Most outrageous of all was what appeared to be a small castle tower jutting out over the garage.
As Maryann pulled to a stop in front of the house, she realized that her escort had continued to grow while she had been distracted. An entire herd of deer now surrounded her car and the number of squirrels riding with her had increased to nearly a dozen. And to Maryann’s dismay, it appeared that a second bear had joined the first. She was still trying to figure out how to get into the house without upsetting any of the animals, especially the bears, when she heard someone clear their throat in that special way designed to tell a crowd that they should be paying better attention.
Maryann looked up and saw Sarah standing there in what Maryann secretly liked to call her “impatient dancer” pose. She was standing up on the porch with all of her weight leaning back on her right leg, while her left leg was bent at the knee and resting on the ball of her foot. She had her right hand on her hip and an expression on her face that said in no uncertain terms, “I am prepared to wait here all day until you all do what I want.”
One by one the animals began heading back towards the tree line, until only one of the bears remained in the clearing. It continued to stand there, staring at Sarah, as the minutes stretched past. Maryann got the impression that this was just one skirmish in a long standing battle of wills. After what seemed like an eternity of the invisible mental warfare, the bear dropped its head and sulked its way back into the trees.
Once the bear had disappeared, Maryann jumped out of her car and made her way as quickly as possible up the stairs to the front porch of the house. Once on the porch, Maryann didn’t waste any time in hugging her now smiling friend.
After a few seconds, Maryann pushed Sarah back to arms length and frowned slightly as she scrutinized her friend.
Sarah still looked the same as always; light blonde hair, eyes too blue to be natural, and skin that was far too pale considering how much time she spent outdoors. As she continued to study her friend, Maryann realized that there was indeed something different about Sarah; her smile. Even during the best of times, Maryann had gotten the impression that she was always holding something back when she smiled. But now, Maryann could no longer see any reservation in her friend’s smile.
It’s almost as though she finally found something that she hadn’t know she was looking for. At that moment, Maryann decided that whatever was going on with her friends couldn’t be that bad.
Maryann smiled and was just about to give Sarah another hug when the front door opened up and Dale rushed out to greet her. Even though Dale was only a few inches taller than Maryann’s own diminutive height, he never failed to greet her in one of his uplifting bear hugs. She couldn’t help but laughing as Dale spun her around on the porch a few times before gently putting her back down.
As Maryann regained her balance, Dale, still grinning like a fiend, stood aside at the doorway, bowed slightly, and swept his arm towards the house. Before Dale had a chance to try any more shenanigans, Sarah quickly ushered Maryann through the door and into the house.
Following Sarah, Maryann barely had time to take note of the foyer before making her way down a short hallway and emerging into what was clearly the living room. A couple of bean bag chairs were stacked up in a corner. Pillows were either scattered about the floor or arranged haphazardly on the two couches in the room. There was even a beat up green recliner next to the smaller of the two couches.
Maryann had just enough time to take in the room before being tackled into a group hug by Marco and Peter. With them being the two tallest members of the group, Maryann actually managed to disappear between them during the hug. However, she reemerged a few seconds later to greet the last member of the group. Maryann turned to Allyson and gave her a walking, one armed, half hug as the group made their way over to the couches.
Maryann took a seat on the smaller couch next to Sarah, while Ally and Dale took seats at opposite ends of the larger couch. Marco sank into the recliner with an exaggerated sigh, and Peter pulled an old, grey bean bag chair out of the stack in the corner and flopped down into it.
As the silence stretched out, Maryann took the time to examine the rest of her friends as she had with Sarah. And, like Sarah, they each looked as though they had found something that they had been missing. It was all visible in little things, like a look in their eyes, or in the way that they carried themselves, but each of them exuded an aura of being complete.
With this realization, Maryann could feel a concern for her friends, which she hadn’t known she’d been carrying around, begin to slip away.
After a few minutes of Maryann silently looking the group over, Marco cleared his throat and said, “Well Maryann, you probably have a lot of questions, where would you like to start?”
“Really, I just want to know what’s been going on with all of you for the last couple of weeks. I mean, you were all acting really weird for a while there, and you all stopped returning my calls. And then when I finally do hear back from you all, you’re all living together in this place way outside of town. Just please tell me you’re all not involved in something illegal. Not that I wouldn’t be friends with you all if you were, just so long as you’re not killing people. You aren’t killing people, are you? Oh my god, you’ve all become trained assassins and now you’re gonna kil…”
Maryann’s nervous ramblings were interrupted by Marco, Peter, and Dale erupting into wild laughter. Even Sarah and Ally both looked amused at Maryann’s apprehension.
Sarah, still smiling, leaned over to Maryann and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Mare, I promise, we’re not involved in anything illegal.”
Abruptly, Peter stopped laughing and said in an excited voice, “We’re superheroes, with powers and everything. We’re like the friggen Planette…”
“Peter!” shouted the rest of the group in chorus.
At this sudden outburst from the group, Maryann looked back and forth between Peter and the other members of the group, trying to find a clue as to what was going on.
In response to Maryann’s unasked question, Ally said, in her best school teacher voice, “Perhaps we should start from the beginning. We’ve each been given these special rings which give us access to elemental powers. I have Wind. Peter has Earth…”
“I have Fire,” cut in Marco, displaying a candle flame burning easily in the middle of his outstretched hand.
“I have Water,” said Sarah, as the water from an abandoned drinking glass on the living room table arced up and snuffed out Marco’s flame.
As Marco began to pout, Maryann looked over at Dale and saw that he was already moping heavily. “What about you Dale? What element do you have?”
“I got stuck with stupid Spirit, of all the rotten…”
“What was that? I couldn’t hear you.”
“I said my element is Spirit, and I still think I should have gotten something lik…”
Marco stopped him before he could build up his momentum on his favorite rant topic. “We’ve been over this before. You can do a lot with your powers, and they’re still growing. And besides, it serves you right for how you got your ring in the first place.”
“How I got my ring?!? You’re the one that got his ring at…”
“CHILDREN, ENOUGH!” A sudden breeze swept the room, as Ally’s short patience reached its limit. Silence filled the room as Ally’s glare switched back and forth between the chastised Dale and Marco.
“Umm… How did you all get your rings?” asked Maryann before anyone had a chance to start up again.
“Oh, oh, oh, can I go first? Pleeeease…” asked Peter, sounding like a kid on Christmas morning trying to be the first to open his presents. Then, without waiting for an answer, he launched into his story.
“I was on thinkgeek.com looking for some upgrades for my computer, when I noticed this picture of a ring in the middle of the page for the hard drives, and the website said free. Anything free from thinkgeek usually gets my attention, so I clicked on it, and my computer died. Now, this wasn’t the first time my computer had died, but I had just finished making some repairs earlier that day, so I was pissed. Anyways, I got down, unplugged my computer, and then took off the casing to see if I could find out what the problem was. And there, right through the middle of my hard drive, was my ring…”
“And then what?” asked Maryann, playing the role of an attentive audience.
“I kept it of course. Unfortunately, the incident did ruin the hard drive, but all in all, I’d say it was worth it.”
“Sooo…,” began Maryann, “did you all get your rings from your computers?”
“Weeellll, not really,” drawled Dale. “Ally found hers exploring an abandoned castle in
“What’s an M.H.F?” asked Maryann.
“A Mysterious Hooded Figure. We got tired of saying it so we started using the abbreviation. Turns out Marco thought it was just more, free Comic-Con swag. He didn’t even realize what he had until after he sorted through all his junk nearly a month later. And as for me, I found my ring in a…” Dale trailed off, feigning a coughing fit and garbling the words.
“Where did you find your ring Dale?”
Dale sighed, and admitted sullenly, “I found it in a crackerjacks box.”
Everyone in the group began smiling broadly at that, but they would have probably been successful at restraining their mirth if Marco hadn’t let loose one of his snorting laughs. After that, the flood gates broke, and laughter filled the room, until even Dale couldn’t help but joining in.
When the laughter died down, Dale continued on with his explanation. “We each had our rings for various lengths of time before we realized that there was anything special about them. From what we we’re able to figure out, Sarah and Ally actually had their rings for several months, where as Marco and I found ours only a couple of weeks before they activated.”
“Activated? What do you mean activated?”
At this Marco chimed in, “It happened one day after we had all found our rings. We were getting together to hangout, and for some reason or another, on that day, we all had our rings with us. We were meeting up at this little park over by Dale’s house that has a bunch of trees, and a nice little lake. Peter and I had carpooled there, and Ally and Sarah showed up just after we did, so we just waiting on Dale, as usual. However, when Dale got there, things got…”
“Unusual?” asked Peter.
“Freakay,” said Dale.
“Absolutely aberrant,” contributed Sarah.
“Lets just say less normal than usual, shall we?” said Ally.
“Ahem. As I was saying before I was so thoroughly interrupted, when Dale got there things got weird. Suddenly, a strong breeze swept through the park like a tornado on the warpath, and the earth began to shake like Jello in a conga line at Weight Watchers. The lake erupted into a huge water spout that reached all the way to the heavens, and then fell back to earth like the tears of an unrequited love. The trees burst into maddened flames, making them look like candles fit to mourn the passing of a god. And through all of this, the animals of the park sat around us in a perfect circle, just staring and waiting, until, as one, they let out a collective cry which drowned out all of the other sounds around us of Mother Nature in anguish. Then, as quickly as it began, there was silence, the breeze quieted, the earth settled, the fires died, and the rain turned into a light drizzle. And with that, our powers were,” Marco paused dramatically, “awakened.”
As silence descended on the living room, two things forced Marco to accept that no one was going to applaud his embellished version of events. The first was the fact that no one applauded. The second was the fact that both Ally and Sarah threw a shoe at him.
“What?” asked Marco as he tried to block the projectiles. “That’s more or less the way it happened.”
Ally threw her other shoe at Marco while Sarah arched one of her eyebrows and said, “Considerably less of more, than more of less.” Then Sarah turned to Maryann, “But I suppose it’s good enough for you to get the general idea. Before the activation, the rings were completely ordinary; afterwards, we had our powers.”
As Sarah paused to glare at Marco again, Dale jumped back into his narration. “At first, we didn’t know what to make of it all, but about two weeks after our rings activated, we met up again, this time at Sarah’s house, to try and decide what we should do with the rings. We all had different opinions on what to do with them. A couple of us thought we should just use the rings for our own enjoyment.”
At that comment, everyone frowned at Dale for a brief second.
Dale, however, ignored the looks and continued on with his narration. “While others of us thought our powers could be, and I quote, ‘a mighty force for good in the world.’”
At that, Marco at least had the decency to look abashed at his earlier comic-book cliché.
“We probably would have all split up then, if the M.H.F. hadn’t shown up.”
“Oh, what happened?” asked Maryann, eager to find out more of the story.
In a voice full of dark, primal malice, Ally said, “He kidnapped Banack.”
“DUN, DUN, DUN!” exclaimed Dale and Marco in unison.
At that, Ally glared at the two guys while Sarah threw her other shoe at Dale and then threw one of the couch pillows at Marco.
“Wait. Isn’t he that guy you all went to high school with that Ally dated for a while? Why would the M.H.F. kidnap him?”
“Well, as for you first question, yeah, we all went to high school with him, and yes he and Ally dated for a while. But we’re all still friends, and she’s still somewhat overprotective of him,” explained Peter.
At this, he paused and looked over at Ally where she still sat growling softly as her own personal vortex whipped her hair around in a way that would have made Medusa jealous. Peter quickly looked away and cleared his throat before continuing.
“As to why he did it…”
* * *
There had been a knock on the door that had been barely audible over the quarrelling of the five friends inside. From the sound of it, the knocking had been going on for sometime, merely too softly to carry over the commotion. Sarah had up from her seat and headed for the front door, leaving the rest of the group to continue their arguing.
“Come on, think of all the money we could make in Vegas, or even in
“Be serious for a change, will you? Our powers could be a mighty force for good in the world,” shouted Marco.
As Sarah reached the front door, she could hear Peter mutter something, which apparently Ally could hear quite clearly.
“For the last time Peter, we are not watching Rocky, it has absolutely nothing to do with actual rocks,” said Ally, as though her nerves were reaching there limits.
At the front door, Sarah looked out of the peep hole to see who had knocked, but there was no one visible outside. Cautiously, she unlocked the door and began to open it slowly.
No sooner had the door parted from the edge of the doorframe when someone pushed it open suddenly and marched their way right past Sarah. By the time she realized someone had just forced their way into her house, Sarah was able to turn just in time to see the edge of a cloak disappear into the next room.
As the she dashed after the unknown figure, Sarah began shouting after it, “Hey, get back here or I’ll call the cops. Or if you’re really uncooperative I’ll get down one of my swords, then you’ll wish you’d never…”
Sarah trailed off into silence as she entered the room and found all of her friends silently glaring at the Mysterious Hooded Figure that had just forced his way past her. She circled around him slowly to make her way over to where her friends sat.
Sarah was the first to speak, “Just who do you think you are forcing your way into my house?”
“Who I am is unimportant, but I am here to…” began the M.H.F.
Suddenly, Marco interrupted, “Hey, I know you. You’re the guy I got my ring from at Comic-Con.”
At that remark, Sarah glared at Marco, as if it was somehow his fault that this stranger had forced his way into her home.
“That is correct, but my purpose here is not to reminisce about how you received your ring. I am here to propose a challenge to all of you to see if you are all worthy of the gifts which you have received.”
“A challenge, what kind of challenge?” asked Peter, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“In one week, you will all proceed to an address which I will give to you. At this location, you shall have to complete an objective of my choosing. I suggest you use your time to train.”
“And why should we bother with your challenge?” asked Sarah, who was still feeling disinclined to cooperate with this person that had invaded her home.
The M.H.F. turned to leave, but stopped at the doorway to the next room, and said with his back still to the five, “Because, if you succeed, you will be provided with more money than the five of you could ever possibly need in your collective lifetimes. And, because your objective will be to rescue your friend Michael Banack, who is already in my custody.” And before anyone had a chance to respond, he disappeared out the doorway.
After the few seconds it took for the shock to wear off, everyone got up and bolted as one for the front door. But when they made their way outside, the M.H.F. was nowhere to be found.
* * *
“So, for the next week, we trained together,” continued Peter. “Before that, we had all already been practicing with our rings, but in that week, we made major progress.”
As Peter paused, Sarah picked up where he left off. “When our week was up, we received a phone call from the M.H.F. giving us an address and nothing else. So we all got into my car and went to get Banack back.”
“Ooo, was there fighting? Did you beat up bad guys? What happened?” asked Maryann.
“I got this,” said Marco, sounding determined to make up for his earlier, ill-received, dramatization.
“Oh great, here he goes again,” murmured Ally, as Marco turned towards Maryann and leaned in like he was preparing to impart some deep, dark secret.
“It took us about an hour to get there. We had just gotten off of the freeway and after about half a mile we had to pull off of the main road onto what looked like an abandoned dirt road. After about a mile on the dirt road…”
* * *
They had stopped the car just before the top of the rise in the road, and had walked the rest of the way up to the top to look down on what appeared to be a secret military base. There was a series of nondescript buildings, including several building that appeared to be large hangers. There were guard towers with oversized spot lights, and a very nasty looking barbed wire fence. There was even the cliché series of signs warning off trespassers with threats of death and federal prosecution.
The group of five slowly made their way around the compound looking for the best way to get in.
After they had finished scouting the place out, the group sat down, worked out their plan of attack, and waited for sunset.
Once the sky darkened sufficiently, the group began walking down the road towards the base as if they had every right to be there.
When they got to the gate, Dale took the lead as they approached the waiting guard. Suddenly, the guard’s fierce scowl dissolved into a happy grin and his posture visibly relaxed.
“Hey Boss, what can we do for you?” asked the guard cheerfully.
“My friends and I are looking for a prisoner that’s being kept here. He’s about my height, early twenties, if you’ve talked to him, he probably kept trying to explain things to you. Do you know where he is?” asked Dale casually.
“Oh yeah, sure. Nice guy. He’s being kept over in building C, that’s the last hanger over there on the right.”
“Really, well thanks for the info, just go ahead and forget you guys saw us tonight, ok.”
“Sure thing Boss, but before you go, I should probably warn you that building C is also where they keep the big experimental battle robot.”
“The WHAT?” gasped Peter, in excitement.
“Oh well, that’s just great,” growled Marco.
“I wonder if Banack has tried to reprogram it yet,” said Ally.
“Wanna bet?” asked Dale.
“5 quid,” replied Ally.
“What’s a quid?” asked the guard.
“Uh, hello? Giant Robot, people? Ring any bells?” interrupted Sarah.
The guard fell back into his helpful demeanor. “Oh, yeah. Sorry. The robot is a fifteen foot tall, heavily armored battle mech, designed to be able to handle a fully armed platoon of marines. Right now it’s not fully equipped since they’re still testing it, but it is still very dangerous. The guys around here like to call it the Peacekeeper.” At that the guard grinned broadly for a moment, until his grin was replaced with a frown of worry. “If you’re going up against that thing, you should be real careful.”
“Um, yeah, definitely. Well, thanks again. Remember, we weren’t here, and we didn’t have this conversation,” said Dale, less confidently than before.
“Sure thing Boss, and good luck,” said the guard, before he settled back into his post and promptly forgot about the pleasant conversation he had just been having.
As they made there way towards the hanger that the helpful guard had indicated, they passed several other groups of guards patrolling the base. And with each of the groups they passed, all of the guards assumed the same happy grin that the original guard had and then continued on their way.
When they reached the building, they found a simple lock on the door, which Peter broke using his bear hands.
“Wow, Peter, how’d you do that?” asked Marco.
“It’s easy. When I’m handling metals or rocks, my powers augment my strength ten fold,” replied Peter a bit smugly, as the others walked past him into the hanger.
Once inside, they found the hanger to be mostly darkened, except for lights coming from a small office hanging from the ceiling that looked like it was still being occupied.
Without a sound, Ally leapt into the air and kept on rising until she was even with one of the windows of the office.
Then Ally did a little loop in mid air before making her way back down to the group.
“He’s inside, but I didn’t see a way in. We need to find some light and figure out how to get him out of there.”
No sooner had Ally whispered this, than all of the lights in the hanger turned on, illuminating scattered piles of discarded machinery, and the form of one, very large, machine in the center of the room.
As they stared in awe, the machine stirred to life and began to unfold itself. Curled up, the machine was small enough that Marco was able to look over the top of it. But as it stood up, everyone realized that the guard had underestimated the machine’s height. The machine was closer to twenty feet tall, and in no way aesthetically pleasing. It was all harsh angles and vicious looking weapons.
It was roughly humanoid, with two legs and four very dangerous looking arms. That is, if long, deadly, spiked protrusions are considered arms. If the aren’t considered arms, then the robot only had two arms, but it also had two long, deadly, spiked protrusions coming out from its shoulders.
“Scatter!” shouted Marco as he leapt behind what appeared to be an old news paper printing press.
No one needed the prompting; everyone was already heading for cover behind the various piles of junk that littered the hanger floor.
Everyone tried attacking the robot in their own ways. Peter and Dale both began throwing things at the robot; though, thanks to the power of his ring, Peter was able to throw scrap the approximate size of a V8 engine.
Though the robot seemed to ignore Dale’s thrown debris, whenever Peter threw one of his larger pieces of scrap, the robot either caught it and threw it back at Peter, or, more often than not, simply batted it aside.
Sarah used a bottle of water she had brought along to generate needles of ice, which she was able to launch with more speed and precision than a sniper’s bullet.
Unfortunately, the robot seemed to be equipped for dealing with sniper bullets; for no sooner would Sarah launch an ice needle at the robot, than one of its deadly, spiked appendages would snap down, and intercept the needle in midflight.
Marco kept a constant stream of fire on the robot, aiming for joints in the hope that something would buckle. But whenever Marco thought he was making progress on a target, the robot would step around a pile of machinery, blocking his line of fire.
“It doesn’t look like we’re doing much damage to that thing!” shouted Peter between throws.
“Maybe it has a weak spot,” replied Ally, who had been unsuccessfully attempting to push the robot off balance with gusts of wind.
“If you’ve got a plan Ally, I’d love to hear it,” yelled Dale, his frustration clearly evident in his voice.
“Hey! I’ve got an idea, but it’ll take a group effort. Peter, do you think you can open up a pit under that thing?” shouted Marco.
Instead of answering, Peter closed his eyes and scrunched up his face in concentration, until suddenly, a large sinkhole opened up underneath the robot, swallowing it entirely.
With the pit opened, Marco smiled and threw a ball of fire upwards, where it impacted with the ceiling.
At first nothing happened, but then there was a sharp hissing sound, as the fire sprinklers across the hanger began their downpour.
Already realizing where Marco’s plan was leading, Ally created a giant vortex which funneled the sprinkler water into the pit.
“Sarah,” shouted Marco, when Ally dissipated her twister.
Without Ally’s twister holding it down, the robot had been able to begin climbing its way out of the pit. Which meant that it had half a hand above the surface of the water when it froze solid.
* * *
“And that’s how we beat the robot and saved Banack,” finished Marco.
“I like the way you made that seem like the plan to beat the robot was all your idea,” said Sarah with thinly veiled sarcasm.
“What? That’s pretty much how it happened,” replied Marco.
In response, Sarah just arched an eyebrow and gave him a look that clearly said, “Sure, just keep telling yourself that.”
“But what about the M.H.F.? Where was he during all of this?” inquired Maryann.
Peter was the one to reply. “He was there, waiting with Banack. Turns out he kept the robot set to use minimal force when dealing with intruders. He never really wanted to hurt us or Banack, he just wanted to see what we were capable of. It was all just a test.”
Ally responded with barely contained skepticism. “He said he’s on our side and that it was all necessary to get us ready for some mysterious other threat will have to face later. Yadda, yadda, yadda.”
“And you all bought this house with the money you got from him for winning?”
Marco answered, ignoring Ally’s doubt. “Yup, we figured that if he was telling the truth, we would be too vulnerable living apart. So we got this place. It’s big and comfortable and the surrounding countryside gives us lots of areas to train. Peter has his own computer lab down in the basement to monitor anything that might affect us. And Dale made a deal with all of the local wildlife to warn us about any intruders. All in all, we’ve got ourselves a pretty good H.Q. for when the M.H.F. contacts us.”
“The M.H.F. still contacts you?” asked Maryann.
“Yeah, so far, he’s warned us about a couple of organizations we should keep an eye on that might try to steal our rings. And sometimes he drops off training equipment for us to practice with.”
“So then, what are you all going to do now?” asked Maryann.
Without a trace of sarcasm, Dale replied, “We’re going to save the world.”
“With Great Power comes Great Responsibility,” said Marco, unable to resist an opportunity for a comic book quote.
At which point, Marco was bombarded by several pillows, and a bean bag chair.
Updated version
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