Dmitri gave a sheepish look, but did not back down.
"Maybe later. I'd like to take you up on that spar, first."
Comrade Cosmonaut pressed his mic button to say yes, only to find he had been temporarily muted. The two sides of the cold war were currently in their respective huddles.
"Who's this guy?"
"Didn't we hire him for an escort detail?"
"You mean the one where we tried to give him the cold shoulder? The one he said was his favorite? That one!"
"Sir, does any of that matter. He's American! Or at least, he's our citizen."
"I like the way you think, Johnson. Now, let's play to see who has to ride a fishing boat home."
As the Americans descended into rock/paper/scissors, The man under an umbrella took charge for the Russians.
"What do we know about this character?"
"Intelligence suggests he is the son of a banished."
"So, he's technically one of ours?"
"We can spin it that way. Comrade, didn't you go on a spa trip with him your last time in New York?"
The Cosmonaut thought for a moment, as if reliving a pleasant memory.
"Oh yes, he had the church steeple and everything... I'm also not pleased about you cutting me off."
"I don't like surprises," the man under the umbrella said.
"He has no powers, just gadgets. What is the harm?"
"Damn it!"
The sudden outburst from one of the men in black put an abrupt end to discussions on the soviet side. From here, the submarine commander did the talking.
"I wasn't aware you had three candidates?"
"That's weird, maybe the updated memo got lost in the mail," an American said. He was the only man in black remaining, as the aircraft carrier was already speeding back to California. He was, coincidentally, the same Johnson who proposed the 'brilliant idea' earlier.
"Ugh, it doesn't matter anyway. Our Comrade will still leave here as Captain! Now begin!"
"Actually, feel free to argue longer; I am still getting ready."
They turned to see the John on his knees, shaving in front of a pocket mirror on his lap.
"What are you doing," Comrade Cosmonaut asked, intrigued.
"Ah, well, I had read this article in a health magazine recently. My adopted daughter knocked one of my teeth out during training, and it was all I could do to pass the time at the dentist office. Anyway, It featured an interview with this fancy doctor guy; Russo was the name, I think."
"Does this story have an end? I do want to go bowling after this, you know?"
"Oh, sorry. Where was I?"
"The doctor guy."
"Right, the doctor guy. So anyway, he was talking about this theory he had regarding powers and the symptomatic illnesses that accompany many of them. His idea was that they were tied more to the origin of the power than the power itself."
"And?"
"Well, I forgot about it after that. But, when I got your invite to join this team, I got to thinking of it again. Your origin is famous, but nobody has figured out just how you got powers from that accident. Was is the experimental fuel that exploded beneath your cockpit? Was it the disintegrating comet that hit you after you were ejected from the craft? You however, to this day, claim it to be the ritual. Kind of a weird thing to think, if you ask me; so what if your pee comes out in two streams, and hits both back tires?"
"Are you going to laugh at my answer, like those interviewers did?"
"No, i'm not your doctor; what do I care? I just thought that, since I'll be climbing a mountain beyond a mountain, I should do every little thing I can. Consider this my ritual, I guess."
He had just finished writing a will and, after sticking the sealed envelope back in the duffle bag, approached the edge of the cliff.
"Hey, do you think my pee will come out in two streams?"
It didn't, but something was different when Dmitri turned back around. He now held a knife to his own throat.
"So am I supposed to stop you from killing yourself, now?"
"No, just focus on it instead of my other hand."
THWAP!
A modified tranquilizer dart hurtled towards Captain Cosmonaut, so he attempted to casually flick it away.
CRACK!
"You made them more fragile," he said calmly as a blue goop dripped down the front of his helmet.
"I figured that, with your immense base strength, you have to train hard to exert small amounts of it."
THWAP! CRACK!
"I also may have made each one a slightly different level of brittle. It'd probably be better to dodge this next volley, you totally can't not break them with your freakish king kong strength."
He had covered half the previous distance between them, and let loose a barrage of these darts.
"My strength is not King Kong! It's soft and supple, like disco nights!"
Successfully taunted, the Cosmonaut's hands turned into a blur and he delicately plucked each dart from the air as they approached.
"Hah! See!"
"Oh yup, I saw. Amazing."
THUNK!
Only a quarter the distance away, Dmitri fired a large net and charged. He managed to reach the Cosmonaut only seconds after it wrapped him. As the net began to tighten, Dmitri gave the Cosmonaut a big hug.
"Uh, could you do this after our spar?"
"Why? So you can break that restricting net once you don't have to worry about hitting me with shrapnel?"
"Yes, exactly. It's not like this net can hurt me, anyway."
"It doesn't have to."
PSSSSSSSHHHHH!
"My air tank! Damn it!"
"Do you yield? I'm fine holding this hug the 10 minutes it takes to run out."
"And if I hold my breath?"
"Then I'll hug even longer!"
Cosmonaut held him to it, not giving in until his ragged breath could be heard through the intercom.
"Fine, I yield!"
Finished recounting, Dmitri then waited for the questions which would obviously follow.
"Wow, was I the only one who thought that was homo erotic?"
The other teenagers nodded in agreement at Juniper's astute question.
"What, that's your question!?! Not 'how come your story takes place 15 years before the public founding of the All-Star League?' Or 'why is your story so different from official accounts?'"
"I mean, you can't exactly sell toys of the 'spar of the century' if the climatic scene is a hug, you know?"
"Yeah."
"Makes sense to me."
"Even you, mister Whiskers?"
Defeated yet again, Dmitri went into the back to change before the action cameras came back on.
"Cosmo liking me, no way... Wait, why didn't he just fly in a circle until I passed out?"