"Do I have to?" She asked with a disgusted look on her face. You should've wiped the traces of vomit in your lips first before saying that.
"Yes! Look at his face! It's turning bluer the longer we have this conversation!" I urged her to slap JN's nipple this immediate moment.
"Ugh! Okay!" She reluctantly agreed to. "Which one?"
I totally forgot about that.
"The right one, I think?"
"Are you sure?" The thought of having to slap him twice made her shudder.
"Kinda."
I definitely am not sure. But I do remember something. "Wait, what is his rhyme again?"
"Hmm..." She's racking her brain to remember JN's rhyme. "'To cleanse the fright, it is right. To take care what's left...'"
"'...is but a mere jest.'"
It's beautiful, really, but it doesn't help us at all.
"That's bullshit! What does that even mean?!" She looks even more frustrated than before.
"It's left."
She turned her head at me as if I just deciphered a cryptic ancient language. I don't really know about what he means either, but all I know is 'to cleanse the fright' must mean the state when he likes to wreck havoc on bad guys, just like before.
I wouldn't really call sending bad guys a flying-kiss by 'cleansing the fright' but rhyme-wise, it works.
"Well, if you're really sure..." She paused for a moment before continuing to move her hand in a slapping motion. "...here goes nothing."
The crisp and wet sound of a hand slapping a sweaty, naked chest can be heard throughout the car. Adeera's flailing her hand around and swiping it on JN's pants to get rid of the sweat that clung unto it.
Unexpectedly though, she made the questionable decision to sniff her hand and began puking out the window again.
But throughout all the commotion, the bullet holes on his torso all the way to his legs are beginning to close up. His complexion is also starting to come back. It's taking a little while but he definitely won't die. At the very least, he will only have some minor injuries, but knowing JN, I'm pretty sure he'll be back to the way he was before.
"It works!" Adeera cheered after she was finally able to gather herself.
"Well, we'll see if he wakes up or not. In the meantime..." I point to the pouch of diamonds on JN's lap. "...count the diamond!"
"Okay, fine!" She took the pouch and hesitantly counted how many diamonds were inside with a pout on her face.
I sometimes wonder, why am I even still in this group, you know? As you can see there's nothing close to normal with these people. Adeera, she was my friend in high school, I believe? I don't really remember having any contact with her, but she insisted on saying that she knew me back in high school.
She, like me, is in her twenties. She has a brown, wavy hair that drops down a little further than her shoulder. She has a scooped nose with a turned-up tip and full lips. She sort of comes out of comic book in a way. But none of those beauty is enough to make people like her. She's rough, selfish, and always does what she wants. Having one of the best class of Gift just makes her even more unbearable.
She's one of the Gantes—which means "to manifest" in the olden language of Iora—. It is the top of the class hierarchy. Gante is filled with Gifted who can create something out of nothing. Her power, Cuboid, basically lets her create invisible barrier out of her limbs. But it needs to come out of her limbs, and she can't make it really big and when it reaches a certain size, she'll just get exhausted or in some cases, passed out.
Sounds disappointing, I know. But the girl surprisingly has a somewhat decent enough head on her shoulder to use her power well.
There are other classes as well, Fio, Mena, and Indi. Fio—"to manipulate"—, lets you control the essence of things. There are a lot of powerful Gifted here as well, mostly filled with benders—metal, water, fire, etc.
Mena—"to elevate"—, is filled with people that are superhumans. There are a lot of Gifted with superhuman strength, speed, hearing, or any other normal human traits, except they're not normal. JN is one of them.
Indi—"to evolve"—, is filled with people who have mutation or have evolved into something other than human. Some have incredibly powerful powers, like skin made out of metal, or wings with poisonous fur. But some also have just the most useless mutation ever, like a pimple on your body that changes places whenever you sneeze.
And last is The Cursed. These are the opposite of Gifted. In this day and age where Gifted rules everything, having no powers at all means that you're just a nuisance in the society. Cursed are often abandoned, mocked, discriminated, and banished from society.
How about me, you ask? I like to classify myself above these puny groups. Yes, some of these Gifted are really powerful and have powers that rival a country, but as a result, they don't have any brain at all. All they did when they have conflict is to brawl it out and have whoever comes out on top becomes the winner. That's not what any civilized people should do.
Whereas, The Cursed have to fend off for themselves. They have to be together to be strong. They have to think to survive. They have to constantly be aware of their life lest some Gifted would unintentionally kill them in the middle of their fight. And I respect that.
So in a way, The Gifted are the ones cursed with powers.
"There are a hundred diamonds here." Adeera notified me while pouring all the diamonds back inside the pouch.
"That's less than what I expected. Don't those hoodlums usually make bigger transactions than this on regular basis?" I wondered.
"Really? I think this catch is pretty big, though."
"It is, but I thought there are about five hundred diamonds there at least."
"There's no way a deal with that big of amount is done in an old abandoned building like that, right?"
"That might be true. Well, this is still pretty good."
"So, how do we split this? The amount is indivisible by three." Sparks showed up in her eyes thinking about the money she'll get after we pawn this.
"Well, it's forty for me and JN, and twenty for you."
"What! Why?! I thought we're all about equality!" She acted out her disbelief by smacking JN's hips.
"I'll split them equally when we all work equally! You didn't even do anything!" I screamed back at her.
"What do you mean I didn't do anything! I busted in when the deal between those scumbags take place, I fought them when we got the pouch, I even count the diamonds!"
"But here's the thing..." I stopped the car to lean out to the back seat "...we all did that! Except for that last thing, JN and I did all of that too! You didn't even run on your own when we ran out there even though you would've ran faster if you used your power! If anything you should've paid JN!"
"But you also piggybacked on JN's back! You should've paid him too!" She complained angrily.
"But I got us the news about the diamonds deal! We wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for me!" I persistently argued.
"BUT! How can you call yoursel—"
At this point she started to turn red and about to burst out all of her complains to me before I hushed her and stopped her from talking. Something is coming here, to our car.
"Shush! Did you hear that?" I placed my hand on her mouth.
"It sounds like buzzing." Adeera said while pulling my hand off her mouth "Is it just me or is it getting louder?"
"It definitely is getting louder."
Suddenly, a laser beam comes through the middle of the roof of the car, and burn the seat next to me.
"Ky! Watch out!" Adeera shouted to warn me about the next beam that narrowly hit the space between my thighs.
While we're panicking trying to comprehend what is happening, or why it is happening, suddenly the beam stopped, and so is the buzzing noise. We look out the window and we see nothing.
Out of nowhere, the beam instantly cut the car in half.
"Hello, you little scoundrel!"
There we see two Gifteds, one with a giant fly-like wings on his back, and the other is carried in a baby kangaroo carrier by the winged one. I said two Gifted, but it's more like one and a half, really. The other one is only half a man with no legs attached to his body.
Having been cut cleanly in the middle, the car fall to the side. Dee and I climbed out of the seat and crawled to JN to see if he's hurt. We squatted there looking at the two Gifteds in front of us.
"Having a little fun with our precious treasure?" The baby spoke.
"You mind giving it back to us before we beamed you all down?" The winged took turns.
I'm trying really hard to not burst out laughing while seeing the two of them buzzing afloat, trying to threaten us. It's just nothing close to being intimidating in any way.
The skinny middle-aged man with fly-like wings, the balding man in the baby carrier that looks too heavy to carry, the image of two grown-ups flying everywhere like kangaroo mama jumping around with her baby. It's all just too much to handle.
I look at my side and saw that Dee is also trying so hard to not laugh out loud.
Oh— our eyes met.
And here comes the laughter.
"Hahaha! Look at you guys! It's bring-your-son-to-work day, huh?!" I burst out laughing.
"Pfft! This is why you guys could never break out of the C-tier! No criminal will be scared of you!" Adeera's chuckling like crazy while again slapping JN's hips.
Wait, what does she mean by C-tier?
"Wait, what do you mean they're C-tier?" I stopped laughing, and whispered my question to Adeera as low as possible.
"They're Doom Patrol. Don't you know that?"
"You mean, like, Doom Patrol, Doom Patrol? The heroes, Doom Patrol?"
"Wait, you don't know them?" She asked while looking confused.
"Like, the real, C-tier duo, Doom Patrol?!"
"Yeah." She answered nonchalantly.
I look at the not-so-funny figures in the sky for the second time. They look back at me with a sinister grin on their faces. I blinked twice, just to see them again still smiling back at me. I close my eyes for real this time, and take a deep breath.
Oh shit.