FicWad

While they were sleeping and enjoying their hot tub news spread rapidly around the city of the new Xonar heroes in town. By the time they woke up the next morning everybody was aware of their existence.

Joe slowly opened his eyes and turned over in his cloud to see that nobody else was awake. He slid off of his cloud and quickly and quietly had a shower. He rode the elevator down to the first floor and walked into the hotel restaurant and sat down to eat a quick breakfast before leaving the hotel. Wandering the streets, he read all the signs and finally stopped and entered one of the shops.

Back at the hotel Lara sat up and looked over at where Joe should be sleeping. Noticing the empty cloud she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and muttered to herself, “He must have gone downstairs for breakfast.” Seconds later Cal and Alex woke up.

“Where’s Joe?” Alex mumbled, noticing the missing member of their party.

“Dunno,” Lara answered shrugging as she climbed off her cloud.

Suddenly the door burst open and Joe stepped in carrying a silver brief case with a huge smile on his face.

“There he is. Where’d you go?” Cal sleepily asked Joe.

“I bought us something,” he announced excitedly. He put the case on the table in the kitchen area and opened it. Four weapons glistened in the sleek metal case. “I figure if we’re going to face this thing we might as well be prepared,” he explained still grinning. “I didn’t have to pay for them, which is frustrating. I don’t really like this special attention. We should have to pay just like everybody else. Anyway, apparently the shop owner had them made and reserved especially for us. Don’t know how he knew we were coming but it’s kinda cool.”

“Umm… great, but how are we supposed to use these? We hardly even know what they are, or what they do,” Cal pointed out as he looked over the weapons.

“The shop owner taught me how to use them. I’ll show you,” Joe said as he quickly closed the case.

The teens got dressed and followed Joe until they walked into a deserted field. Joe opened the case and pulled out four collapsible targets. He set them up then handed each of his mates a weapon and grabbed a particularly dangerous looking one for himself. They examined them carefully before Joe went up to each person individually and showed them how their weapons worked.

“Just push that button there,” Joe explained to Lara pointing to a glowing button. Lara pushed the button and the bar she was holding burst apart into two rods with a shimmering light connecting them.

“Nunchucks?” Lara asked confused.

“No. Well yes. See that light? It cuts through anything, except you!” Joe explained, quite excited, as Lara stared at the weapon, not quite sure what to think.

Joe then walked over to Alex who was holding a sharp dagger. “This one’s pretty obvious except for one thing. If you squeeze the handle theirs a pressure point near your thumb which shoots out sharp laser blades. Oh and the battery that generates the lasers can’t run out of power. Sweet, huh?” Alex’s formerly disappointed face turned interested as he handled the knife.

Then Joe approached Cal who was holding a bow and quiver of arrows. “I think I know how to use these,” he said quite plainly.

“Well yeah, but the quiver reloads itself. Your won’t run out of arrows. And look at the arrow heads. They aren’t sharp but they are explosive. Not a big explosion but it will do some damage. So be careful with those,” he said handling the weapon with care.

“And what’s your weapon?” Alex wondered out loud.

“Just a gun.”

“I doubt that,” Alex mumbled to Cal out of the side of his mouth.

“Let’s try these things out!” Lara suggested enthusiastically.

For the next hour the three teens, with Joe’s help, practiced using their weapons, completely destroying the targets. After there was nothing left to hit they packed up and headed back to the hotel.

“So how bad d’you reckon this ‘Queen’ will be?” Lara asked, sitting on her cloud after they got back.

“By the sounds of it, pretty bad,” Cal replied, sitting down next to Alex.

“She’s going to be a hard one to bring down,” Joe mumbled as he fiddled with his gun.

Alex paced around the room in deep thought. “What if we can’t defeat her? We could die!” he said as he voiced his thoughts.

“We could,” Cal stated, frowning. “But then again the locals seem to believe that we can do it so maybe we have more power than we know?”

Joe and Lara nodded in agreement but Alex continued to look worried.

“Cheer up! If you’re going to think that negatively than you might as well die,” Joe said jokingly, slapping him on his back.

“Ha ha very funny,” Alex sarcastically replied.

“Anyway, I’m going to get some lunch. I saw this nice looking café when I went out this morning. You guys comin’?” Joe asked addressing his friends.

Alex, Cal and Lara followed Joe to the café. They sat down at a small round table and ordered their food. Luckily for them most of the food here was the same as it was on earth. They chatted and laughed as they ate and soon the bill came. When Joe explained the money problem but offered to find a way to pay anyways the waiter looked down at his wrist and instantly drew the bill back.

“So it’s true,” he muttered to himself. “So you’re the ones everybody’s talking about! The Xonars. Don’t worry about the payment sir. We couldn’t possibly make heroes like yourselves pay!” he hurriedly said to the four teens.

Joe groaned then asked the waiter, “Isn’t there anything we can do to pay you?”

The waiter shook his head and hurried off. Cal shrugged his shoulders and they left the café with Joe feeling quite annoyed.

“I don’t see why you’re complaining, man. It’s free stuff!” Alex mentioned to Joe as they walked back to the hotel.

Joe shrugged and continued walking without saying anything. As they walked past the crooked Q Joe stopped and said, “You guys go ahead. I’m going to slide in here for awhile.”

The others shrugged and walked away but Lara was feeling a bit worried. She had been noticing how much Joe was drinking.

Does he have an alcohol problem? Is it because of his brother? She thought, hoping that he didn’t.