There was commotion out front, but the back room was quiet.

Cardboard boxes stacked in threes and fours across the room leaving paths for people to walk. There were stacks of 3 or 4 of them scattered around the floor. Richie entered and found a box that was already open and looked inside to find a few cans of coffee– the small ones. Richie didn’t really know what Pax wanted him to investigate but he took out one of them and gave it a shake.

Yep. It was coffee.

Richie went to another box and read the label: chlorine. Unusual for a convenience store to have. Richie pulled out his pocket knife and slit the tape. Popping it open, he looked inside to a crowd of chlorine: 3.7L bottles. If Etizaaz was getting shipments of that stuff, it wouldn’t have been suspicious if he started ordering things that Pax needed. At least Richie thought so.

In the corner was the door out back into the alley. While Richie had his head in a cardboard box, something crept into the room. A puddle of liquid squiggled in through the crack beneath the back door and slid across the floor.

Kay had entered the building.

In his melted state, he couldn’t get a good look at the room. He retook his humanoid form, reshaping slowly so that he made as little sound as possible. Kay’s eyeballs reformed and with his eyesight back, he got a better look at Richie, the man with his head in a cardboard box. Good thing Kay kept quiet, then.

It was a perfect opportunity for a first strike. With steps as soft as morning fog, Kay went up behind Richie. It was time to hit. But Kay didn’t want to hit anyone. But he had to! Violence was necessary in this case. How was he going to do this? He raised his arms high above his head and got ready to slam a pair of fists. Would that hurt him enough? Did Kay want to hurt him?

Kay could hear dialogue from the front of the store:

“I’m no criminal,” said a man with a middle-eastern accent, “I’m not– what’s the word– savvy enough to pull this off. I would only get you men caught!”

“You’re the right man for the job, Vadsaria,” said a man with a cocky, smoky voice. “You’re not going to attract any legal attention.”

Kay cycled through different stances, ready to attack his enemy but hesitant to go through with it.

Richie heard something shifting and lapping behind him and put down a jar of jam to turn around and see.

“Ahhh!” screamed Kay.

He flipped his arm out so that his hand became a big fan of water and he slapped Richie right in the face, knocking the man back a few steps and splashing water on his cheeks, hair and onto the boxes and floor. Richie stumbled and grabbed a cardboard box, getting a handle. “What the–?” Richie got on his feet, his eyes shooting at Kay. Richie’s throat quaked for a second, but then he threw his voice to the front store. “Pax! You... you should see this!”

“What is it?” said Pax, annoyed.

As Kay walked around Richie, Richie worried about touching the strange creature and got out of Kay’s way. Kay walked to the door and let himself be seen by everyone in the front store. All eyes turned to him. Etizaaz gazed with disbelief, stepping over to his daughter and holding her tight. Bruno gulped, a little bent out of shape seeing such an inhuman thing. Weasel stared but in a way that contained more curiosity than shock.

Pax? His eyes didn’t know what he was looking at on first glance, but once he let his vision settle and confirmed that he was looking at some kind of water being, he knew what he had to do.

Freaks, as Pax called them, usually went down the same way as normal people.

Richie shifted to a corner in the back room so that he could see Pax through Kay’s translucent body. Richie called to Pax. “What is he?”

“I don’t know what kind of freak this is,” said Pax. “Let’s see if its capable of pain.”

Pax snapped into a run and dashed at Kay. Before Kay could react, Pax hailed a punch right into Kay’s face. It didn’t matter if Kay was made of water: when objects hit him, it hurt. And his body reacted like he was made of flesh. The boy was knocked against a shelf, bumping against it and rattling some boxes of tea to the floor.

Kay groaned and got back on his feet. His heart picked up again. It was a fight. A real fight. And his opponents looked like the kind of people that did fighting on the regular. Kay looked over to see Bruno moving to the back of the store to trap Kay in between him and Pax, who was walking towards Kay from the other side.

Richie came out of the back room, his hair still damp with that slap Kay gave him. Four against one.

He was trapped, but Kay looked at the bottom of the shelf and saw some light shining from the other side. He melted, his humanoid form sinking into a puddle, and before Pax or Bruno could nab him, he slid under the shelf into the middle aisle. He reformed, perfectly fine.

That didn’t solve any problem, though.

“A slippery one, huh?” said Pax. He slid a boot along the floor and it squeaked as it passed through the sheen that Kay had left behind. “Literally.”

On one side of the store, there was Pax, Richie and Bruno. On the other, there was Weasel. Etizaaz watched the fight, unsure that what he was seeing was real. Even Yamina with her young ability to accept anything was shocked at what she was seeing, hiding behind her dad, peeking out to see what was going on, and then hiding again.

Kay could hear Weasel growling behind the shelves, peeking at Kay through canned goods and towels.

Bruno wrapped around the back while Pax and Richie approached Kay from the front. Kay couldn’t help but show his fear, staring at the pair of toughs with fearful eyes. The growling– Weasel’s growling– was getting louder. Kay turned around to see Weasel climbing over the shelf, but something was different.

His face had gotten coarse. No, Weasel’s face was catlike with his mouth stretching out like a muzzle. What was he, Kay wondered. With a snarl on his mouth, Weasel showed off a row of dagger-like teeth. His eyes were yellow with sharp irises and his ears were growing longer. He grabbed the top of the shelf with long clawed fingers, knocking boxes of baking mix around and shaking the shelves with his weight.

Weasel hissed and Kay screamed. The beast jumped at Kay and Kay snapped out of the way only to be within arms length of Bruno, who approached from the back.

Bruno didn’t waste a second. He turned a punch at the water boy. Kay had half a second to watch a big fist fire right at his face. The fist connected and Kay was thrown into the bathroom door. Kay collapsed on the ground, dazed.

Bruno looked at his hand, a sheen on his knuckles left by the water creature. “It might be a water thingy, but it takes a hit like any palooka you could know!”

Philly was outside with his legs up on the windowsill, watching the fight through the glass. The fight had gone south in a way that the fox did not predict. Maybe the kid was right and he wasn’t meant to fight.

“Come on, kid,” said Philly, “You can take them.”

Kay got up and dashed into the centre of the aisle, only to get once again pincered by the crowd of thugs. Bruno and Weasel took one end of the aisle and Richie took the other.

“You chose the wrong time to be a hero, kid,” said Pax.

Kay hadn’t even tried to attack anyone aside from Richie earlier. All he was doing was getting his butt kicked across the store. He looked over at the office and saw Etizaaz staring back, the man’s disbelief resigning to sympathy as it became clear that Kay was in over his head. All Kay was doing was depleting energy– more his than his attackers. He wasn’t fighting any crime. It was a game of tag. What was Kay thinking getting involved?

The thugs closed in Kay. Pax leaning against the counter. His boys had the situation under control.

Bruno ran at Kay and Kay tried to dodge but Bruno was quick and swung his left fist around to hit Kay right into Kay’s stomach, throwing him across the room at the fridges. Kay smacked the door and fell to the ground, rattling the bottles inside and knocking the door open.

He had the wind knocked out of him and his stomach burned with pain. Before he had a chance to react, Weasel ran at him with fury in his eyes and claws out to snatch Kay. Kay got to his feet and leaped to the side to avoid Weasel’s attack, but the monster-man was quick and swiped a large claw across Kay’s body. The claw tore at Kay’s top before Kay’s living water materialized replacement fabric. The sting of carnage lingered, though.

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Weasel stared at Kay with his gremlin stare. He was followed with Bruno and Richie behind him.

Kay controlled his breathing and faced down the trio of thugs. It was time to fight back. He tightened a fist and took a swing at Weasel. The monster-man was quick and dodged to the side. Bruno behind him thrust a fist at Kay’s face and while Kay took a step back, the knock still connected and dazed him.

Weasel rushed Kay and Kay grabbed at Weasel’s arms. Face-to-face with the gremlin, Weasel hissed, his eyes terrifying Kay with their fury. Kay kneed into Weasel’s stomach but Weasel took the blow with easy and struggled to break free from Kay’s grasp.

Kay panicked. He didn’t know how to save the situation so he threw Weasel off and then ran around the store to get away from the pursuing beast-man. Weasel chased him like a wolf, but Kay’s steps left a sheen on the ground and Weasel stepped into one of those tiny puddles, causing the guy to slip for a second.

Wait a minute, thought Kay.

Kay turned it around, and went after Weasel. He concentrated mass in his right arm and it grew in size as he threw it at the monster-man. The punch landed right on Weasel’s catlike face. Weasel was knocked back, leaving himself open for another attack. Kay jumped up and gave the little were-cat a kick to face! The water boy stumbled the landing. It was his first time doing a jump kick, after all.

Bruno and Richie saw that the fight was turning against Weasel and raced over. Richie’s shoe landed in one of the small puddles that Kay left behind and did a full-on slip and topple to the floor. Richie smacked his back to the floor and the wind was knocked right out his lips.

Kay was still in trouble, though. Philly had to help. While all eyes were on Kay and the attackers in the corner, Philly pushed in the door. It was hard for the fox to open the door but he got it open enough to pop inside, tail and all. No one noticed the bell ringing. The fox squeezed himself under the shelf by the door and crept up closer to Kay and his opponents.

With Weasel against the shelves, trying to recover from a couple hard blows Kay landed on him. Bruno took a big swing at Kay, but Kay slipped back and the mighty fist crashed right into the shelf. Bruno was good at stifling a yelp of pain but his knuckle slammed right into the shelf’s metal foundation. It throbbed.

Pax saw that the fight was turning on his boys so he got up from the counter and approached Kay from behind, quick enough that it was too late for Kay to notice.

Philly intervened. The fox snapped his head out from the shelf and took a bite at Pax’s ankle.

“Ah!” said Pax, hopping back and scanning the ground for what just got him. The fox was gone, though. He got down and rubbed his leg. “Geez! Does this place have rats?”

Kay whipped himself around and tried kicking Pax while he was on the ground but the villain was quick and got up to back himself up against the warmer at the end of the counter.

Pax was ready to smack the water boy but then he saw Bruno coming up behind Kay. Pax watched as Bruno brought his hands up to grab Kay. Those big hands took Kay’s shoulders like hot dogs, and Bruno lifted the water boy high into the air.

Kay subdued his panic and concentrated. He let his body melt and just as Bruno was ready to toss the guy across the room, he slipped out of Bruno’s hands, melting to the floor and sliding underneath the shelf to the middle aisle.

Richie was right there, though, and when Kay reformed into his humanoid shape, Richie took a swung at him and knocked the boy on the back of the head, throwing him to the ground.

Weasel hopped over the aisles again, knocking more goods to the floor. The beast-man took a swipe at Kay, and Kay felt the burn passing through his body. Kay got up though and when Weasel took another blow at Kay, Kay grabbed his arm and swung him around. He let the monster man twirl a couple times and then with all of his aquatic strength, Kay picked up Weasel and threw him at Richie.

Richie had a split second to look at Weasel in the eyes, the two locking peepers as Weasel approached– airborne. Weasel’s eyes were wide with disbelief and even a bit of apology in them.

Weasel’s body hit Richie’s like a punching bag, knocking Richie back into the stands of potato chips.

Etizaaz smiled. What a great move!

Bruno got his hands on Kay once again and didn’t waste a second tossing Kay into the corner, the water boy smashing into the wall above the stands of candy. He fell onto the stands, rattling them and causing them to fall away from the wall into the shelves in the middle of the floor. They crashed and a bunch of goods fell off of them, crackling to the floor.

Pax laughed and walked toward Kay, clapping. “Well done, you piece of– whoaaaa!!!”

There was a sheen on the floor and Pax slipped in it, flipping his legs into the air and dropping his body to the floor– back and head smacking the tiles.

“Euuuugh...” Pax rubbed his head and leaned up, his arms shaking.

“You okay, Pax?” asked Bruno.

Pax looked around. The store was trashed. Pax was hurt and so was his men. Was it worth it?

He groaned. “Alright...” As he rose, he took a big breath in through his nose slicked back his hair. “You win this time, Slippy.” He turned his head to Bruno and the others. “Let’s get out of here.” Pax looked at the floor. “Watch your step.”

Weasel and Richie struggled to their feet and stepped carefully across the floor towards the door. Bruno followed and the four thugs took their leave, the door closing on one of the cans rolling on the floor.

Kay pulled himself off the shelf and collapsed to the floor, his body aching all over and his vision swirling. The water boy almost didn’t realize Philly had popped out in front of him.

“Let’s get out of here,” said Philly.

Etizaaz didn’t know who said that but watched as a fox came running through the aisles. Philly ran to the door and was thankful that a can of beans had kept the door open.

Kay turned himself into a puddle and slid into the backroom, quick enough that Etizaaz didn’t notice while his focus was on the door.

From there, Kay slid out beneath door he came in from.

Yamina came out of the office. “Who was that, baba? What was that?”

Etizaaz stared out into the battlefield that was his store. “I don’t know.” He shook off the disbelief and went to a phone to call the police.

Kay and Philly met in the alley behind the store and they ran off down between buildings to get out of the vicinity of the crime.

Kay’s body hurt. He was supposed to be more resilient, but on the other hand, he took a series of devastating blows. Maybe his resilience hit its limits. Was he going to get used to being tossed around like that? Being brutalized? He couldn’t imagine it. No, there was no way he was going to do something like this again.

They ran down the alleyways, away from the corner store. A bright yellow light of a nighttime café lit up the alley, shining its beacon on the brick walls.

Kay’s steps became too much and he had to stop, collapsing against the wall.

“Kay?” said Philly. He chortled. “Pretty rough first fight, huh?”

Kay trembled and sunk to the ground. “That was not a good first fight.”

“But you won!” said Philly. “You prevented the crime. Was there some collateral damage? Maybe, but–“

“Philly,” said Kay, his tone tired and stern.

Philly dropped the humourous tone. “Yeah?”

“I need to get home,” said Kay, his voice shaken.

Philly sighed and nodded, his pointed ears flipping around.

Kay pushed himself up and got back on his feet, clutching his stomach closely. He didn’t feel like jumping around so he watched the streets closely and snuck back to the loan agency with Philly. Kay didn’t feel like taking the backpack with him back home and Philly didn’t want to drag it to his so they left it and went their separate ways, hoping to pick up the backpack sometime in the future.

It hurt for Kay to remold his body and slingshot himself over rooftops. He was stinging with pain the entire trip home.

What a night it had been.