Tom’s health scares had come out of nowhere. He was an exemplary young star worker at the IRS when he had a sudden brain aneurysm that left him comatose. The aneurysm was caused by the same type of alien that had invaded my dad's brain. Before that Tom was really into competitive frisbee and funko pop collections it seemed. I tried to shake away the onslaught of memories and emotions to process later as I heard Cindybot screaming.
“His AI is insane. It’s. Some type of weird code mutation,” she gasped while simultaneously glowing red green and blue.
The crowd was pressing in among us even more and it was getting to be unsafe for those I had already took back into my legion. Moto was swirling around my hand in his dark ring form and seemed ready for more action. I heard the tearing of a bunch of envelopes as Cindybot completed the assimilation of Tom’s AI finally.
Her features grew as she did. She was now close to a foot long and shined in a metallic purple instead of blue. Her hair was clearly defined and her sprite like features were almost gone. She just looked like a small floating purple person, with a bit of a mohawk for some reason. I would have loved to marvel at her greatness, if it wasn’t for the pressing concern of being crushed by the outgoing crowd of people harming our legion around us.
“The range of all your commands have been upgraded againnnn,” the AI said with a weird laugh. “Let’s gooo!”
Moto pulsed on my ring finger like he wanted to be held up in the sky so I complied.
“FREE,” I commanded. The small black ring on my finger lifted in the sky and became a large dark halo ring. Bolts of black lightning struck at least another hundred of the people outside of my initial freed circle while Cindybot cackled. As the additional people joined the legion I felt a power in me I hadn’t felt before. It felt a bit like teleporting but the euphoria wasn't as intense.
“We’re over a thousand let’s keep going!” Cindybot yelled in a crazed glee.
"We have to hold back on some of them," I said over her insane yelling. This next part was crucial to their future.
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Julio was on a secret mission that no one was ever expecting. Him and the old muppet dog were heading towards the biker gang and he was finally going to join them, a real new brotherhood on motorcycles. Then they would take over the countryside going from place to place dealing slightly illicit drugs and drinking beer. It would be like a constant TV episode and he was of course the protagonist.
Julio please that’s not the mission at all Daphne begged in his mind.
No one understood Julio’s true mission besides Jesus and he wasn’t responding. There was something going on about following a group of mind controlled weirdos to a military base. It was clearly a much lower priority mission in his opinion. Everyone knew who the true hero of the story was anyway.
Please hurry stinky man we’re almost there the dog thought to him as they ran.
The dog was mean sometimes but Julio just had to deal with it. It didn’t understand that running water was a luxury now, and the beach salt water would likely ruin his perfect brown skin like it hurt his bike once.
That’s not how it works at all please bathe soon Kendall thought to him.
The odd pair eventually arrived at a giant Walmart distribution center that somehow still had electricity. It was nearing night and the lights were blaring and he even thought he heard some music that was playing inside. The Muppet dog hid in the nearby dumpster area while giving him some last minute useless instructions.
This is where the scent ends. Master's mate is in there. Don’t give away anything and don’t get too close in case they have a Challenger the dog thought to him rudely.
Even the freaking dog was giving him orders. No one respected his real mission. Julio looked over the parked motorcycles all over the outside of the distribution center but didn’t see the love of his life unfortunately. The people had a few guards stationed outside and one with a gun on the rooftop it seemed. Things were now getting serious and he had to be on his best behavior. Julio quickly walked across the large parking lot and up to the guards with his hands held up.
“Hi I’m Julio I’m here to apply!” He yelled loudly as he walked up to the building. All guns were suddenly trained on him and a spotlight appeared out of nowhere.
“Stay where you are Challenger. Don’t get any closer. We know the commands and the tricks,” one of the guards yelled his way.
“No no I’m invited! You invited us. I’m Jesus uh, Jon’s follower. You sent us that creepy note a few days ago,” Julio said while sweating profusely.
The lead guard outside of the warehouse looked at him and said something Julio couldn’t hear into his radio. After a few minutes of inexplicable awkwardness an older woman came out of the warehouse's side door. She looked like she could have been Jon’s older sister but was much more pale than he was. She got closer to Julio than anyone else but still had a gun on her that was pointed down.
“Tell the Challenger this is unacceptable. He must come in person,” she said in a near robotic voice. Her face seemed to be struggling with every word.
“Ok. Ok. I will. But umm. What are you doing after this?” Julio asked. It never hurt to ask he had learned.
"Tell him now," the woman said with her gun now aimed at him. Some people were really sensitive.