THIRTY-SEVEN

The Athlete had undressed The Hoarder, leaving him tied up on the floor, wearing only his underwear. Invulnergirl had to admit the bad guy had a pretty good physique. Guess battling superheroes kept you in shape.

“Without access to his gadget he will be nicely wrapped up for some time. I’m afraid the police will be too busy to pick him up right now. We should get out of here now, I’ve found a full pack of bubblegum on him. We should get it to Johnny now,” The Athlete told Invulnergirl.

“I was pretty surprised that bubblegum gave The Hoarder the same powers as Johnny. I figured it only worked on him or something. Why doesn’t he mass-produce it and hand it out to other heroes?” Invulnergirl wondered.

“No idea. Maybe he can’t produce enough of the stuff for others? I don’t know. Besides that, having superstrength and superspeed can be tricky. If you don’t learn to user those powers correctly you might break someone when you just want to hug them or run yourself to death when you take a wrong turn at superspeed. It’s all not as easy as Johnny makes it look. Plus, I heard it’s got a lot of sugar in it. Sugar’s bad for you, you know?”

Invulnergirl wasn’t sure The Athlete was serious or joking with that last line. He was a pretty white bread kind of guy. “Yeah, maybe it’s one of those reasons.”

“Time to head for the jet now,” The Athlete said.

The heroes left the room they were in, which turned out to be a small office in the big warehouse. As soon as they left the office they were spotted by another robot. This one was built to look like a bug and was about the size of a large dog. It skittered towards them on its mechanical legs.

“I hate bugs!” Invulnergirl said, taking a step back.

“Then let me take care of it,” The Athlete said. He jumped up, flicking out his telescopic spear as he did.

He landed on top of the mechanical bug, spear first. The spear impaled the bug, sparks flying. He pushed a foot against it so he was able to draw his spear out of it again. For good measure he gave it a kick.

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“Wow, thanks!” Invulnergirl said.

“You’re welcome,” the hero said. “Come on!”

They met no other obstacles on their way to the jet that was parked in front of the warehouse. Quickly they got inside of it.

The Athlete took his place behind the controls and Invulnergirl took the shotgun seat. She watched the hero press button and flip switches, wondering how long it would take her to learn to fly a machine like this. Somehow the experienced heroes made difficult stuff look easy.

The jet lifted off vertically in the air. The Athlete moved the control stick ahead and the jet flew off.

A beeping sound filled the room. The Athlete flipped another switch and on a cockpit screen appeared the face of a good looking woman with black hair and a tiara. On the tiara a pentagram was pictured. Invulnergirl recognized her.

“Holy crap, that’s Warrior Witch!”

The Athlete smiled. “Yes it is. Come in, Witch.”

Warrior Witch spoke with an English accent. “Hi, Athlete! We are almost ready to head back from the Demon Dimension to Earth. We’ve received some distress calls about some kind of trouble with The Red Raider?”

“Yeah,” The Athlete said. “Between you coming back from outer space and heading to the Demon Dimension stuff went pear shaped pretty quickly here. Johnny is in the hospital now.”

“Yeah, when we came back from space he told us he had some business to take care of in his hometown. Then we had to go to the Demon Dimension to aid The Spectral Knight pretty fast. That explains why he couldn’t get back to us when we asked him to join. We had a quick but viscious fight over here with some demons trying to enter our dimension. While we held off the demons The Spectral Knight was able to destroy their gateway. Now he’s going to create one for us so we can head back to you and help out. I hope Johnny is not in too bad a shape?”

“He’s pretty heavily wounded but we are heading over to him with a batch of his bubblegum. We hope that will help him heal,” The Athlete explained.

“Good idea.” Then Warrior Witch moved closer to the camera. “Who’s that girl sitting next to you?”

“That’s the indestructible Invulnergirl. She’s new to the scene, but so far has been doing great. She’s a great addition to the ranks of superpowered champions if you ask me.”

Invulnergirl felt her cheeks redden. “Thanks. Hi, Warrior Witch. I’m a big fan.” She immediately regret her words. How could the heroes think of her as a serious hero if she was fangirling out like that.

“Pleased to meet you,” Warrior Witch said. “Take care you two. We’ll be there soon. Warrior Witch out.”

Then the screen went dark.

The Athlete gave Invulnergirl a big smile. “Impressive lady, right?”

She felt so stupid. “Err… Yes…”

“Okay, we’re almost at Johnny’s. Hopefully the Heroic Alliance returns to Earth before The Red Raider and his goons have destroyed the city.”