The Slushie Bandits: Season 1 - Episode 3: Corruption, is now up!

[Slushie Man]

Not sure if we're allowed to post non-Animorphs stuff here, but I asked that question awhile ago and nobody answered, so I'm going to assume that it's ok. A friend and I have been working on an episode series of scripts to go along with the in-joke of Slushie Man (See my pics in the Picture thread for a tad bit more on that). So far we have 6 episodes written, with the 7th currently being written, and I'd like to post them here for those interested in reading.

I'll use this thread to post all of Season 1, and I'll update the title when I have more posted. I'll be converting them from script format into story format, and it'll be the story versions I post on here. Episode 1 should be up by late tonight or tomorrow night, after I get home from work.

The basic plot is this: Due to an accident at a Slushie factory, a group of friends get slushie-related super powers.

[Slushie Man]

1x01: Origins: A group of friends develop slushie-related super powers after a terrorist attack on a slushie factory.

***

It was long past midnight in Fort St. John and the streets of the small city were practically deserted as most of the reasonable citizens were long-asleep in their comfy beds. There were a small handful however, currently browsing through the aisle of Macs Convenience Store.

This 24-hour convenience store sat alone in the dark night, the only building in the area with lights on at such a late hour. Inside the small store the brown cashier on-shift passed his time by reading that day's newspaper.

Ali Nahinijar read through an article about some recent bombings of buildings in Fort St. John that sold slushies. None of it made any sense to him as he scratched some black stubble on his chin – what was the point of committing acts of terrorism against only buildings that sold slushies? The way he thought of it, it must be an escaped mental patient or something with some kind of vendetta against slushies. Whatever the reason, it made Ali very nervous about working in Macs, as it was now the only store in the entire town that sold slushies, thus making it a giant target.

Feeling a bit paranoid, Ali looked up after he finished reading the article and glanced around the store. The only people currently in the store was one older married couple that were looking at the sandwich selection – more then likely for a road trip they were on as Ali could see their mobile home in the parking lot – a young couple in their mid-twenties that couldn't keep their hands off each other and, much to Ali's distain, were publicly groping each other without a care in the world, and one group of three teenagers with baggy clothes about to fall from around their waists, that were hustling around the slushie machine, filling up the biggest size cups as full as they can.

Deciding there was nobody he could even wrongfully judge as a terrorist, Ali looked back down at the paper and shook his head as he flipped the page and started reading the next article.

He sighed as the phone rang, interrupting his reading. He always hated it when the phone rang so late at night, because it was always the same question: 'How late are you opened?' in which Ali's reply was always the same '24/7.' Which he thought was obvious, by the fact that they're calling in the middle of the night.

To his surprise though, his long-time girlfriend's voice replied back to him over the phone instead of that of an annoying customer.

"Hey Ali, baby, how’s your shift going?" she asked with sincerity.

"Slow as hell," Ali admitted, although couldn't help from smiling at the fact that the girl he loved most in the world, was calling him to check up. Most people hated that, be he loved it as it let him know she still cares about him.

"How’re you holding up?"

"A bit nervous," Ali replied, knowing that she meant about the whole slushie terrorism. "But nothing’s happened yet, although the bloody newspaper doesn’t help matters much. It mentioned that our store is the last one in town to still sell slushies. If that doesn’t glare out at the bomber, I don’t know what will."

"Well cheer up, baby. I heard that Sobeys, the grocery store, is going to start selling them soon too, so as long as your store holds out that long, you should be safe."

Ali chuckled, "I don’t care about the store getting hit. I hate this ****ty job. I’m worried about the store getting hit while I’m working." His girlfriend chuckled back.

As Ali talked to his girlfriend on the phone, he glanced at the people in the store again. The older couple finally agreed on a set of sandwiches and started making their way toward him. The young couple started making their way toward the bathroom area as the girl continued to bite playfully on the guy’s neck while he used one hand to grab an energy drink and the other to slap his girlfriend’s ass. Ali made a mental note to kick them out of the store as soon as he was off the phone.

His eyes went next to the group of friends at the slushie machine just in time to see them make a rather large pile of spilt slushie on the floor and act like they didn't notice as they fooled around with each other, all laughing and swearing loudly.

"Hey baby, I have to let you go," Ali said softly into the phone. "I have customers. I love you."

He hung up the phone and turned to the counter just as the last kid filled his slushie cup and turned the machine off, the older couple placed their sandwich purchases on the counter, and Ali greeted them, "Hello there, is this..."

And that is the last thing any of them saw and heard before the entire building was destroyed within a split second, with a thundering explosion, and was replaced by a raging fire and burning debris.

***

A figure clouded in shadow and protected by a dark brown hooded cloak, stood atop a rooftop across the street from Macs, the reflection of the burning fire lighting up the front of the figure. Sirens could be heard in the distance, getting nearer, and the figure chuckled softly as it turns and leapt onto a lower roof before leaping all the way to the ground and running off into the darkness of an alley.

***

A school bus drove down a long highway just outside of Fort St. John, approaching an upcoming factory. Its natural color was supposed to be bright yellow, but it had recently been replaced with so much dried mud and dirt, it looked more brown then anything else.

And that suited the passengers inside, as most were not actually school students. The uncomfortable bus seats were half-full of Sobeys employees of all ages.

The overweight married store managers, Paul and Shale Neilson, sat at the front of the bus right behind the driver. The short 22-year-old Jeffrey Long sat next to his non-relationship roommate, Jenna Chavarie, a native of New Brunswick who only a year before relocated to the small British Columbia city of Fort St. John.

Even though Jeff was white-skinned, he dressed like a black gangster-wannabe, complete with massively baggy pants, a ‘wife beater’ tanktop shirt, a large metal silver cross hanging from his neck, an earring, and a couple different kinds of cheap vending machine rings on a couple different fingers, as well as a black cross tattoo on the side of his left arm, while Jenna just kept comfy in a baggy white hoodie that covered her like a blanket.

Jeff yawned as he looked at his digital watch and saw how early in the morning it still was. Jenna brushed her brown hair out of her eyes as she glanced at Jeff.

"Still tired?" She asked him. Jeff nodded grumpily in response, followed by another long yawn.

As he turned to look out the window again at the passing road side, he decided to speak. "What’s the point of this trip anyway? All I know is that I started hearing rumors that Sobeys was preparing to sell their own brand of slushie and then next thing I know, there’s these notices up all over the store, informing us of this stupid mandatory trip."

Jenna just shrugged. This is the third time she's had this conversation with Jeff within the last 12 hours, and her response hadn't changed. "I really have no idea, but it's giving me half a day off from work, with pay, so I’m not complaining." She chuckled at that last bit, but Jeff didn’t even smile - instead he silently mocked Jenna’s chuckle.

That’s when 17-year-old Karsen Gauthier turned around in his seat from in front of them. Karsen was a bit chubby and had a slight potbelly from drinking a bit too many beers. As he faced them, he straightened his thin set of glasses. "Head Office is making Paul and Shale take us on a tour of the building so that the people that are responsible for either the making or selling of the slushies know how they’re created and what’s used to make them, in case a customer is allergic to something and asks."

Jeff turned away from the window again, this time to face his co-worker. "It’s frosted flavored liquid. Nothing more to say on that matter."

"Actually," Karsen corrected him, "I talked to Shale yesterday after they took the first group of people in, and she said that she was surprised by how much actually goes into that liquid."

Dane Lucas, Karsen’s 17-year-old best friend, also turned around from in the seat next to Karsen. Even though Dane was the youngest out of that group, he was taller then either Jeff and Karsen, and kept a youthful boyish face on him. "Wow Heffrey, you look horrible. Probably wishing you didn’t go out drinking last night, huh?"

Dane let a giant smile play across his face, which Jeff wanted to punch at that moment. "Shut up," he mumbled as he puts a hand up to his throbbing head.

"Heffrey?" Jenna asked, wondering what they were talking about.

Jeff decided to explain, before Karsen or Dane could tell her an exaggerated version. "You know the Melissa that used to work with us before she quit? She misspelled my name on MSN when her, those two, and me were having a four-way conversation, and apparently I’m the one that’s made fun of for it, even though she’s the one that can’t spell.

"Oh." Suddenly Jenna just burst out laughing at Jeff's misfortune. Jeff glared at her in return, but it just caused her to laugh even harder and even let out a loud snort, which everyone else then laughed at, despite being used to it. Even Jeff ignored his hangover pains and let out a few chuckles.

Karsen caught on to this and smiled as he said to Dane, "I still find it funny that even though me and Jenna were also drunk with Jeff last night, that he’s the only one hung over."

"That’s because me and you were smart enough not to get out and out hammered, unlike somebody else," Jenna said as she turned and glared at Jeff.

"I did not get hammered..." Jeff defended himself quietly.

"Jeffrey, you were dancing on the coffee table and singing karaoke with a banana as a microphone."

Jeff shrank in his seat, broken images of the night before starting to form in his head.

Uncontrollable chipmunk-like laughter floated toward the group and they turned to see the cute 20-year-old girl sitting in the seat across from them, laughing. Vanessa Arseneau was not just a random girl on the bus though, but Jenna’s best friend.

"I wish so much I had showed up last night," she said in between laughs.

"You should have," Jenna said. "Jeff made an idiot out of himself like always."

Vanessa continued laughing as the bus came to a squeaking stop, just on the inside of a security gate, right in front of a massive complicated-looking factory. As everyone started getting to their feet and stretching their legs, Jeff looked out the window and saw a fairly attractive girl walking out from the building and toward their bus.

"Hey Karsen, three o’clock," he shouted to get his co-worker's attention. While Jenna, Vanessa, and Dane merged into the crowd filling up the bus aisle, Karsen joined Jeff in looking out the window.

"Noice!" Karsen replied after getting a good look at her. "Check out that rack."

"What the hell do you think I’ve been looking at? The sky?" Jeff and Karsen laughed as they to joined the aisle crowd of people stepping off the bus one-by-one and into the sweltering heat of outside.

Some of the people instantly wiped sweat from their heads and others, like Vanessa, removed their jackets if they were wearing any. Jeff lowered a pair of sunglasses from the top of his head down to in front of his eyes, while Dane took a pair out from his pocket to put on.  Paul and Shale started doing a quick head count and Jenna turned to talk to Jeff, but found him gone.

"Um, Jeff?" she called out, confused. She turned to the others. "Hey guys, where’s Jeff?" Vanessa, Karsen, and Dane scanned around the area. Dane was the first to spot Jeff.

"Oh no..." he trailed off. "Hey guys, look." He pointed and everyone turned to see Jeff approaching the tour guide girl. Karsen grew a giant smile.

"Oh man, this is going to be good."

Jeff reached the girl, and was so occupied with her, that he didn't notice his friends approaching from behind. "Hey there," he said politely to the girl. She simply smiled back at him, but said nothing. "So..." he continued. "What do you think of this weather we’ve been having?"

Karsen stopped on the spot and lowered his face into his hands. "That dumbass..."

The girl nervously smiled back at Jeff. "It’s been pretty hot."

"Well then, you must be right at home," Jeff smiled goofily. The girl nervously chuckled and then instantly stopped and walked away. Quickly.

Karsen, Dane, Jenna, and Vanessa walked to Jeff, laughing their asses off.

"Dudes..." Jeff said them as they approached. "I totally caught her checking me out through my sunglasses."

They instantly gave up any hope for Jeff just as Chase Howkins, a thin-but very muscular 19-year-old approached to talk to Dane.

"Hey Dane, how’s that car coming along?" Chase asked.

"Oh man, it’s almost finished," Dane replied, smiling at the thought of his drag racing car. "Just got to put the finishing touches on the body and tweak the engine just a bit and it’ll be ready for the track races next weekend."

Fort St. John was famous for its bi-monthly legal drag races, which were held just outside the city on a dirt track.

"Better have something special this time if you plan on beating me at all," Chase chuckled.

Dane returned the chuckle, "I would have whopped your ass last time if my engine didn’t blow half-way down the track."

"Yeah, yeah. Keep making excuses, buddy. But hey, I do have a serious question for you."

"Shoot," Dane told him.

"If you have any free time this weekend, do you want to stop by my place and hook up my net?" Chase asked. "I already called the company and got it running into my house, but I don’t really want to pay a tech to come hook everything up and install everything, when I know you’re a tech expert and probably know more then anyone they’d send anyway."

"Sure, I can probably come by this evening if you want," Dane answered. He was widely known for his uncanny computer skills, and the ability to fix just about any computer problem in record time.

"Sweet," Chase said happily, glad to have that problem dealt with. "I don’t have any tae-kwon-do classes tonight, and I don’t work until after the weekend, so that’d be awesome, thanks."

Karsen nudged Chase. "Hey man, I haven’t seen you in school lately, where’ve you been?"

"I’m living on my own now, so I need to work fulltime," Chase replied. "I do my school work through correspondence now."

Jeff chipped in, "That’s why I work evenings now. Chase here is working my old morning shifts. It works out better this way anyway, as Jenna hates walking home by herself in the dark, and now I can close the store with her."

"Aren’t you two dating yet?" Karsen laughed, knowing full-well how much that bugged both Jeff and Jenna.

"Uh, no, I don’t think so," Jenna replied before Jeff could even open his mouth. "I have a boyfriend now."

Bringing the conversation back a step, Chase turned to Jeff and said, "By the way, your old shifts really suck, just to let you know."

Jeff smiled and patted Chase on the back. "Yeah, I know, that’s why I’m glad they're not my problem anymore."

At the front of the Sobeys group, the tour guide girl approached Paul and Shale just as they finished doing a head count. "I’m ready to start the tour if you guys are," she informed them. "Is this everyone?"

Paul nodded and Shale raised her hands to get everyone's attention. "Alright, everyone, listen up." Everyone paused their various conversations to listen. "This girl next to me is Shauna King. She’s worked here for three years and she’s going to be our tour guide. We’re starting the tour now, so everyone listen to her and give her your full attention."

Shauna thanked Shale and started the tour. "This factory is one of the largest slushie-creating factories in all of Canada. We make all kinds of slushies for all kinds of stores including Macs’ Frosters, 7-11’s Slush Puppies, and Shell’s Slurpees. Because of the recent slushie-related bombings throughout Fort St. John though, you’ll notice that we currently have extremely tight security, but don’t let that intimidate you. On the contrary, it's to make you feel safer. So now, if everyone can just keep up with me, I’ll start the tour of the building."

Jeff nudged Karsen. "She won’t have to tell me twice to stick with her." Karsen just shook his head as he tried not to smile.

Shauna led the group across the immense parking lot and to the main doors of the factory. She swiped a security card through an electronically slot and the doors unlocked for her. She pressed open the front doors and led everyone into the pristine clean lobby. In the middle of the sparkling-clean lobby was a statue of a slushie cup tilted at an angle, slightly tipping downward.

Shauna waved to the grey-haired receptionist behind the desk. "That lovely lady there is Beth MacAdams, she’s been with the company longer then I’ve been alive, it seems." Shauna and Beth both chuckled before Shauna continued. "You can’t see them, but this lobby, as well as the rest of the factory, has recently been installed with hidden cameras."

While Shauna continued talking, a long-haired boy named Gavon Townsend, nudged Chase and pointed at the slushie statue. "I dare you to climb inside that." Chase snickered but thinking that Gavon was joking, never made a move toward it. "No, seriously." When Gavon realized Chase was deciding to ignore him, he added on, "I’ll do it then."

Gavon made a move toward the statue, but Jeff and Karsen grabbed him and pulled him back. Karsen sighed, "Gavon, don’t."

"What?" Gavon asked, his voice cracking. "I was just joking..." although he knew inside that he really hadn't been. Karsen rolled his eyes and turned back to pay attention to Shauna.

"Now, with that brief history out of the way," Shauna continued her speech, "when I start in the morning, after I sign in using the sign-in book here at the front desk, I go over this way..." Shauna had everyone follow her through a set of double doors and into a small room that had nothing other then a metal scanner and a security guard.

"If you have any metal on you, just put it in the tray like this..." Shauna took a necklace and a ring off and put in the tray, and then stepped through the metal detector. "And walk through like this."

Everyone followed her example, rolling their eyes at being treated like children – of course they knew how a metal detector worked. Once through, they gathered their stuff on the other side.

Shauna showed her id to the guard, who just smiled and nodded his head. "After proving I’m me to Wes here, then I go through these doors..." Shauna led the group through another set of doors and onto a metal catwalk that was suspended high above many large vats of colored liquid being mixed. This area of the factory was badly lit by a few dim light bulbs high above everyone’s heads that left large dark shadows in every corner.

"I’ll have to ask that nobody horses around in this area," Shauna stated. "It's very easy to tip the catwalk and I don’t want to see anyone falling over the edge. It’s a very long fall to the floor below and it could result in death." She paused to let that sink in with the younger ones in the crowd, before going ahead. "This area is what the finished slushie liquid looks like. After this room, we’ll proceed to see how the liquid is actually made and what exactly goes into it."

The room was even more sweltering then it was outside, and many people loosened their shirts a bit. Jenna wiped sweat from her head and leaned into Vanessa while Shauna talked.

"It’s so hot in here," Jenna whispered wearily. "I can’t stand it, it’s making me grumpy."

Vanessa nodded slowly, agreeing. "I know, haven’t these people heard of air conditioning?"

Shauna led the group down the creaky catwalk and through another set of double doors and into another wide-open room. This one, the catwalk overlooked nothing special – just a room full of forklifts, pallet jacks, and various cleaning supplies.

"This room isn’t anything too special for this tour. Just our basic maintenance room. However, on the other side of these doors here..."

Right before Shauna walked through the next set of doors, Gavon sighed heavily to himself. This is so boring.

Deciding to relieve his boredom, he reached forward real quick and snatched Vanessa’s jacket out from under her arms. He turned and pushed through a couple people on the catwalk and ran off.

"Hey!" Vanessa shouted after him, causing a few others in the crowd to turn and see the commotion.

Instead of going back through the doors they just came from, Gavon turned and ran down an L-shaped part of the catwalk.

"Gavon, stop!" Shale screeched, feeling embarrassed by how some of her staff was acting.

"Get back here!" her husband shouted. Chase was at the end of the line, so he could run after Gavon the easiest without pushing people up against the side of the catwalk. He turned and gave chase.

Jeff leaned in to Karsen. "Vanessa would love me forever if I was the one that got her jacket back." And then Jeff too rushed off to beat Chase to the prize.

Karsen nudged Dane and shouted past the people on the catwalk to the managers, "Paul, Shale, don’t worry, we’ll get them all back."

"Man, you are such a suck-up," Dane said just loud enough for only Karsen to hear.

"Just shut up, and let’s go." Those two also took off running after Gavon, Chase, and Jeff.

Once they turned a corner and disappeared through another set of doors that the others had already gone through, there was a small unexpected tremor that shook the catwalk, forcing everyone to hold on tightly to the rail.

Paul turned to Shauna once the tremor ended. "Uhh, what was that?"

Shauna was left confused and confessed, "I have no idea…" Suddenly a blast of hot air slammed the doors open and a small bit of fire licked out at them as the Sobeys group were all pushed down by the force of the air. "Everyone cover your heads!"

Nobody hesitated in listening. They covered their heads and bent down just as a deafening boom! thundered through the room. The entire room shook violently as the room that they would have been in if it hadn't been for Gavon’s distraction, exploded.

***

Gavon laughed dorkily as he ran into a different section of the factory, this area being kept at a near-freezing temperature so the vats of frozen slushie material stayed that way. He brushed his long messy hair out of his eyes and shivered slightly, but then had to brace himself as the catwalk shook slightly from an explosion some place else deep in the factory.

Gavon was half-way across the catwalk when the doors opened again and Chase rushed into the area, followed by Jeff, who was quickly followed by Karsen and Dane.

Gavon turned to look at them when he heard Karsen's voice say, "Gavon, you’re a friggin' moron! Just hand the jacket back and come back with us now, and you might only be written up and suspended from work instead of out and out fired. Maybe."

"Oh come on!" Gavon shouted back. "This is so much fun. That tour was boring."

"How old are you?" Dane asked him, his temper rising. "Fifteen or five?"

"Gavon, you know I always stand up for you," Jeff stepped in, understanding that Gavon had a form of ADD and taking that into account. "But you’re crossing the line this time."

"Come on, Jeff’s right. You’re not thinking properly," Chase took a few steps towards Gavon, but instantly stopped and backed up as a large explosion from the next room over knocked out part of the wall and washed over a section of the catwalk, throwing debris everywhere. Gavon was temporarily obscured from their view by the explosion.

When the fire and debris passed by, they could see Gavon scared ****less on the other side of the now-gaping hole of twisted metal in the catwalk, cutting Gavon off from the rest of them. They looked around, confused, fear filling their facial expressions.

"What the hell was that?" Chase asked, unable to stop his voice from trembling.

"We better get out of here and back with the group," Karsen stated matter-of-factly, although his attempt to sound tuff failed when his voice cracked with fear.

Jeff and Chase moved to the very edge of the hole in the catwalk. "Come on Gavon," Jeff shouted over to him. "Run and jump. Me and Chase will catch you."

"Are you crazy?!" Gavon shouted as his eyes enlarged. "I’m not going to jump! There has to be another way out of here!"

"Look behind you! There’s a dead end!"

Gavon did as Jeff said and saw that the catwalk lead to a wall. "****." He turned back around to face the others and opened his mouth to shout something to them, but didn't get the chance to, as the ceiling exploded right above the others, raining debris and fire down on them.

They screamed as a second, even more powerful, explosion happened in the same spot, even before the debris from the first could reach them, and they were obscured from view as the explosion completely covered them and their painful high-pitched screams were cut short.

Gavon cowered against the dead-end wall as the blasts of hot air knocked him back off his feet and against the wall. After the dust settled and Gavon returned to his shaking feet, he found the strength to run to the edge of the catwalk hole.

"Guys!"

When the smoke cleared, Gavon could see that there was nothing left in front of him.

No catwalk and no people.

Everything was just gone, including three quarters of the ceiling above him as well, broken shards of metal and concrete twisting this way and that. If Gavon hadn't been in such a state of shock, he may have even noticed a small green gel-like liquid dripping from what was left of the floor above and into the frozen vats of slushie below. He did, however, notice a few damaged barrels slowly sinking into the frozen material.

He took another snaking step toward the edge, and his feet step on a loose piece of metal. He quickly stepped back and looked down to see a piece of twisted burning metal. The words ‘Radioac...ste’ was on it, however the entire middle was obscured by a burn mark.
   
A gurgling sound snapped Gavon back and he looked down below just as a hand emerged from one of the vats of slushie, breaking through both the slushie and the radioactive sludge that was floating around the top of it.

"Help!" Gavon screamed as loud as he could. "Somebody help! They need help down there!"

[Slushie Man]

***

Karsen's view was fuzzy at first, but he could pick out a lot of white. Slowly, his vision came a bit more into focus and he could see his body wrapped up in white blankets on a white bed, with some kind of cord attached to his arm. As his vision became more clear, he was able to pick out more of his surroundings and within a couple seconds, he was able to come to the realization that he was in a hospital room, hooked up to an IV unit.

On either side of Karsen were Chase, Jeff, and Dane, still all unconscious. It seemed to Karsen that he was the first to wake up.

Karsen slowly sat up and licked his lips as a hand flew up to his pounding head and he painfully winced. "What happened? Why am I here?" He found a device on the edge of his bed and picked it up, pressing the lone button on it.

A few seconds later, a young nurse walked in and instantly stopped, shocked. "You’re...awake!?" she asked in surprise. Karsen nodded and the nurse rushed to an intercom on the wall and pressed a button on it. "Doctor Lee to Room 217 immediately, please, Doctor Lee to Room 217 immediately."

"What’s going on? What’s happening?" Karsen asked in a weak voice.

The nurse smiled back at him. "A miracle, that’s what." She rushed around to prepare the equipment for the doctor for when he came in. Karsen just looked on, confused and trying to figure out what happened to him.

A tall Asian doctor rushed in, and looked at Karsen with awe as he started right in doing the tests. Karsen caught a quick look at a crowd of people in the hallway, poking their heads in to see what was going on. Among them, he noticed both his parents, his girlfriend, and Jenna, Vanessa, and Jeff’s brother and sister and their significant others. There were also others that were further around the corner that he couldn't see, or just didn't recognize.

As Dr. Lee rushed through the equipment and various tests and readings, Karsen looked at him. "Please, what’s going on? No one will tell me."

Doctor Lee turned to the nurse, ignoring Karsen's request. "He seems perfectly healthy. A bit dehydrated and some bruises and burns, but healthy." He finally turned to face Karsen and look him in the eyes like he was something more then an inanimate object. "You were caught in an explosion at the slushie factory, do you remember that?"

For the first time, Karsen's mind went back to those final few seconds, before he was caught in the explosion. Karsen slowly nodded his head when he realized he was still in the hospital room.

"You and your co-workers were saved," Dr. Lee continued, "but you all went into a coma. It’s been over a month. The families were just considering pulling the plugs on the life support systems. We were actually just about to have an official meeting with them regarding that, when you woke up."

That was so much information all at once for him, so Karsen started feeling dizzy and the room around him started to swirl. He shook his head and everything remained still again. He opened his dry mouth to speak again, "What about...the others?"

"That’s up to the individual families," Dr. Lee said with a touch of sadness in his voice. He decided he needed to keep this boy in high spirits though, so added on, "But I’d imagine they’ll hold off longer now, as I’m sure your waking will give them renewed hope for their own. Now, is it ok if I allow people to come in?" Karsen nodded his head and the doctor turned and nodded his own head.

The nurse allowed the people in the hall to come into the room. The doctor intercepted Karsen’s parents to inform them of the situation, while most of the other family members went to the bedside of their loved ones.

Jenna and Vanessa stopped by Karsen’s bed. "How are you feeling?" Jenna asked as she sat on the edge of Karsen's bed.

"Head hurts alot..." Karsen said in a weak voice. "Mouth’s dry..." He helds up his two bandaged arms. "...and my arms hurt like hell."

"You have no idea how happy everyone is to see you awake. Everyone’s relieved and we all have more hope for the others now."

Karsen’s parents and his girlfriend approached. Jenna saw them and stood up again. "We’ll let you spend time with your family," Vanessa said softly. "Take care, and get better." Vanessa and Jenna continued on their way to Jeff’s bed, where his family stood.

"Hey babe." Karsen's girlfriend, Amber Kelly leaned over and gently kissed Karsen. His parents were not as careful as they instantly reached down and hugged him tightly, putting him in more pain. They couldn't stop tears of happiness from falling, but all Karsen could think about was his unconscious friends, fearful for their lives now that he had joined the ranks of the awake.

Over the next following week, Karsen remained in the hospital's care, spending time recuperating. Most of the time he just laid there, tossing and turning, trying to be comfortable but really just being bored with nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs and flips channels on the small TV in the far corner.

He was rarely left alone however, with all the nurses and the doctor checking on him and doing various tests, as well as bringing him his meals, and of course his family Amber spent almost their entire time there, Amber staying there even when Karsen's parents couldn't.

It was one of those days, when Karsen sat up, eating one of his meals, while Amber sat in a chair next to him, when a news program came on the TV, about the slushie attacks.

A news reporter with some obvious surgery to make her look younger stood in front of the wreckage of the slushie factory. "A month and a half ago, this wreckage you see behind me, was once a great factory," the Reporter began. "However while what it created – slushies – may seem harmless at first, it was what made them a target by the culprit being referred to as the Slushie Exploder – an unknown terrorist that has been setting off bombs in any store that dares to sell slushies. Now, just two months later, the trail has gone cold and the police have no more leads to follow. With no other location in town that sells..."

"Are you done?" Amber asked Karsen, turning away from the depressing news story. Karsen finished sipping his juice and nodded his head. Amber got up and moved the tray off Karsen’s bed.

"This is bull****," Karsen stated.

"What is?" Amber asked.

"This news report," Karsen answered. "How can someone destroy that many buildings...cause that many deaths...and not leave behind any clues? The police just aren’t trying hard enough."

"You’ve been out a long time, honey," Amber informed him. "The investigation lasted almost the entire time you were out. The news has only just stopped talking about it non-stop a few days before you woke up. Everyone in town seems to be angered by the lack of results, but the person is probably long gone."

"What about Sobeys? Do they still plan on selling slushies now?"

"I have no idea. My family doesn’t shop there, but..." Amber was instantly cut off by a moan. Both her and Karsen swerved their heads to see Jeff slowly sitting up, wincing in pain.

"Jeff!?" Karsen shouted.

Jeff opened his eyes and squinted at Karsen. "Karsen? Where am I? What happened?"

Amber covered her mouth with one hand and instantly jumped to her feet. "Oh my god...I’ll go get the doctor." She turned to run out of the room, but stopped and stared at another of the beds. "Karsen!"

Karsen turned to look at what his girlfriend was staring at, and gasped as well. Dane slowly opened his eyes and moaned. Amber quickly ran out of the room to get someone.

"Karsen? Jeff?" Dane asked in a weak voice. "What’s going on? Why are we in Heaven? It's so white..."

Karsen laughed, but Jeff was still confused and just stared around blankly, trying to figure out what was going on. Amber returned with Dr. Lee and several nurses who started preparing the equipment so the doctor could examine the two new awakers.

Doctor Lee checked the two people out and the family members and friends rushed into the room much like they did when Karsen woke up, some smiling, some crying tears of happiness. Dane’s mother, Jeff’s brother and sister and their significant others, Jenna, Vanessa, Paul, and Shale were among the faces rushing into the room.

Dane, Karsen, and Jeff all glanced at each other, and a smile started to form on Karsen’s face, as he knew now that everything would finally be alright and he didn't have to worry anymore. That smile was soon returned by the other two as well as they turned away from each other to face their family and friends.

***

Three weeks later, Jeff, Karsen, Dane, and their families stood in the doctor’s office, looking healthy and fine apart from a few bandages and bruises here and there on the three boys.

Dr. Lee leaned forward in his chair. "So we’ve had an...interesting time together here, haven’t we? But it’s about time you boys get sent home. You’ll all be fine, so nobody has to worry, as long as you take the prescribed meds, and make sure you all show up for your therapy sessions twice a week. I don’t want to see any skimping out on those, ok?"

The boys nodded and Dr. Lee opened his hands, motioning for the door. "Well...you’re free to go." As the group made its way out of the office, the family members each thanked the doctor and shook his hand.

Karsen leaned into Jeff and Dane to whisper, "Are you guys going to the party tonight?"

"Hell yeah," Dane replied, already nearly hopping up and down in anticipation.

"What party?" Jeff asked, having no idea what Karsen was talking about.

"Oh, you must have been napping when Jenna and Vanessa came in and told us," Dane filled Jeff in. "Vanessa’s throwing a party in honor of our recovery, at her place tonight. It’s gonna be off the hook."

Jeff smiled. "Kick ass."

The family members began to fan out and the three boys knocked knuckles together before parting.

"See you guys tonight," Karsen said.

***

Back in the hospital room that the three boys occupied for so long, still laid one unconscious body – Chase. His body was now alone in the room with his family, who all sat around him, dried tears covering their faces when Doctor Lee walked in.

Chase’s mom wiped some new tears from her eyes as she turned to face him. "Dr. Lee? We’d like to talk now about pulling the plug."

***

Once darkness fell that night, the loud rock music started booming from inside Vanessa's large apartment. The inside was packed with people, and a giant banner hung from the ceiling that said ‘CONGRATULATIONS JEFFREY, KARSEN, AND DANE!’

Despite the booming music, it was still difficult to hear over all the cheering, yelling, shouting, and other various noises being made by the drunken partiers. The apartment was so crowded, there was hardly any room to move around.

Which was why Jeff wasn't moving around. He stood by one of the couches, facing a very attractive brown-colored girl from India named Sonum Sidhu, who he worked closely with for over a year until she quit her job at Sobeys. Even though Jeff never admitted it to many people, he was very disappointed to see Sonum leave, as he had started developing pretty strong feelings for her in that time. It hadn't been until recently that he even told her about those feelings, but his confession only sank any hope he had of ever being with her, when she informed him that she did not return those feelings.

That never caused their conversations to be awkward however, as they were two of the only people Jeff knew, who both watched obscured low-budget movies, so that always gave them something to chat about when everything else failed. And one of those times were now, as they stood facing each other, with glasses of alcohol in their hands.

"...but then why would he do that?" Jeff asked, in the middle of a heated conversation with Sonum over the latest movie she had warned him never to see, thus he had to see it. "That just doesn’t make any sense."

"Hence why it’s the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen," Sonum stated matter-of-factly. "Nothing in it makes any sense. And you can't say I didn't warn you this time, because I so did."

Jeff laughed and yielded. "No, no. You did warn me this time, I admit. It was my own doing this time, that I saw such a horrid movie."

Sonum smiled, but didn't say anything back as she stared Jeff right in the eyes and the two stayed like that for several long seconds. "I’m glad you’re ok. I missed you while you were gone."

"You did?"

There was another long pause of nothing but just the two staring deeply into each other's eyes as if there was nobody else in the room. Sonum finally closed her eyes to take a gulp of her drink and then glanced away from Jeff before looking at him again.

"Well yeah, of course," Sonum finally said, shrugging things off. "I mean, who else do I got to talk to about obscured movies with? All my friends watch are those stupid parody movies and other junk like that."

Jeff chuckled and raised his glass. "Well then, To many nights of movie watching!" Sonum clinked her glass against his and they took a drink.

Once Sonum swallowed, she said, "I should go see what Melissa’s up to. Stop her from getting into any trouble like she always does at parties."

Jeff nodded. "Alright, I’ll talk to you later." Sonum hugged Jeff before turning and disappearing into the crowd.

"So how’re things?" Jeff turned to see Dane standing right there. "With her, I mean."

Jeff knew what he meant. Dane was one of the few people he had told regarding his feelings for Sonum, and thus he was one of the few people that knew of Jeff's confession to her just a week before the factory accident.

"She’s acting like nothing happened," Jeff answered. "Which I guess is good in a way, but I would like to see her at least acknowledge that I like her. I mean, things aren't like how they were before, no matter how much she wishes they were, and I just can't stand to listen to her talk about other guys and stuff now. She needs to realize that."

"Dude, that sucks," Dane said, taking a drink. "You’ve pretty much in love with her for like, ever."

"Tell me about it," Jeff mumbled as his eyes landed on Sonum chatting to another guy across the room and watching her put an arm on his shoulder, laughing at something. So much for finding Melissa.

"But hey, look over there at that hot chick. Check out her rack." Dane pointed to a person a few feet away and Jeff forced himself to smile, thankful for Dane trying to get his mind off Sonum.

In Vanessa's kitchen, just a few feet behind where Jeff and Dane stood, Karsen was with Amber and some other people, mixing drinks for them. While he was mixing a drink for a random party person he only somewhat knew from school, Amber took a sip of hers and scowled. "Urg, this is so warm, how long has this alcohol been out for?"

"Really?" Karsen asked. "Mine’s freezing. Let me try it." Karsen took Amber’s glass and the second he grabbed it, a very slight ripple, so slight and so quick that nobody, not even Karsen, noticed, left Karsen’s fingers and traveled through the glass.

Karsen took a sip. "I don’t know what drugs you’re on, Amber, but this drink is freezing."

Amber fake laughed. "Me? What drugs are you on?" Amber took her drink back forcefully and took another sip, feeling confused more then anything. "Oh...kaaay. Now that’s weird..."

Karsen leaned over the counter and kissed Amber. "I think you’re just weird."

Amber laughed. "Oh really?"

Jeff walked by the entryway to the kitchen, and then passed by Jenna and Vanessa, his shirt soaked. Jenna had her arms around her boyfriend, Adam Burnett, and using him to stay up straight as she was pretty intoxicated.

"Holy ****, what happened to you?" Vanessa asked Jeff as he walked by. He stopped and answer her.

"Some jerk-off just spilt his entire drink on me while I was hittin’ on this real hot chick that Dane dared me to hit on."

Vanessa chuckled but Jenna burst out laughing and said in slurred speech, "Only you, Jeff, only you. It’s good to have you back. My life’s been missing the comedic moments from your life." Jeff mock laughed in return.

"Don’t listen to her," Adam warned. "She’s had a bit to much to drink."

"Um, Jeff, you have something right..." Vanessa motioned to the area right under her nose and Jeff reached up and touched the area on his face, as if he was having a nosebleed, as there’s a kind of liquid stuff coming from his nose. He brought the finger around to his eyes and there was a small amount of near-frozen purple and blue material – very similar to slushie material, actually, on it.

"Huh. Must be some stuff from that jerk’s drink. I’ll be right back. I have to go clean myself off." Jeff continued on into the bathroom and closed the door behind himself.

He looked in the mirror and saw more of that material coming from his nose, very similar to a nose bleed. He used a cloth to wipe it away. He looked down at his clothes, and turned on the water from the sink. He used another cloth to dap at his shirt. While he was doing that, a small hole burned through the previous cloth, while a slight layer of ice formed over the top of the hole.

Without even looking at the previous cloth or noticing the weird happenings, Jeff exited the bathroom, and as he started making his way back through the room, he heard his name get shout out and he located Dane motioning for him to join him with some others.

Jeff approached and saw one kid is holding a giant jar of mayonnaise.

"A bunch of us just bet Shaymus here to eat a liter of mayonnaise," Dane filled Jeff in. "Want in?"

Before Jeff could answer, Sonum broke through the crowd with a mischievous smile on her face. "I say we should bet Jeff to do it. Shaymus is a pussy anyway."

Jeff glared back at her. "Sometimes I really hate you..."

"So does that mean you’re in?" Dane asked, a huge smile forming.

"Yes, that means I’m in," Jeff answered reluctantly. The crowd watching cheered, but its stopped short when the apartment door slammed open and the room of people started screaming as a group of four men wearing ski masks and carrying guns stormed into the apartment.

"Nobody panic or do anything stupid!" the Lead Robber shouted. "We’re just here for your money, jewelry, and anything else of value. As long as everyone cooperates, no one will get hurt!" The other three masked men moved around the room, collecting money and jewelry from the partiers, and shoving them into bags.

Karsen, Amber, and a couple other people quickly ducked down behind the kitchen island, hiding. Karsen turned to Amber. "You have your cell on you?" Amber nodded, eyes-wide. "Good, call the cops."

Amber fumbled in her pocket and pulled out her cell. She opened it up and dialed 911.

"Hang up the phone, pretty face." Amber, and the others, looked up and saw one of the masked men standing there, gun pointed at them. Amber closed her cell and placed it in the robber’s outstretched hand. "Come on, into the other room."

Karsen, Amber, and the other couple that were there stood up and moved into the living room, the robber walking behind them with the gun aimed at their backs.

As the robbers continued to fill up their bags, Jenna slipped her cell down into her hand, which stayed hidden at her side. She flipped the phone open and started sending ‘Help Us’ followed by the address, to 911 as a text, but seeing as how she could only glance down at it from time to time, that required some time to do it.

"Hurry!" the Lead Robber shouted. "Come on, come on! Let’s get going!"

As one of the robbers got to Jenna, he held the bag out for her to put her money in it, but she didn’t move. "Money and jewelry. Come on, hurry up."

When Jenna still refused to move, the robber started to get mad, but then stopped when he saw the cell phone at her side. "What’s this?" He reached down and snatched it from her, only to see ‘Text-to-Land-Line Sent’. "What the hell was that?"

Jenna stood up straight, much more defiant in her drunkenness then she would have been had she been sober. "I just texted the cops and they’ll be here soon, ****!" Jenna slurred.

"Hey Brad!" the robber shouted back across the room to the Lead Robber. "This chick just called the pigs!"

"****," the Lead Robber known as Brad swore. "Alright, pack it in, we’re out of here." He turned to leave as the other robbers rushed to the door, however he ended up grabbing Sonum by the arm and twirling her into his arms. "We’ll let her go as soon as we’re away from here and safe from the pigs. Nobody follow or she’s dead! Come on Chocolate Chip, let’s go."

Brad ran out of the apartment with Sonum in his grasp and his buddies around him as they rushed off down the street.

"Sonum!" Jeff started to move, but Dane grabbed his arm, stopping him.

"Jeff, don’t. You heard them."

"I have to do something, Dane! Who knows what they’ll do to her or if they’ll even let her go!" Jeff broke from Dane’s grasp and ran for the door.

Dane located Karsen from half-way across the room and shouted, "Karsen, we have to stop him!" Dane pointed and Karsen saw Jeff running for the door.

"****," Karsen whispered.

"Karsen, don’t..." Amber pleaded. But it was too late.

Karsen and Dane ran across the room and reached Jeff seconds after he emerged outside. Dane grabbed Jeff’s arm again and Jeff whirled towards them, anger radiating off of him as he raised a fist, ready to throw a punch.

"Dane, let me go!" Jeff ordered.

"We’re not letting you do this..." Dane said, but then added, "Alone." Dane released his grip on Jeff's arm, and he nodded.

"Thank-you," Jeff said with genuine thanks. "Now let’s hurry." The three ran off down the street, following the robbers who were far ahead, but not out of sight yet.

***

Up ahead, Sonum kept trying to drag her feet to slow the robbers down, until Brad held the gun to her head.

"If you don’t start cooperating, I’m going to blow your brains out."

Sonum started cooperating as they continued running.

"Why don’t you just let me go?" Sonum asked. "Having to drag an extra persona round is bound to slow..." The gun returned to her head, cutting her short. Sonum put her hands up into the air in a defensive posture. "Alright, alright, I’m shutting up, jeez."

They turned down a dark side alley, and were half-way down it when Jeff, Karsen, and Dane showed up at the end of it, blocking it off. Karsen leaned into this friends. "I don’t think we thought this through. What are we supposed to do now?"

Jeff gulped. "Improvise?"

"Great. Just great," Karsen whispered back with a sarcastic tone. "I’m so glad I followed you."

"Hey!" Jeff shouted down the alley at the robbers. "Let her go!" The robbers stopped on the spot, chuckling to each other at these idiots.

Sonum gasped when she saw who was at the end of the alley. "Jeff, no! They’re going to kill you!"

"Just let her go, please," Jeff pleaded with them. "She did nothing to you guys, and you’re far enough away now that you can easily be far away by the time the cops get here. You don’t need her now."

"If you let her go, we’ll move out of your way," Dane said.

Karsen leaned into Dane to whisper, "They have guns. If they really want us out of the way, I’m not going to argue."

One of the robbers raised his gun. "Move or we’ll shoot."

Jeff, powered by fear and adrenaline, and maybe even a bit of something else...something mysterious...ran forward. The gun fired with a deafening boom. Luckily, Jeff reached the robber in time and managed to hit his arm away just as the shot was fired, thus it went wild and the bullet hit the wall of the alley. Jeff slammed his elbow down on the robber’s arm, the pain forcing him to drop the gun. He kicked out to the side and kicked the gun from the hand of the next robber over, which was Brad. Sonum used that moment to elbow him in the stomach and escape his grasp. She ran toward Karsen and Dane.

"Go on, get back to Vanessa’s, hurry!" Karsen shouted to her as he moved her body behind his. Sonum hesitated for a second, before turning and running away. Karsen and Dane jumped forward to help Jeff, tackling Brad. The alley was too narrow for the other two robbers to join in, so they just waited behind their friends, with guns raised.

The first robber that Jeff was still in a struggle with, pulled a small switchblade out and rammed it into Jeff’s arm, pulling down and then out again.

The fighting instantly all stopped at Jeff’s high-pitched scream of pain, which cut through the night air and traveled far distances. He made a move to quickly cover the gash on his arm with his other hand, but stopped and stared at what everyone else was glued to the spot, already staring at.

Instead of blood oozing from Jeff’s wound, it was multi-colored slushie-like material. Each color seemed to have its own unique effect as it dropped from the wound to the ground; a green blotch started to melt away the ground, a blue blotch froze over into ice, a red blotch burst into flames, and a yellow blotch healed the wound almost instantly, stopping any other kinds from coming out, and removing Jeff’s pain.

The robber with the knife was the first to come to his sense at the weird occurrence they just all witnessed, and moved to slash Jeff’s throat with the knife. Karsen instinctively jumped in the way, throwing his arm up to block Jeff’s neck.

"Karsen, no!" Dane gasped.

However, the second before the knife embedded into Karsen’s arm, his arm mutated into an arm made of slushie material, which the knife started to pass through. Then that solidified over into a block of ice in the shape of his arm, trapping the knife harmlessly in it.

The robber was just as stunned as everyone else. "What the hell..." Everyone was once again sent to a state of shock as this time, it was Karsen’s turn to experience the weird phenomenon. 

"Man, these guys are freaks of nature!" Brad spat. "Let’s get the hell out of here!" The four robbers turned and ran back the way they had come from.

Dane made a move to run after them, but started to melt away. "Woah! What’s going on?" Dane quickly melted away into a pile of slushie material that snaked across the ground at lightning speed, rushing past the runner robbers, and then the pile of slushie started to form back into the shape of Dane, right in front of them. Before going into his own state of shock, Dane instinctively threw a couple punches, knocking the first two robbers completely out. Karsen and Jeff came up from behind and Karsen used his ice arm to conk the last two on the head, also knocking them out, just as police sirens could be heard arriving in the distance.

"We need to leave before those cops get here. We can figure out exactly what just happened, later," Jeff suggested. Karsen’s arm returned to its slushie state, the knife falling through and hitting the ground below, before the arm returned to perfectly normal.

"I’m freaked as **** right now, but you’re right," Karsen agreed. "We have to leave. Come on, Dane." The three ran back the way they had just come from, disappearing around the corner.

As the police sirens got closer, Brad, with a moan, slightly moved and then rolled over onto his back, removing the ski mask, revealing a young face in its mid-late 20’s. He winced in pain, but saw the reflection of sirens coming nearer. He stood on wobbly feet, retrieved his gun, and ran off, leaving his unconscious friends behind.

***

Everyone from the party was standing around outside, waiting anxiously for the cops to arrive, and for Jeff, Karsen, and Dane to return. Sonum was already back, huddled with Jenna, Vanessa, and Amber.

"I see them!" Gavon shouted. He pointed down the street. "Over there!"

The three boys jogged down the street as everyone turned their heads to see them approaching and started cheering. They reached the party, out of breath, and Amber ran over to Karsen and threw her arms around him, kissing him, and then stopped long enough to slap him.

"Ow!" Karsen shouted as a hand went up to his head.

"Don’t ever do that again!" Amber warned him with a strict tone.

"What happened back there?" Sonum asked as she approached Jeff.

Jeff looked at her, trying to hide the still-current shock from his face. "Honestly? I have no idea..."

"Are you guys alright?" Vanessa asked as her and Jenna also walked over.

"Yeah," Jeff nodded. "The cops showed up and I’m sure they’re arresting the robbers now."

"Well in that case," Gavon said, raising his voice. "Let’s get this party started up again! Yeeeaaahhh!" Most of the crowd cheered as they returned inside to continue partying.

Jeff, Dane, and Karsen just exchanged glances as they slowly made their way with their friends, back inside as well.

***

When the first pale light of dawn arrived, Jeff pretty much had to carry Jenna inside their apartment, as she was pretty much passed out from drinking. Once Jeff got Jenna laying down on their couch, he pulled a warn blanket over her and moved to the kitchen.

He held his arm up, fading moonlight from outside shining in on it, as he inspected it over, running his other hand over the spot of his arm that had the knife go into it, but now has not even a scar remained there.

***

In his own house, Dane sat at his desk in his room, inspecting his hands in the same kind of manner, under a lamp. Something weird was definitely going on, and Dane wasn't quite so sure he liked it.

***

Karsen and Amber laid in bed together, Amber’s head sleeping on Karsen’s chest. Karsen just stared up at the ceiling, eyes wide open, not even blinking, as his mind kept replaying the events that happened earlier, unsure of what to make of all of it and what he was going to do next.

***

Chase’s unconscious body laid completely alone in the hospital room, not even family members around at such a late hour. The lights to the room were turned off, keeping Chase’s body in complete darkness.

***

Bugs crawled over old piles of food in a very messy living room. Books and unfolded building plans laid everywhere, covering some of those piles of moldy food. A mysterious figure sat on a ripped-open couch in total darkness, the only bit of light coming from the TV screen, which had a couple bugs crawling over the screen as well.

"...Welcome to Late Night News, where we recap and update the day’s earlier stories," a reporter announced from his spot behind the news desk on the TV. "The first matter is the one of the Sobeys Press Conference earlier on today, where Sobeys Manager Paul Neilson confirmed that while their plans for opening a slushie section were postponed due to recent events, it is now back on track and should be ready to be opened within the coming month. Also, are you a fan of Moose hunting? Because..."

The figure roared with rage and threw a small 10-pound weight across the room and at the TV, smashing its screen and causing sparks to fly. The figure jumped up and ran to the other side of the room, tossing books every which way off the bookshelf. The figure lifted open a small secret compartment in the back of the shelf and reached in, rummaging through the rolled-up paper in there.

The figure pulled one of those papers out and unfolded it. He stared down with menacing intent, at the blueprints for the Sobeys building.

The End

The Slushie Bandits
Episode 1: Origin
Written by: Jeffrey Long
Produced by: Jeffrey Long
Creative Consultants: Brandon Keith and Michael Banno

***

Episode 2 has Karsen, Dane, and Jeff figure out how to control their new powers, and sees them get costumes to hide their identities while they face their first real big challenge in the form of a supposed haunted construction site, where dozens of worker's lives are at stake, including that of Dane's father. Also, Chase finally wakens from his coma, but will he get the same warm reception as the others? Be sure to stay tuned for an all-new episode, coming soon.

[Slushie Man]

1x02: Experiments: As Jeff, Dane, and Karsen try to get a hold on their new powers, Chase comes out of coma and the group have to deal with a haunted construction site that is about to claim some new victims.

***

Keven Skinner, a red-headed man in his late 20's, drove his car up to a closed gate and waited, tapping his fingers to the beat of the music playing over his radio.

A security guard walked forward and leaned down. Keven rolled his window down, removing his thick sunglasses, and showed his Site ID Badge. "Late again, Keven? The boss is going to skin your hide."

Keven grunted. "Tell me about it. Damn power outage last night knocked my alarm clock out."

The security guard looked back, then leaned down into Keven's window again. "You better get on in there and get to work before the boss even realizes you're late."

Keven thanked the guard and rolled his window up. The guard opened the gate, allowing Keven to drive on in. He drove down a bumpy dirt road for a minute until he reached a construction zone, filled with three in-progress apartment buildings. He parked his car next to the other dozen and got out, grabbing his hard hat and box of tools from the back seat.

He started walking over the dried mud toward one of the buildings when a voice shouted out, "Mr. Skinner!" Keven stopped and shut his eyes, silently swearing. He opened them and turned around to face his overweight boss.

"Mr. Tucker, how are you today?" Keven asked, trying to 'play it cool'.

Mr. Tucker just glared at him. "Knock off the pleasant ****. Your shift started two hours ago! You're late, again!"

"Sorry sir, my alarm clock restarted last night when the power went out," Keven apologized.

"And I caught my wife in bed with another man...my brother actually...and yet I still managed to drag my fat and sorry ass to work in the mornings," Mr. Tucker bellowed. "If you want to keep this job, stay out of slumber land in the mornings. We're behind schedule as it is. I can't afford to have my men constantly showing up late for work on top of that."

"Sorry, sir, won't happen again."

"Better as hell not, or you'll be looking for work in your sleep too."

Keven continued on his way to one of the in-progress buildings, silently mimicking his boss. As he approached his work zone, some of the other workers looked at him. "Man, Mr. Tucker is such a prick," he vented to them. "It's not my fault the power went out last night. What was I supposed to do? Stay up all night?"

The other workers briefly glanced at him, but didn't say anything in return. Keven sighed, realizing he should have known better then to try to make conversation, and he climbed up a scaffolding to start work on placing in some windows from the outside. Also on the scaffolding were other window installers, as well as insulators and painters.

"Hey."

Keven turned to see another worker nearby that was trying to catch his attention. "Hey," he returned.

"My name's Ian. This is my second day here and I was wondering why no one talks while they work here. I've been doing construction for years and this is the only one where everyone is silent."

"Everyone's spooked," Keven explained.

"Over what?" Ian asked.

"You haven't heard yet? This area's haunted."

"Oh please..." The last thing Ian needed to believe in were evil spirits.

"Seriously," Keven said with a serious face to show he was far from joking. "Night security has been reporting weird noises and occurrences for weeks, and...and there's been a few unexplained deaths. Everyone just wants to get their work done and go home to their families."

Ian still wasn't quite ready to believe. "They never told me of any deaths when I was hired on."

Keven sighed. "We're behind schedule and they can't afford to loose any more people. But check over your first pay stub and you'll see an increase in the hazard pay."

"Still, there's a reasonable explanation. Ghosts are just silly," Ian stated. That got him a few dirty looks from nearby workers and Ian decided to just shut up and get back to his job.

"Hey, I agree," Keven whispered to Ian. "But try telling them that." Keven motioned toward all the workers around them, that were staying perfectly quiet. Ian half-smiled.

***

That night, after darkness fell, Mr. Tucker waved to the last departing worker. Mr. Tucker turned to the night security guard and said, "I'll be out shortly, just going to do my end-of-shift rounds."

"Sure thing, Mr. Tucker," The guard nodded. Mr. Tucker turned around and headed back toward the apartment buildings and walked inside the first one.

The inside was still a work in progress, with plastic sheets hanging everywhere, and exposed boards of wood, with sawdust littering the floor. Mr. Tucker walked through the building, shining a flash light around. There was already dim light however, from some recently-installed lights, the wires in the wall exposed haphazardly.

He suddenly heard the sound of footsteps stepping on the plastic sheets that also covered the floor, and he walked quickly around the corner to where he heard the noise and shined his light around, but couldn't see anyone.

"Hello?" he called out, but was met with no answer. "Work's over for the day. Come on, time to clock out." Still no answer. He turned to leave the room, but jumped slightly when a nearby light bulb exploded all of a sudden.

What the hell...? Then another bulb exploded, followed by another one. Soon, the entire area was covered in darkness except for Mr. Tucker's flashlight.

"Who's there?" he asked out loud. He walked cautiously across the floor, careful not to step on any of the broken glass. He reached the far side of the room when he suddenly heard a small whirring noise from nearby.

He walked around the corner into another room and shined his light around. The beam fell upon a nail gun that was left plugged in, resting on a work table.

Damn incompetent workers, always leaving their **** on, he thought nastily, realizing now that it was probably just that thing causing fuses to blow, which resulted in the lights exploding.

He took a step toward it to shut it off, but instantly stopped and took a step back as the device lifted up into the air, all on its own. Mr. Tucker opened his mouth to shout for help, but before he had the chance, the nail gun fired a nail all on its own.

The nail soared through the air and embedded deep into Mr. Tucker's arm. He dropped the flashlight and screamed in pain, however his screams were ended as a dozen more nails flew out toward him, one of them heading directly for his neck.

***

Inside the giant grocery store of Sobeys, Jeff and Jenna pushed a cart through the busy store, picking groceries for their apartment, a soft 80's rock tune playing softly over the speakers. They should have known better then to go shopping over lunch time when the store was at its busiest, but when Jenna had a craving for something specific, then that was that.

"I think this is enough stuff to last us the next month," Jenna said, looking in the cart. They had only came out to grab a few things, but half an hour later the found themselves still in the store, their few things having turned into a cart-full.

"Yeah, I think so to," Jeff agreed. "It's going to put a small dent in my wallet." They chuckled and then decided to end their shopping and bring the cart to the tills.

Jeff pointed to the till that Karsen was working on, quickly scanning items through to lower his line-up. ""Let's go through Karsen's till."

Jenna agreed, so they began unloading their stuff on it as soon as the line was short enough. Once the customer in front of them was done and walked away, Jeff hit himself in the head.

"****, I forgot the Super Deluxe Gator Burgers. Could you run and get a pack, please?"

Jenna sighed at Jeff's forgetfulness. "I asked you earlier if you got them."

"I must have not heard you."

Jenna shook her head. "I swear, I'm going to have to get you a hearing aid for Christmas." As she turned and walked back across the store, Karsen started ringing the groceries through.

"That was smooth," Karsen smiled.

Jeff shrugged. He had to get Jenna out of earshot so he could talk to Karsen about some private stuff. "So, I'm thinking we should all meet somewhere privately to start trying to learn how to use these...gifts. Somewhere where we won't draw attention to ourselves."

"I've been thinking about that ever since Vanessa's party last week," Karsen admitted. "All I can come up with though is the old baseball diamond at the edge of town."

Dane walked over to the till in his Sobeys uniform, and started bagging the groceries. He cautiously looked around before saying, "You guys talking about the plan?" Jeff and Karsen nodded slightly. "My dad, he works a lot of construction but he's off work right now cause of this one area he was working on, it was shut down a while ago. Something to do with people refusing to work cause the think it was haunted. I'm not sure of all the details, dad doesn't like to talk about it, but point is, it's empty and pretty much in the middle of nowhere."

"Sounds good to me," Karsen stated.

"Me too," Jeff agreed. "Ok, we can meet there this evening, let's say an hour after you guys get off work." Before Karsen and Dane could confirm the time, Jenna returned with the box of gator burgers and put them on the till with the other groceries.

"Hey Dane, how's work going so far?" Jenna asked, assuming that they had been chatting about work.

"Busy as hell," Dane sighed. "Which is unusual for this time of year, but it looks like things are starting to slow down now that the noon rush is almost over."

"That'll be $215," Karsen informed them. "I assume you'll be splitting the cost?" Once Jenna confirmed that was correct, Karsen took Jenna's money, giving her some change back, and then took Jeff's. He printed off their receipt and handed it to them.

"Have a good shift," Jeff said to them as he and Jenna started walking away with their cart of bagged groceries. "I'll meet up with you guys later." Karsen nodded and Jeff and Jenna left them behind as they pushed the cart toward the exit doors.

"Have you called a cab yet?" Jeff asked Jenna.

Jenna nodded. "Yeah, while I was getting the burgers."

Before they got through the automatic doors, they opened and Sonum strolled into the store with her parents. "I'll meet up with you guys in a few," she told them and then hung back while they continued on. She changed directions, walking over to Jeff and Jenna, smiling at them.

"Hey there," she says to Jeff with a huge smile.

Jeff, unable to stop himself from smiling back at her, returned the greeting. "Hey there, yourself."

Jenna wrapped her arms around Sonum and gave her a huge hug. "How've you been doing? We haven't really heard from you since that one night at Vanessa's party."

Jenna let go of Sonum and took a step back as Sonum brushed a curl of hair out of her eyes and behind her ears. "I've been good, actually. My parents won't let me out of their sight for long though, once they heard what happened." Sonum laughed, but quickly turned serious again. "And Jeff, I just want to say thanks again. What you did that night, it was so brave and selfish, I owe you so much."

Jeff just shrugged modestly. "You don't owe me anything. You're my friend and you were in trouble. I would have done it for anyone."

"But you did it for me, and I really appreciate that." Sonum moved in and hugged Jeff tightly. She pulled away from him and moved that same strand of hair behind her ear again. "I better go catch up with my parents."

"Alright," Jenna said. "Take care." Sonum left and as Jeff and Jenna resumed their walk outside, Jenna smirked at Jeff. "I bet you'll be thinking of that hug all day, won't you?"

Jeff didn't even have to reply. The smile on his face said it all.

***

That evening, Jeff, Karsen, and Dane made their way across grassy field toward the abandoned construction area. They climb the fence with little difficulty and jumped down onto the other side.

"Before we start this," Dane said, deciding now was a good time to inform them of the information he got a hold of earlier. "I should mention that when I went home after work, my dad told me that this site has a new foreman now. Apparently that's what they were waiting on, and production is rumored to be starting at any time over the next few days."

"Then I guess we should use this time wisely and we better figure out how to get a handle on things by that point," Jeff stated.

They moved out to pretty much the middle of the empty area, away from the buildings-in-progress, but also far enough away from the gate and road so that they wouldn't be spotted by any passers-by.

So how do we start this?" Karsen asked, looking from Dane to Jeff. "It feels a bit awkward."

Jeff was the first to speak with his plan, "Well we know basically, what we can do, we just don't know how we can do it. We need to figure out how to control these abilities so nothing happens around other people by accident. I don't even know where to start with myself though."

Dane stepped in and said, "Your ability seems to be tied into your blood. Try cutting yourself and have yourself bleed."

Jeff nervously laughed. "Ok, now that's just a little bit insane. My ability is the ability to attempt suicide?"

"I don't mean that bad of a cut," Dane explained. "Just a little thing. Look, I'll go first if you're not ready for that." Dane closed his eyes and concentrated hard, focusing on what happened that night in the alley. After a minute with no results, he opened his eyes again. "Ok, well this may take awhile."

For the next two hours, Dane kept trying to transform, with no luck, and Karsen kept trying to change states as well, with about as much luck as Dane. Jeff spent his time standing away from the others and contemplating over whether or not to cut himself, pacing back and forth and holding a sharp rock over his outstretched arm, bringing it to his skin, then moving it away again as he second-guessed himself. Once the sun started to go down, the trio re-grouped and stood around, staring at each other.

"Well that was a big fat waste of time," Karsen sighed.

"It's dark out now. No point in continuing," Jeff stated, his voice dripping with disappointment. "We'll pick it back up again tomorrow."

"We all work tomorrow," Dane reminded him.

"I'm the last one off," Jeff stated. "So I'll just meet you two over here right after I get off work."

"Alright, that sounds good."

"Good for another waste of time, but whatever," Karsen said. "I'll show up anyway."

They started heading back toward the fence when Dane yelps and suddenly disappeared from view.

"Dane?" Jeff called out. He looked back when he heard Karsen shout.

"Jeff, down there!"

Jeff looked toward a very deep hole in the ground and his eyes widened. "Holy ****..."

Jeff and Karsen rushed to the hole and peered down it. "Do you see him?" Jeff asked Karsen.

"It's too dark, I can't see anything..."

"Dane!" Jeff shouted, cutting Karsen off. There was no answer.

"Maybe he's hurt," Karsen suggested. "Maybe he's unconscious and can't hear us." Suddenly in the dark, something snaked up the side of the hole, and slithered over the top of it.

Jeff and Karsen quickly stepped back and under the starlight, could see that it was a trail of slushie material. It instantly started changing into a human shape as it rose up, and within seconds, Dane was standing before them.

"Holy ****," Dane said in total wonder. "I did it..."

Karsen and Jeff were just as wide-eyed. "How..." Karsen stammered. "How did you...?"

Something clicked in Jeff's head. "I think by reflex. Same thing happened back in the ally that night. Our abilities manifested only by reflex. Same thing happened just now with Dane. Folks, we're on the verge of figuring this out, I can feel it." Jeff patted them both on the back as they continued their walk back to the fence.

***

Later that night, after Karsen had gone home and washed up, he met his girlfriend Amber for a nice expensive date of Chinese food at Center Dining. Karsen sat across the table from his glamoured-up girlfriend, both eating a nice, expensive supper with soft ambient music playing in the background of the restaurant.

Amber swallowed her current mouthful and asked Karsen, "So how was your day? What did you do?"

Karsen munched quickly so he could answer, "Just worked then hung out with the guys."

"What guys?" Amber asked.

"Jeff and Dane," Karsen replied with his mouth full.

"You and Jeff are sure hanging out a lot these days."

"Yeah, well we shared a traumatic experience. I don't know, we feel closer to each other now then just co-workers." Karsen then decided to see if that was ok with Amber. He knew her and Jeff had been friends long before he and Jeff had been. "Is that a problem?"

"No, no," Amber replied almost too quickly. "It's great. It'll be nice to have all my friends being friends with each other."

They sat in silence while they both took a few more mouthfuls of food. Suddenly Karsen looked up at Amber, but then looked past her. "Hey, is that Sonum?"

Amber turned in her seat to see Sonum, dressed up very nicely, sitting at a romantic candle-lit table with a guy. "I wonder who that guy she's with is," Amber thought out loud.

"I have no idea, I can't really tell from here," Karsen admitted. "I wonder if Jeff knows about this."

Amber suddenly turned back to Karsen. "What difference does it make?"

"Jeff's pretty much in love with Sonum," Karsen brought Amber up to speed. "If he finds out about this, he'll be heartbroken."

"So?" Amber asked, still waiting for Karsen to give a good answer to her question. "That's his problem to deal with. Sonum can date who she wants to."

"I'm just looking out for his feelings is all," Karsen explained. "What's the problem?"

Amber glanced back at Sonum and the guy. "Nothing," she whispered. Then she turned back to Karsen and smiled. "There's no problem. How's your meal?"

***

Jeff was in the kitchen of his apartment, frying up some supper in the frying pan. Jenna walked through the kitchen, putting earrings on as she made her way to the porch.

"Alright, I'm heading out to the movies with Adam now. I'll be back late," Jenna informed Jeff.

"Sure thing," Jeff replied. "Let me know how the movie is."

"Will do." Jenna slipped on her shoes and jacket and left. The second the door closed, Jeff turned the stove off and moved the frying pan to another burner so the food in it wouldn't burn. He grabbed a large knife from the knife block and walked quickly down the hall toward the bathroom.

He flips on the light and closed the door behind him, just in case Jenna happened to return for some reason. When he turned back around, he stared at himself in the mirror. He breathed in slowly, and then exhaled heavily.

Ok, you can do this. Just one little cut, he told himself. You can't practice with your abilities without first cutting yourself. One small little cut is all that's needed. You can do this...

Jeff looked down as he brought the knife to his arm and pressed down. He paused, just before the skin could break, and held the knife there, suddenly getting cold feet and arguing with himself in his head as to if he should do it or not.

With a scream of frustration, he threw the knife angrily into the sink and stormed out of the room, giving into his fear and not cutting himself.

***

Dane laid under his race car in his cold concrete garage, working on the underside of the vehicle, covered in dirt and grease. After a couple hours of him working under there, he finally crawled out and walked over to the toolbox, rummaging through it. After not finding the tool he needed, he hit the side of the toolbox hard, and closed his eyes as he forced himself to breathe calmly.

"Hey sport." Dane whipped around and saw his dad standing in the doorway at the top of the stairs.

"Hey dad."

His father walked down the stairs and across the basement, approaching Dane. "I just want to apologize to you."

"For what?" Dane asked, confused. He couldn't remember his dad doing anything that made him angry recently.

His father sighed sadly. "If it wasn't for me getting laid off, we'd have more money to buy proper tools for you."

"Dad, don't worry about it," Dane said, trying to cheer him up. He understood that his father blamed himself for a lot of things wrong in the family, and Dane hated that. "I know you're doing the best you can. You're a great father and I'm proud to be your son."

The phone started to ring from inside the house, interrupting further conversation. "I'll be right back," Dane's father said. "I have to get that." He rushed up the stairs and disappeared back into the house to answer the phone.

As Dane turned to go back to work, he found that he couldn't move his legs. He glanced down to see them starting to turn into slushie material. He let out a loud gasp, and his legs instantly returned to normal.

Dane pondered for a second, thinking over how he had done that. He swung his arm out, having it turn into a slushie state, followed by his shoulder. Dane made a wide smile, happy at finally having his powers figured out. Suddenly his entire body melted into a slushie puddle.

That puddle zoomed across the room, and then reformed into Dane on the far side. Before he could even finish forming his smile, he disintegrated again, and once again moved to a different part of the room before returning to normal yet again. He forced himself to do all he could to contain his overwhelming joy and not to scream in excitement as his father walked back in the room, just narrowly missing the display Dane had put on.

"Well I have some good news, son," his father stated with a smile on his face that rivaled the one Dane had just seconds before. "That was Head Office for the construction company I work for. I get to start work again in two days."

If it was possible for Dane to smile any wider, he did. "That's great news, dad! I'm so happy for you."

"I better go call your mother and tell her the news." Dane kept the smile on until his dad disappeared back into the house again. Then the smile turned to a look of worry as he wondered where he and the others could practice with their powers once construction resumed.

***

After visiting hours ended in the hospital, Chase's family remained gathered around his unconscious body, joined by Dr. Lee and a couple of nurses. There was also another family sharing the same room, a curtain separating the two families. The other family had two teenagers, sipping on their slushies which were bought in another nearby town before arriving. They looked down sadly at their unconscious family member.

Chase's family paid no attention to them however, as they were in horrible turmoil with their recent decision. Everyone's faces were stained with tears and permanent grief.

The father glared at Doctor Lee and solemnly nodded and choked on his words. "Do it. Pull the plug."

"I'm so sorry for your loss," Dr. Lee said sincerely, almost breaking up himself. He knew it had been a hard decision for the family, but after several months of no response, he knew they couldn't afford to keep their son on life support any longer.

With great regret, Dr. Lee began flipping the switches off on the life support machine, and finally he reached down and unplugged Chase from it. The very second that he was disconnected however, his eyes instantly snapped open and he gasped for air. The machine started to overload for unknown reason and sparks began to fly.

In a split second, before the sparks could even hit the floor, the slushie material had all exited the cups from the two teenagers. They formed various shapes – mostly little small ball-like bullet-shapes and long sliver-like shapes - and they flew all over the room.

Within seconds, everyone was dead, their bodies crumpled onto the floor. The slushie material all flew toward Chase and came to a rest on his body. It formed back together again as it wormed all over his body until it converged into one liquid-like mass and slithered into his mouth and down his throat.

Chase was a bit dazed and was left in a state of shock, having no idea what had just happened. He looked around to see everyone dead, and while he didn't know quite what happened, he knew it had something to do with him.

"My God...what have I done?" he asked out loud in utter horror. Upon receiving no answer, he quickly jumped out of bed and changed out of his hospital clothes and into regular clothes.

He rushed from the room and took in a deep breath of fresh air once he was outside of the hospital, and walking down the dark empty streets.

***

The next morning, Jenna and Vanessa sat next to a window in McDonald's, eating breakfast together as bright warm light shined in on them. They were in the middle of a conversation when Vanessa stopped in mid-speech, her eyes widening.

"Jenna...look." Jenna looked out the window where Vanessa was pointing and her eyes widened as well. "Is that Chase?" Vanessa asked.

Chase walked by the window, hands in his jacket pockets, looking at the ground as he walked.

"Oh my land, it is!" Jenna shouted. They instantly ran outside, forgetting all about their unfinished meals.

Once outside, they rushed to catch up with Chase before he got too far ahead. "Chase! Hey Chase!" Jenna called out.

Chase stopped and turned around, surprised to see them. "Jenna, Vanessa...hey..."

"You're out of the hospital!" Jenna exclaimed. "That's great news! When did you even wake up?"

"I recovered a few days ago," Chase lied. "The hospital let me out last night."

"We didn't even hear about you waking up," Vanessa stated.

"Yeah, my parents kept it on the downlow," Chase explained with another lie. He was still uncertain about what had happened the night before, and he didn't want to give anything away that he had anything to do with it. "They didn't want a circus in there. But I have to get going/ I'm on my way to Sobeys right now to see when I can start work."

Jenna hugged Chase tightly. "We're so happy to see you're well. Everyone at work will be so excited. Come on, we'll walk with you there."

Chase smiled. "Sure, that sounds great. You can bring me up to speed on all things Sobeys-related." The three walked together, talking and laughing as they made their way to Sobeys.

***

Jeff, Karsen, and Dane were all having their lunch break together in the Sobeys staff room. They were alone in the room, free to talk about whatever they wanted.

"So guys, this will have to be our last day at the construction site," Dane was explaining to them about his dad, as lunch break was the first time the three had really been alone all day. "My dad goes back to work there tomorrow. We're going to have to find a new 'playground' for our experiments."

"Have you guys had any more luck with developing your abilities?" he asked, looking from one to the other as he bit into his sandwich. "Cause I tried on my own for a bit last night before bed, but I had no luck."

"Yeah, I haven't either," Jeff admitted while he munched on his lunch.

Dane grinned widely, surprising the others with his answer. "I have. I think I've gotten a petty good control over it now. I practiced in my garage last night and I controlled it pretty easily. Look, I'll show you."

Dane pushed his seat back and stood up. The second before he was about to prove to them that he had control over his powers, the door opened and Shale stormed in, looking pissed off.

"You three, what are you all doing up here?" she asked quickly, her voice dripping with impatience.

"Having lunch..." Karsen said softly as if it were obvious.

"You know better then that," Shale stated in a harsh voice. "One person from each department has lunch at a time. Maybe two if it's not busy and we're behind in lunch breaks, but it's packed down there and it seems all my Till staff is up here! I need two of you downstairs, now!"

Jeff and Karsen packed their food back up and slid their packs into the fridge, allowing Dane to finish his lunch. Saying bye to their friend, Jeff and Karsen left the lunch room with Shale following at a quick pace.

She marched them down the upstairs hallway and then downstairs to the Main Floor. As she marched them back to the tills, which only a couple were opened, and both had long line-ups at them, Jenna and Vanessa stepped in their way.

"So we have a surprise," Vanessa stated with a huge smile.

"Vanessa, this isn't the time," Shale said quickly, trying to get her staff back to work. "We're really busy here."

Vanessa and Jenna moved out of the way, showing Chase standing there behind them, leaving Shale, Jeff, and Karsen shocked.

"Hey," Chase greeted sheepishly.

Shale blinked and then shook her head. "Karsen, Jeff, back to work now. Chase, come on upstairs and let's have a chat." As Chase followed Shale back up the stairs, Jeff and Karsen made their way to the busy tills.

"Did you know he was out of the hospital?" Karsen asked Jeff.

"I didn't even know he was awake," Jeff said. "Last I heard, his parents were going to pull the plug."

"Yeah, me too," Karsen agreed, They separated as they reached the tills so Karsen could open up a new till and lower the line-ups, and Jeff could go bag for the till with the biggest order going through.

They stayed busy serving customers for the next couple of hours, with Jeff running from till-to-till, outside to gather carts, and to the bathrooms to clean them. He was so busy, that he just wasn't in the mood to deal with rude stuck-up customers, which is why he warned his supervisor of that when he was asked to go deal with one. By the time the customer walked away with a smug look on her old wrinkly face, Jeff was fuming mad.

"Man, she was a ****, hey?" Karsha, the cashier next to Jeff stated.

Jeff didn't even reply, he was still so mad at having to deal with such an impossible person. Instead he slammed his palm down onto the metal till to release some of his anger, however he slammed it down right next to the edge and accidentally nicked himself on it. Jeff reeled his hand back out of pain and winced.

"Are you alright?" Karsha asked him. Before Jeff could cover his hand, a drop of pink 'blood' fell and hit the till. Thankfully it was only a very small drop, and while it started growing into a pink fuzzy material, not unlike that of some kind of pink mold, it stopped after only a centimeter, remaining off Karsha's radar.

"Uh...yeah, yeah I'm fine," Jeff stammered over his response as he watched the pink fuzz grow slightly. "Just going to go wash the cut." Jeff covered the wound with his other hand, rushed across the store to the public washrooms and locked the door behind himself once he reached the men's.

He let the wound bleed freely and a small part of the floor burned slightly as a couple tiny fireballs hit it and burned out, followed by a purple substance that acted like rubber.

As the various flavors of slushie dripped out, Jeff closed his eyes, concentrating on controlling it. A brown-colored slushie drop hits against the floor next and acted like a bullet and ricocheted around the room, forcing Jeff to duck and cover his head before the yellow substance healed over the wound.

Jeff sighed heavily with disappointment as he just missed his window of opportunity to master his power. With a disheartened attitude, Jeff unlocked the door and stepped out, just as Shale and Chase walked by.

"Oh, hi Jeff," Shale greeted, now much calmer that the store isn't as busy.

"Hey," Jeff greeted back. The entire time standing there, Jeff and Chase didn't take their eyes off each other, both with the same quizzical look as the other, both wondering if the other person also had new powers from the accident.

"Going to the Cash Office?" Jeff asked.

Shale nodded. "Yeah, I'm going to get Chase his employee number back so he can start work as soon as tomorrow."

"That's great news," Jeff said without much emotion.

"Sure is," Chase said, also with about the same amount of emotion. Finally Jeff turned and headed back to work, while Shale and Chase headed toward the Cash Office. Chase turned his head back to look at Jeff as he walked around the corner.

***

After work ended that day, Karsen met up with Amber at her place and the two decided to go to the mall. They were making their way through the mall parking lot, approaching the building and holding hands gently, when Jeff and Dane ran over to them.

"Dude, where have you been?" Dane asked as they approached. "You never showed and you haven't been answering your cell. We were just running to your place now when just saw you."

Karsen slapped his head. "**** guys, sorry, I forgot. And my cell's dead so it's at home, recharging."

"Forgot what?" Amber asked, turning to face Karsen, biting her lower lip.

Karsen stumbled over what he had to say, fearing for his safety. "Um, I actually, kind of, had plans with them, and I forgot."

Amber shrugged. "Oh, well there'll be other times you can hang out with them, so its no big deal."

"Actually..." Karsen said slowly. "This is kind of important."

"Well so am I, aren't I?" Amber asked, her temper flaring.

"Yeah, you are," Karsen said quickly, covering his tracks. "But I mean, I went out with you last night, and hey, we can do something later on tonight, when I'm done."

Amber just gave up, letting go of Karsen's hand and started wlaking away. "Whatever, do what you friggin' want."

"Amber! Please don't be mad!" Amber ignored Karsen as she disappeared into the mall. Karsen turned to Jeff and Dane. "Come on guys, let's go do this."

***

Fifteen minutes later, the trio walked across a grassy field toward the fence of the construction area.

"So did you guys hear that Chase is out of the hospital?" Dane asked them.

"Yeah," Jeff replied. "We saw him earlier."

"I wonder if he has any powers like we do. He was involved in the same accident," Dane stated.

"He does," Jeff answered in a matter-of-fact tone.

"He told you?"

"No, but I had a run in with him earlier." Jeff quickly explained to Dane and Karsen about the look that he and Chase had shared earlier.

"We should call him up and get him to meet us here," Karsen suggested.

"Good idea." Dane took out his cell and dialed Chase's number.

***

Amber browsed by herself in a clothes store in the mall. She looked over a shirt on a hanger before putting the shirt back on the rack. She turned to look at some pants, but walked almost right into Sonum, which caught both girls by surprise.

"Sonum..." Amber greeted a bit too awkwardly. "Hey..."

"Hey...Amber, right?" Sonum asked. "Karsen's girlfriend?"

"Yeah, that's me."

Sonum glanced around. "You here by yourself?"

Amber got a bit of a depressed look on her face, but quickly tried to cover it up. "Yeah, I am. Needed some alone time away from everyone."

Sonum smiled, understanding. "Oh man, I know what that's like."

"Yeah, speaking of that, me and Karsen saw you at Center Dining with some guy."

Sonum looked at the floor, then back up at Amber. "Yeah, my friend Ashley, it's her brother. I just started seeing him. That was our first date."

"Does Jeff know about him?" Amber asked, almost too quickly.

Sonum shook her head. "Not yet. Not really anyone knows yet. It never really became official until today."

After a pause in the conversation where nobody spoke, Amber said, "Jeff really likes you, you know. A lot."

Sonum forced herself to smile. "I know he does."

"What do you think of him?" Amber asked, then added on. "I'm just being nosey now."

Sonum shrugged. "We're just good friends, that's all. I don't have any feelings for him beyond that." Despite what Sonum said, her eyes betrayed her, and Amber picked up on it.

"Sonum, is that really the truth, or is that what you're just telling everyone?" Amber pushed.

Sonum sighed as she looked at the floor. She looked up, her eyes giving away that she had a secret she wanted to tell. She started to open her mouth.

"Sonum!"

Sonum shut her mouth and her facial expression completely changed as she turned to her friend across the store. "I'm on my way, Ashley." Sonum turned back to Amber. "I have to go, but it was nice talking to you."

Before Amber could even so much as say bye, Sonum rushed to Ashley and the two girls left the store, laughing at something. Amber sighed and turned to leave as well, but bumped right into someone.

"I'm sorry," she quickly apologized and started to move around the figure.

"That's ok, love."

Amber knew that voice and looked up, shocked. She stared at her ex-boyfriend. "Scott? My god, I haven't seen you in forever!"

"Since the week after we broke up," Scott reminded her.

Amber thought about how long it had really been. "Wow, its been a long time."

"Are you here with friends?" Scott asked, glancing around the store.

"No," Amber replied. "I'm going at it Lone Ranger-style today." Amber and Scott chuckled. Truthfully, Amber was just happy to have someone to talk to that would pay attention to her.

"Well I'm by myself too. Care to combine our shopping-solo lives together to form a shopping-duet?"

Amber hesitated as she thought about Karsen, but upon remembering that he was the one that ditched her, she smiled and brushed hair out of her eyes. "Definitely."

The two left the store together, quickly catching up on missed times.

***

Chase arrived just outside the construction site, peddling on his bike. "So what's up, guys? Why'd you want me to meet you all here?" he asked as he climbed off his bike.

"Ever since the accident at the factory, we've all developed...unnatur al abilities," Jeff explained.

Chase wasn't sure he was ready to tell them everything yet, so tried to shrug things off and act like he didn't know what they were talking about. "What do you mean?" he asked as he looked from Jeff, to Dane, to Karsen.

"Chase, don't play us like fools," Jeff sighed, not really wanting to waste the time to beat around the bush while they only had limited time at the site. "You know exactly what we're talking about."

Chase felt torn on whether to tell them or not, but before he could decide, Dane spoke up, patting him on the back. "Hey, it's nothing to be scared of. We all have our own powers. We're experimenting on trying to get them under control."

Chase continued to look from one to the other, deciding to tell them, but hearing a little voice in his head, telling him to be careful and not to tell them everything. "I...I don't think experimenting with mine is a good idea."

"What can you do?" Jeff asked, anxious to find out.

"I don't really feel..."

Karsen cut the unsure Chase off in mid-sentence. "Come on, Chase. Dane's right, there's no reason to be nervous. Nobody else knows about our abilities, so your secret is safe with us."

Chase sighed, giving in a bit more. "I need a slushie nearby."

Dane grew a giant smile. "I've got that covered." Seeing as how Dane was the most in-tune so far, he transformed into his slushie state and formed into a pile of slushie on the ground, which temporarily shocked Chase and he took a few nervous steps away.

Chase took a breath and gathered himself together, stepping back up. He closed his eyes and concentrated hard, but, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes, and then closed them again, this time squeezing them shut as hard as he could. He opened his eyes again, frustrated and red-faced.

"It's ok," Jeff assured him. "So far Dane is the only one with any real control over his powers. It seems though that they happen by instinct until you can get control of them." Jeff let Chase sink that information in, before continuing. "Dane, I want you to rush Chase."

"Um, can he even hear you?" Chase asked, nodding at the slushie pile that was once Dane. He's answered by the slushie pile thinning out into a little river. It rushed Chase at top speed, lifting off the ground at the last second to aim for his chest. Upon reflex, Chase stepped back as he screamed out of fear and raised his hands. Dane’s slushie form flew back away from Chase and landed several feet away, splattering everywhere.

The various drops and bits all rushed each other and formed together as Dane morphed back into his human form.

"Holy ****, that was a phenomenal feeling..." Dane trailed off. "I had no control over myself for a bit there."

Jeff stood wide-eyed. "That was a really good job, Chase."

"He's here for two minutes and he's further then I am. Great..." Karsen sighed, which got a chuckle from everyone.

"Um, that's not all I can do," Chase timidly spoke up again. "I can also control the slushie material and mold it, and harden it at will."

Dane whistled, impressed. Jeff clapped his hands together. "Well, let's get this training session underway then so you can figure out how to do all that just by willpower. Come on."

They followed Jeff and climbed the fence to get onto the other side, walking to their previous day's practice area. For the next couple of hours, the four of them trained hard.

Jeff finally gathered the courage to cut himself on a sharp rock and upon multiple tries and hard concentration, managed to control what kind of slushie material came out of his wound. Chase picked up on his powers pretty quickly, and while Karsen still had some trouble, he managed to get the basics of it down. Dane just has fun playing with his powers, having already mastered them.

After the hours of practicing, they met together again in a circle.

"This day has been a great success," Jeff smiled at how far they had all come. "I'm proud of everyone."

"We better leave," Dane suggested. "People will start showing up soon to prepare the site for tomorrow's day of work."

"Alright," Jeff agreed. "We'll stay in touch and figure out a new training area later."

"Sounds good," Chase also agreed. "This has been a lot of fun. I'm glad you guys talked me into this."

They said their good-byes to Chase, who hopped on his bike after they climbed back over the fence, and took off while the other three walked off together.

[Slushie Man]

***

A week later, Dane's father was dropping Dane off Sobeys for work.

"Thanks dad, for picking me up from school all week, and for dropping me off for work today," Dane said as he gathered up his bookbag from the floor of the car.

"Not a problem," his father replied. "Your school and work are on my way to my work anyway."

Dane knew that was a total lie, but he couldn't say anything to his dad about it, as he didn't want to tell him he knew exactly where his work was because that would just raise questions he didn't want to have to answer. Instead, he just smiled. "Dad, I'm glad you're working again. You've been happier since you went back to work."

"I only have one day of work left before I have a couple off. On those days, I'll help you work on your car for the track races coming up soon."

Dane smiled. "Thanks. Have a good afternoon at work." Dane gathered up his pack and got out of the car and walked into Sobeys as his dad drove off. He swung the giant backpacking pack, which was large enough to carry a tent in, onto his back.

Chase was on his way outside to gather the carts from the parking lot just as Dane walked into the store.

"Hey, what are you doing right now?" Dane asked him.

"About to go out and get carts," Chase answered.

Dane smiled. "Sneak on upstairs with me for a minute. I have something to show you."

Chase looked around to make sure no one was watching him slacking, and then motioned for Dane to lead the way. The two boys made their way through the store, up the staircase into the Staff-only section of the store, down the hall, and into the bathroom, checking to make sure it's empty as soon as they entered.

"So what is it?" Chase asked.

"I've been working on some things in my spare time in the last week." Dane unshouldered the pack and it clunked heavily to the floor. He opened it up and pulled out his work clothes, setting them off to the side, and then pulled out a tank with straps on it so it could attach to someone's back. Attached to it was a hose attached to a water gun.

"Ohhh-Kaaay..." Chase trailed off. "We're having a water fight?"

Dane rolled his eyes. "You can fill the tank up with slushies, fire it from this gun here, and then use your powers to control and manipulate the slushies that are coming out, in any way that you want.

Chase's eyes lit up with excitement at all the possibilities running through his head. "Dane, that is so bad ass!" Chase grinned like a kid on Christmas. He also caught a glimpse of two slushie cup-shaped devices at the bottom of the bag and pointed at them. "What are those?"

"They're for Jeff. They..." Dane had to instantly shut up as the door opened and another person walked in, preparing to change for work. Dane quickly stuffed Chase's new toy back into the pack as Chase left without saying anything.

***

Everything seemed to be back to normal at the construction site, after a week of being back on the job. Dane's father was working up on the scaffolding with Keven Skinner and Ian Turner.

"So what do you guy guys think of the new boss?" Dane's father asked the others.

"He's strict but not unreasonable like our last one," Ian scoffed at the mention of their last boss.

"And hey," Keven said. "We've been re-opened a week without any accidents. Maybe a new boss was just what we needed all along."

An alarm rang loud enough to be heard all over the area. "About time we were given lunch. I'm starving," Ian smiled.

They started putting their tools away and made their way back down to the ground. They followed other workers into one of the partially-completed apartments, where a make-shift lunch room was set up. Everyone made their way inside through a hole in the wall where there had yet to be built a wall.

Dane's father, Keven, and Ian meet with a few others as they sat at a portable lunch bench – one of many – that was set up in the area, which was also littered with plastic sheets covering sections of the walls and ceiling, loose tools, dirt, mud, and deep puddles. The room was noisy with hundreds of various conversations all happening at once.

Just as Dane's father took a sandwich out from his lunchbox, a loud high-pitch grinding noise was heard, forcing lots of people to cover their ears, and a second later, one of the scaffoldings crashed to the ground with ear-shattering noises, along with some loose wood and boards, blocking the opened area in the wall-in-progress. 

While everyone started looking around and murmurings rose about the ghost returning and what could have just happened, the doors all started slamming shut on their own. One of the bigger, more muscular men ran over to the nearest door and rammed it with all his strength, only to bounce off it harmlessly, and fall to the ground.

Suddenly they all heard the hiss of releasing gas fill the room, and that was when a near-riot level of panic started.

***

Back at Sobeys, Dane and Chase worked hard during the noon rush. They both rushed around like chickens with their heads cut off, going from one till to the next, bagging one order of groceries and then quickly moving onto another.

Dane stopped when he heard over the intercom that he had a call on Line 1. He turned to the nearest courtesy clerk. "Hey, Warren, can you take over for me here?" Warren arrived to take over bagging at Dane's till, so he could go to an unoccupied till to pick up the phone and press the button for line 1.

"Dane Lucas speaking."

"Hey, it's Jeff," Jeff voice came through the phone. Dane couldn't be sure, but it sounded like something in Jeff's voice was stressed.

"What's up?" he asked.

"I just heard on the radio about some kind of accident at your dad’s construction site," Jeff explained in a cautious tone. He didn't want to upset Dane, but he also felt he should know about it, "Something about all the workers being trapped in a building with the gas on, and nobody can get past the front gate because the security guard is dead and the gate is now powered with electricity."

Fear and worry instantly took Dane over, and Jeff could sense that over the phone. "But don't panic, ok?" he added on. "Me and Karsen are on our way over there right now to see what we can do to help."

"I'll be there as soon as I can," Dane said just above a whisper, with a cold expression on his face.

Jeff knew it would be near impossible for Dane to get off work during the afternoon rush, but he also knew there was no way he'd be bale to talk him out of it. He just nodded his head, despite Dane not being able to see the gesture. "Try and get Chase there as well, if you can," Jeff ended up saying.

Dane hung up without even saying bye as he wiped sweat from his head. He returned to the others as quickly as he could, and pulled Chase off to the side, slightly away from everyone else.

"That was Jeff," Dane whispered quickly. "There's been an accident at my dad's construction site and they need us there ASAP."

"We can't just leave in the middle of work," Chase argued. "We'll get fired."

"Damn it, Chase, my dad's life is on the line!" Dane started to raise his voice. "What else are we supposed to do with our abilities, if not to help people in situations like this?"

Shale noticed two of her workers standing off to the side, chatting, instead of working. She walked over to them, sternly. "Can we end the socializing and get back to working, please? We're having a bit of a rush."

Dane turned to face her, putting on his best 'fake sick' face that he could. "I'm really not feeling well, Shale. Neither is Chase, that's what we were just talking about."

Chase looked at Dane, then back at Shale, putting on a 'fake sick' face as well. Shale looked from one to the other, starting to worry.

"We both threw up earlier, and we're feeling really dizzy," Dane continued on.

Shale thought for a moment, and then spoke. "Ok, maybe its some kind of after effects of your comas. I'll try and call some people in and see if I can cover your shifts. Can you hold on until then?"

Dane bit his lip, knowing time was of the essence but also knowing that there was not much else he could do, and this was the best he could hope for. "Yeah, we can try."

Shale nodded and rushed off to make some phone calls. Dane turned and looked out the giant front window overlooking the parking lot, nervous.

***

Jeff and Karsen arrived near the construction area on-foot, but stayed back and off far to the side from the large crowd gathering at the front of the gate, a small set of thick trees and half a field separating the two boys from the crowd. They stood at the bottom of a slight hill, next to the fence humming with electricity.

"Dane and Chase better get here soon, we can't afford to wait too long for them," Karsen stated.

"We won't," Jeff assured him. "We'll go on in ourselves if we have to."

They waited in silence for a few long seconds, before Karsen spoke up again. "Jeff, honestly, I don't think we're ready for something like this yet. We don't have total control over our abilities, and what good are they going to be against an evil spirit anyway?"

"Relax," Jeff sighed. "I highly doubt it's actually a ghost that's behind all this. Nothing happened to us while we were here those times. It seems things only happen when construction is going on, and that makes me think one of two things. Either the person behind all this is against the construction for some reason, or is one of the workers out for some kind of revenge. Either way, we can easily handle them. Whoever it is, it's just a normal person."

Jeff and Karsen hushed up and ducked down as a taxi drove by on the road at the top of the hill and slowed to a stop. Jeff let out a sigh of relief Dane and Chase quickly got out of it, and looked around.

"Psst! Down here!" Jeff loudly whispered up to them and waved. Dane and Chase spotted them and rushed down the hill toward them. The two groups of two merge together and Dane unslung his giant pack.

"I brought some stuff to help," Dane said.

Jeff picked up his own bookbag. "So did I."

Dane unloaded his inventions, handing the pack and gun over to Chase and the slushie cup-shaped devices to Jeff, who looked them over. "You attach those to the top of your arm, right over the wrist.," Dane explained to him. "There are little tubes that go around and lightly cut into your veins."

Jeff looked worried at having something constantly sticking into his skin. Dane picked up on that look. "It's painless Jeff, trust me. One you have it hooked up to your blood stream, you can then control what kind of slushie flavor comes out, and how much. You have the power to control all that, as long as the slushie can get out of your system."

Jeff nodded and laid them on the ground as he started taking clothing out from his own bag, handing various articles to the various people. "This part was Karsen's idea. If we're going in there and helping those workers, we need to keep our identities secret, in case we have to use our powers and anyone sees us. Not only will we have whoever's behind this after us and our families, but the last thing we need is to wind up as someone’s guinea pig."

After admiring the articles of their new costumes, they started changing into them. Jeff put on a dark blue hoodie, zipping up the front of it and slipping on a black mask with black lenses, over the top half of his face. Karsen slipped on a red latex head piece that covered his entire head, and half his face, ending just below his nose, leaving only his mouth and chin free. Dane stepped into a one-piece biking suit that was made up of various shades of blue. He zipped the sleeves shut around his wrists. Chase slipped the pack on his back and attached a grey cape to his neck, letting it flow over the pack.

Jeff flipped the hood of the hoodie up over his head as Karsen stepped into a similar suit as Dane, only this one was in shades of red. Dane lowered perfectly-rounded tinted-lensed ski goggles in front of his eyes. Chase slipped on a black version of Karsen's latex head piece, only this one ended right below the eyes. He tied a black bandanna with white designs on it, around the lower half of his face, covering his nose and mouth.

Jeff slipped a dark red cape on, followed by attaching his slushie wrist shooters, which he used to fill Chase's tank up.

The group converged and stood side-by-side, staring at the electrified fence.

"So how do we get through?" Dane asked.

Jeff answered by raising his arms and pointed his fist down, aiming his slushie shooters at the fence. From behind his black-lensed mask that hid his eyes, he closed his eyes and concentrated, but nothing happened. He opened them again, frustrated.

"Come on Jeff, you can do it," Dane urged him. "You're the master of your ability, not the other way around."

Jeff nodded. "Right." A few seconds later, Jeff fired a steady spray of the green acid slushie out at the fence. Sparks flew as the acid quickly melted through the thin wire, leaving a gaping hole for them to climb through. Jeff opened his eyes and smiled.

The others patted him on the back and congratulated him as they started stepping through the hole, one by one, onto the other side of the fence. As the group moved across the land, heading toward the apartment buildings that were in progress of being built, a commotion started over by the gate.

"Look!" News Reporter Marissa Neuner pointed. "There's people heading toward the building!"

Everyone aimed their cameras, zooming in on the group to film and take pictures, while police tried to keep everyone back, but also kept turning to view these people for themselves as well.

Marissa quickly turned so the fence was behind her and she snapped her fingers so her cameraman knew to move the camera so it was pointing at her. She made sure to position herself so the people making their way to the buildings could be seen behind her.

"Are these masked strangers the masterminds behind today's events?" Marissa asked into the camera, holding a microphone up to her mouth. "Or are they here to help? Stay with me and lets experience this strange day together."

One of the cops turned to face the gate as he lifted a megaphone to his mouth. "Attention masked men! We are ordering you to stop and to proceed back here to the gate!" The four boys ignored the cop as they continued walking toward the buildings.

"I'm not sure about this, Jeff. Having the cops after us wasn't part of the plan," Karsen said nervously as he glanced back at the gate.

"Relax," Jeff ordered. "If they could get past the fence, they would have already, and by the time they can, we'll be long gone."

"That must be the one," Dane pointed to one of the buildings that had a crashed scaffolding, along with other debris, blocking one side of it.

They walked over to the door and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. Karsen motioned for them to step back and he ran and kicked it, with no effect apart from making Karsen limp a bit, feeling shooting pain travel up his body with every step.

"Ok, that hurt a bit..." Karsen mumbled through clenched teeth.

Jeff rose his slushie shooters, but before he had a chance fire, Chase fired his slushie gun and used his powers to harden the flowing material and the outcome was the equivalent of a police battering ram as the material slammed the door back off its hinges and it slammed into the far wall, shattering into a few smaller pieces. The others were left shocked.

"Holy ****," Jeff said, amazed. "We knew you could control slushies, but that..." he trailed off, at a loss for words.

"That's pretty damn nifty," Karsen finished for Jeff.

"We're loosing time as we talk, guys," Dane hurried them along. His father was in jeopardy ever moment that they wasted. "Let's just get in there."

They stepped through into the in-progress building and Dane sniffed the air. "Everyone be careful. There's leaked gas filling this place up."

They carefully walked through the building, scanning every area they came across.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Chase asked.

"A room full of hopefully living people," Jeff answered.

"Over here!" Karsen's voice drifted to them. The others ran down a partially-complete hallway to the doorway Karsen was standing at. They peered in and saw a room filled with bodies.

"No!" Dane screamed. They were too late! He rushed past the others, pushing them out of the way, and ran into the dimly-lit room, searching each body for his dad. The others entered the room behind him.

"Everyone, start checking for pulses," Jeff commanded. While Dane searched for his father, everyone else started checking the pulses on body-after-body.

"They seem to all be alive, just unconscious," Karsen stated with relief.

"It's the gas," Dane called to him from half-way across the room. "They've been exposed to it for too long. Jeff, we need to get them all out of here, now. They won't last much longer."

"We can't move all of them," Chase spoke up. "I say find your old man and let's get out of here."

"No," Jeff argued. "We're going to save as many as we can, which means we better get to work."

Suddenly a wooden table flew across the room, zooming toward Jeff. He jumped out of the way, the table narrowly missing him and smashing against the nearby wall, shattering into dozens of pieces.

Many of the small splinters from the wreckage lifted up into the air and then shot off in every direction, embedding deep into Jeff and Chase, causing them both to scream in pain. They all missed Karsen, and Dane slusified himself to avoid getting impaled by them.

Dane, after returning to normal, followed by Karsen, ran over to Jeff and Chase, who were returning to their feet.

"Are you guys ok!?" Karsen shouted as they neared.

Jeff and Chase clenched their teeth in pain and winced.

"Just peachy..." Jeff said in a weak voice. His wounds oozed the yellow slushie, quickly healing themselves. Jeff shook the remaining pain off. "Chase, don't move."

Jeff aimed his slushie shooters at Chase and fired, covering him in the healing yellow material, healing his wounds as well.

Chase cracked his neck once he was fully healed. "Let's take this bastard down."

"Not a real ghost, huh Jeff?" Karsen glanced at Jeff.

Jeff glanced back at Karsen. "Shut up, Karsen. Ok, Me and Chase will start searching the building for whatever's going on here. Dane and Karsen, you guys start moving the bodies out."

"Roger," Dane complied.

Just as they broke apart, a small radio, which was plugged into a nearby outlit, silently lifted into the air and floated toward a giant puddle caused by recent rain.

As Karsen turned to grab a body, he stopped on the spot, witnessing the floating radio. Then as it stopped a few feet above the puddle, Karsen's eyes widened. "Guys!"

Everyone whipped around and Jeff instantly raised his slushie shooters, firing the blue freezing material at the puddle, just as the radio fell toward it. Everyone knew that if the radio managed to get wet, sparks would fly, igniting the gas and blowing them all up.

Luckily Jeff froze the water the second the radio hit it, slamming against the ice instead and smashing apart, pieces of it flying everywhere.

"You are ruining everything!" A loud voice boomed through the room. The group turned in circles, scanning the room.

"Where did that voice come from?" Dane asked.

"I don't know!" Jeff shouted, frustrated and scared beyond belief. Was it possible he had been wrong? Could an evil spirit really be behind everything?

"This place really is haunted, I knew it!" Karsen's fear started getting the better of him as well. "We're not match for a ghost!"

"Why can't you just leave well enough alone!" the voice shouted out at them again.

"I'm afraid we can't do that until we get these people to safety," Jeff said stubbornly, swallowing his fear.

The group kept looking around for the source of the voice as it continued talking. "Well then I can't allow any of you to leave. These people contributed to what happened to me, and they have to pay for it!"

"What do you mean?" Jeff asked. "I don't understand."

Jeff was answered by a metal pole flying towards him. Chase quickly fired and hardened a small slushie shot, knocking the pole off-course.

"Nice try, but we can survive whatever you throw at us," Jeff shouted into the air, not quite sure where to look or direct his voice. "So why don't you just come out and give up now, and save us all some time?"

He was once again answered by actions instead of words. One of the bodies rose from the floor – Ian Turner's, as he got to his feet. He smiled mischievously for a second before his view was obscured due to a ring of other bodies rising up. Unlike him though, who was clearly conscious and on his feet, these ones rose all the way off the floor and were left suspended in the air, remaining unconscious, leaving a protective shield of bodies around Ian.

"Ok guys, this is officially creepin' me out," Karsen voiced as his eyes bulged.

"Nobody make any moves," Dane suddenly said in the most serious voice any of them had ever heard from him, "One of those bodies is my dad."

"So your father is here, huh?" Ian asked. "I wonder which one he is..." One neck instantly snapped on its own. Everyone in the room suddenly tensed and held their breaths. Thankfully it wasn't Dane's dad, but time was running out to do something as another neck twisted, snapping.

"All you had to do was let me die in peace with those that deserve to be punished," Ian called out to them.

"Listen guy," Jeff said to him, finally having a direction to look in. "We have no idea what you're talking about! You can't expect us to understand!"

Ian roared with anger. "Of course you don't know what I'm talking about! The world needs to know the truth about what's being covered up!"

"And what's that?"

"I'm different...special ..." Ian explained. "Ever since I was a teenager I had powers. I could control things with my mind, and the older I got, the more out of control and powerful my powers got. I never understood them, and without knowing how to control them, of course some accidents were bound to happen."

As Ian explained his story, all other sounds were blocked from Chase's ears. Ian's story hit a cord with him that the others could never understand, nor could they ever find out.

"Thankfully things only happened to those that treated me badly, but with everyone knowing I was different, that list of people were pretty high," Ian went on. "I've worked with this construction crew since I was a teenager, and a couple years ago one of them got scared of my power and called the cops. There was an investigation into the mysterious deaths, but before anything could be linked to me, some government men came into my home and kidnapped me."

Chase was listening so intently, and busy silently relating to his story, that he didn't even notice the others slowly walking toward Ian one slow step at a time. He was now in his own world, with only Ian occupying it with him.

"They had me locked in some kind of lab all that time, running experiments on me like a lab rat," Ian continued. "Believe me, most of those tests were not pleasant. But one thing they did do right was teach me how to properly harness my powers! I broke free and returned to get revenge on those responsible for putting me there. I'm not delusional though. I know I'm a monster that also deserves to be put down with all the others. If only you..." He stopped in mid-sentence as he finally noticed how close Jeff and Karsen had gotten.

"Stay away from me!" Ian screamed. He used his mind to fire a rather large piece of broken wood from the earlier table toward them. Karsen jumped in front of Jeff and slushified his chest and then froze it over into ice, having the wood break apart upon impact, protecting himself and Jeff.

"I see you have your own powers as well," Ian observed. "You know, its only a matter of time until the people that kidnapped me, find out about you guys and go after you as well. If I let you leave here, the day will come when you're all fugitives of the Government, just like I am now. I'm saving you from..."

While Ian talked, Dane, off away from the others, melted into his slushie state, where he slithered across the floor and snaked up behind Ian. He formed into his human form between Ian and the floating bodies behind him. He conked him in the back of the head in mid-sentence, which caused all the bodies to fall as Ian lost his concentration.

Dane jumped to the side and grabbed his father’s body and laid it softly on the floor.

Ian slowly stood up again, fuming with anger. "Enough is enough with your attempt to stall me. It's time for the big bang." He snapped his finger and a match lifted into the air from an unconscious man's pocket.

"Everyone, huddle together!" Jeff shouted and Chase finally snapped out of his daze. They all rushed toward each other.

Just as Ian lit the match against the wall and ignited an explosion due to the gas, Jeff used both slushie shooters and fired his blue slushie material up, allowing Chase to use his powers to spread the material out over everyone and around everyone, like a giant bubble shield as it froze into ice. Chase reinforced that by firing his own slushie material and hardening it to reinforce the shield.

The entire building exploded outward in a deafening explosion, causing the people by the gate to gasp in shock and duck, covering their ears at the loud noise.

Most of the unconscious bodies, along with the four heroes, was protected from the raging explosion by the shield, however the shield was majorly damaged as the heat from the explosion vaporized most of the ice, but thanks to Chase’s add-on, they remained protected, but just barely.

Debris several stories high, littered the construction area. There was no movement from below it, and all was still and quiet. A hand suddenly broke through the debris and pulled itself up, Karsen being the first to come up and gasp for air. He reached back down and helped the others all up, Dane dragging his dad's body up with him.

"Guys, we have to jet." Jeff nodded and the others turned to see that the explosion had knocked out the power, so now the police and scores of news people were rushing toward them from the direction of the gate.

They started to quickly leave, but stopped when they noticed Dane was still back with his father, kneeling over the body.

"Dane, come on!" Jeff shouted.

"I'm not leaving him!" Dane shouted back.

Jeff ran back to him. "Dane, we did it. He's alive. There's nothing more you can do for him. All you're going to do is get caught up in the circus that's headed this way."

Dane shut his eyes, torn on what to do. "You're right," he said finally, opening his eyes. "Come on."

Dane and Jeff ran to catch up to the others just as the media circus reached the area, and the unconscious workers slowly started waking up.

A short while after Jeff, Dane, Karsen, and Chase had disappeared from the scene, ambulances crowded the area, providing oxygen for those workers that needed it. Keven was wrapped in a blanket as he breathed through an oxygen mask.

The newer site Foreman walks over to him. "I was told you're the Blueprint Keeper?"

Keven removed the mask. "Yeah, I am."

"Could you make me a copy?" The Foreman asked. "Mine was destroyed in the explosion."

"Sure thing, boss."

The Foreman thanked him. "I want to re-start construction as soon as possible."

"I'll have a copy made for you for tomorrow," Keven informed him.

***

Jeff turned off the water of his shower and stepped out into the steam-filled bathroom. He swiped his hand across the mirror, looking at himself in the reflection.

A few minutes later, He stepped out of the bathroom, fully clothed, and walked into the living room, where Jenna was sitting on the couch, watching TV.

"Hey, we haven't really had a chance to talk in the last couple days," Jenna observed, pausing her Disney movie.

"Well between our work schedules and all that..." Jeff trailed off.

"So how was your day?" Jenna asked.

Jeff smiled. "It was... interesting..." Without another word, Jeff turned and disappeared into his room, closing the door.

***

Dane's father sat at the kitchen table, still wheezing a bit from earlier that day. Dane walked into the room. He was near tears at having almost lost his father, but he tried to fight them off.

His father turned in his chair and saw him standing there with tears forming. "I'm going to be ok, son," he tried to assure him. "A bit banged up, but I'll be fine."

Dane didn't even say anything. He just rushed over to his father and hugged him tightly. His father returned the hug, and Dane couldn't hold back his tears anymore.

***

Karsen sat on the edge of his bed, Amber sitting next to him as they watched a news segment on that day's events on the small TV in Karsen's room.

On the TV screen, Marissa Neuner stood next to one of the workers in a hospital. "So that's quite a fantastical story," she said to the worker, but while she looked directly at the camera.

"It's all true!" the worker swore. "You can even ask Ed and John! There were three of us that remained conscious during the entire thing, but acted otherwise so we wouldn't be killed."

Marissa turned back to face the worker. "Slushie-like powers you said?" The worker nodded and Marissa turned back to face the camera once again. "So who are these mysterious Slushie Bandits?"

Amber started laughing and Karsen looked at her, slightly annoyed. "What's so funny?"

"This entire thing," Amber motioned at the TV. "It's a little early for Halloween."

"They probably just didn't want their faces on the news," Karsen defended his earlier actions.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure," Amber replied with sarcasm. "If I did such a selfless deed like that, I'd want the recognition for all my troubles."

Karsen just shook his head, knowing that if he said anything else, Amber might start to suspect something. So instead of continuing the argument, he just tuned back to the news.

Amber's cell phone suddenly let out a beep and she opened it up.

"Who's that?" Karsen asked

"It's..." Amber looked at the display and saw it was a text from Scott. "...just Andrea." She lied.

Karsen turned his attention back to the screen as Amber looked down at her cell phone to see the text that simply said one thing: Are we still on for tomorrow?

Amber typed in 'Yes' and then sent the message. She quickly closed her phone and put it away and joined Karsen again with the news.

"Are these Slushie Bandits friend or foe to the citizens of Fort St. John?" Marissa Neuner asked into the camera. "Only time will tell..."

***

Keven pulled his car into his driveway, his outside lights illuminating the path to his door in the darkness of the night. He whistled a tune to himself as he unlocked his door and walked in.

His house was in a pretty bad state of messiness. H ignored the state of his home as he continue to whistle and make his way through the house and into the living room, which turned out to be the exact same living room that belong to the mysterious figure in the previous episode.

Keven was the Slushie Exploder!

He walked over to the bookshelf and goes through the motions to get at the secret compartment, and he opened it. Keven pulled out his copy of the blueprints for the construction site for his boss, and then closed the door, again. He walked by the coffee table, which had the plans for the Sobeys building opened up.


The End


The Slushie Bandits
Episode 2: Experiments
Written by: Jeffrey Long
Produced by: Jeffrey Long
Creative Consultants: Brandon Keith and Michael Banno

[Slushie Man]

1x03: Corruption: A mysterious person is robbing all the banks in Fort St. John, and when the Slushie Bandits get on the case, they find out it may be someone they know personally.

***

Long after midnight, the dead bodies of four security guards laid lifeless on the floor of the Bank of Montreal, in a pool of their own blood. The rest of the room was almost untouched apart from some destroyed teller booths and a couple random bullet holes.

The Janitor was hiding under one of the untouched teller booths, quivering with fear as he kept scrunched up and hidden from view. His eyes were tightly closed and heavy sweat fell down his face.

"Please God, don't let that monster find me," he silently whispered. "Please, please..."

He could hear heavy clunking footsteps getting further and further away. The janitor slowly poked his head up from under the booth and saw that the danger was temporarily gone as he glanced at a shadow going around the corner far down the hallway.

He quickly ran over to the fallen guards to check on them, only to find them dead. He looked down the hall that the footsteps went down to make sure the person wasn't returning. Content, he quickly ran over to a phone and dialed 911.

"911 Emergency, how may I..." the operator's voice was cut off instantly and the janitor jumped as a small projectile hit the phone and it exploded in a display of plastic and small electronical parts.

The janitor whipped around and screamed, turning back around and running away from the figure that had just returned.

"Get away from me! Leave me alone!" he shouted back at his pursuer.

A giant solid rock-shape thing landed in front of the janitor, blocking him off from the exit. The janitor turned back around, only to scream in a high-pitch voice. His widened and a sickening slicing sound could faintly be heard.

Blood trickled down from the top of his head, and his body soon crumpled to the floor.

***

A family sat in front of their TV, watching the Evening News Hour. On the news show, footage was being shown of the costumed Slushie Bandits rescuing some people from a burning building at night, and fighting the fire. The footage then cut to another shot of them dropping a net full of unconscious people off at the police station, also at night. Then the footage cut to them stopping a guy from robbing a gas station during the day. It then cut to the beautiful reporter, Marissa Neuner, sitting at her desk.

"With the mysterious arrival of these four masked men, also comes the much-needed help that this city's police force have been looking for," Marissa said directly into the camera. "The members of what are being referred to as the Slushie Bandits, with the nicknames that we here at Channel 5 News gave them. Froster, Slushor, and Slurpee Boy, appear to be led by this man..." A giant picture of Slushie Man came up on the screen. "The Incredible Slushie Man." His picture shrank to a small picture in the top corner of the news broadcast as Marissa continued. "While the Slushie Bandits appear to be on the right side of the law, Police Chief Fred Diamond was unavailable for an official comment on the matter. Stay tuned after the commercial break for an update on the quality of Fort St. John's tap water."

***

A giant corner inside of Sobeys was roped off, blocking customers from the tons of wood, saw dust, plastic, tools, metal, and all sorts of other things that goes into renovating. The store managers, Paul and Shale, approached the two workers working in that area.

"How's it coming along?" Paul asked.

"Pretty good," one of the workers turned to Paul and Shale and wiped his dust-covered hands on his pants. "Now that we have the right measurements."

Paul chuckled. "Don't remind me of that nightmare." The worker chuckled back and Paul added on, "Just make sure it's finished by the end of the week. Our opening of the Slushie Center is next week. Deadline's coming up soon."

"No worries, boss man."

Paul beamed. "Good, that's what I like to hear."

Shale turned and left Paul to talk with the workers. She had to get to the cash office to prepare the skims. On her way there, she passed by the front tills. Near those tills was a long wall of magazines, which Jeff was currently knelt down to re-organize and remove all the old ones from, replacing them with the new editions.

Jeff had heavy bags under his eyes and he put a hand up to his mouth as he lets out a long yawn. He returned to working on the magazines when Vanessa, in her Sobeys uniform, walked over to him.

"How're the magazine's coming along?" she asked, looking down at him.

Jeff shrugged. "Alright I guess, but boring as hell."

"Need help?"

"Sure," Jeff replied. Vanessa knelt down next to Jeff to help him with the task. Jeff let out another long yawn.

"Wow, that was a long one," Vanessa laughed her chipmunk laugh. "I've noticed you've been tired a lot lately. Maybe you should get more sleep."

"Yeah, I haven't really been sleeping much these days," Jeff explained.

"Yeah, Jenna told me that you come and go at all hour of the day and night now," Vanessa said. "What's going on?"

"Hey guys." Jeff and Vanessa turned to see Amber and Sonum standing nearby.

Before Jeff and Vanessa could return the greeting, Vanessa heard herself get paged over the Intercom, "Supervisor to Till 4, please, supervisor to Till 4."

"Oh, that's me. I'll be right back." Vanessa stood up and quickly left to answer the call.

"Hey Amber," Jeff said. He nodded a greeting at Sonum. "Sonum. When did you two start hanging out together?"

"Just recently," Amber answered. "It turns out we share some of the same friends, which we found out at a party the other night. We started hanging out that night and just made plans to hang out some more today."

Sonum noticed Jeff's heavy bags under his eyes. "Wow Jeff, you don't look good. Have you been sleeping?"

"Not really, no," Jeff honestly answered.

"Why not?" Sonum asked, concerned.

"It's...complicated," Jeff answered vaguely.

"Well you know you can call me for anything, at anytime, even in the middle of the night if you can't sleep," Sonum said softly. "I'll always make time to talk to you."

Jeff smiled at Sonum, who smiled back at him. Amber slowly looked back and forth between the two, and after a few seconds of silence, spoke up. "Well we have to get going," She said. "We have a lot of shopping to do and I still need to pick up the stuff for supper tonight before I go and meet up with Karsen."

"Oh, about Karsen," Jeff said, snapping out of his Sonum daze and looking at Amber. "He's sorry he had to run out in the middle of last night...that's kind of my fault."

"Don't, Jeff. Don't apologize for him," Amber snapped, her demeanor instantly changing. "I know you're all buddy buddy with him now, but he makes his own decisions, and I don't want you apologizing for his mistakes."

"Um, ok..." Jeff trailed off, unsure of what to say. He was scared that anything he would say, would just get Amber mad at him too. Thankfully for him, Vanessa returned before he had to say anything else.

"So what's going on?" she asked as she walked around the corner to the silence between the other three.

"It's kind of a long story," Jeff said.

Vanessa laughed. "Oh Jeffrey, your life is never boring, that's for sure."

Jeff half-smiled. "You guys don't even know the half of it."

***

Chase slid a large duffle bag into his closet and closing the closet door just as his phone rang. He walked over and picked it up off his kitchen counter. "Hello?"

"Hello, is this Chase Hopkins?" A firm voice spoke. Chase confirmed it was. "This is the Fort St. John Police Department. We'd like to ask you a few questions in regards to the disappearance of your family and some hospital staff. Could you buzz us in?"

Chase stared off into space, a slight form of sweat starting to form on his head. When he realized an entire minute passed while he was lost in his thoughts and he hadn't replied, he instantly pushed a button on his phone, buzzing the cops into his apartment building.

He put the phone back down and walked over to his door, just as there was a knock on it. He took a few deep breaths, telling himself to act natural. He opened it up to see two police officers standing in the hallway of the apartment building.

"How can I help you, Officers?"

"We just have a few routine questions to ask. Nothing major," one of the cops explained.

"Oh, well I don't know how much I can tell you," Chase said, trying his best to remain calm. "I was in a coma for a long time."

"We're aware of that."

"Why don't you just start with what you do know?" the second cop suggested.

Chase sighed and put his sweating hands into his pockets to hide them from view. "Well as I said, not much. When I woke from my coma, my family was already missing by that point."

"May we come in?" the second officer asked.

Chase stared at him intently for a few seconds, before stepping out of the way, allowing them to enter.

The first officer spoke again. "That's a funny thing, because according to the hospital staff, your family was by your bedside right up until you disappeared from the hospital."

Chase just glared at the back of their heads as they walked part-way into his apartment and he closed the door, quick to lock it before they turned around.

"And according to your sister's work, she stopped showing up just as you started showing up for your job," the second officer continued on from where the first left off.

"That sure is weird," Chase said in a near-monotone voice, his mind racing with what he knew he had to do.

The cops kept their backs to Chase, scouting out the apartment. Chase made his way to his kitchen, where he reached under the sink to pull out his slushie pack.

"Any leads?" he asked them as he struggled to pull the pack out.

"We have one or two," the first cop replied. He turned around to face Chase, but was met with a barrage of needle-shaped hard slushie material. His eyes bulged as blood trickled from the numerous holes.

The other officer whipped around at the noise of the body falling, but before he could remove his gun, Chase used his powers and slit the cop's throat with a blade-shaped hard slushie.

***

Back at Sobeys, Jeff still worked on the magazines, but was nearing completion. Karsen and Dane came running around the corner of the magazine wall, Karsen low on breath. Jeff looked from one to the other.

"What's up, guys?" he asked. "Aren't you in school?"

"There's another bank robbery in process," Karsen exclaimed between breaths for air. "We just heard about it on the news on the TV in the cafeteria at school."

"****," Jeff whispered to himself. Then spoke to his friends again. "Guys, there's no way they'll let me leave early again. Go ahead and get Chase. You three can handle it on your own."

"We tried calling him already," Dane informed Jeff. "He's not answering his apartment phone and his cell just goes straight to voice mail."

Jeff sighed heavily and spotted Vanessa walking by. He got to his feet and walked to catch up with her. He crossed his fingers and hoped for the best as he asked, "Hey Vanessa, would I be able to go home early?"

"I don't know, you'll have to ask Shale," Vanessa answered. "It' slow though, so if she's ok with it then so am I."

Vanessa continued walking on her path and Jeff returned to the others, feeling a slight glimmer of hope. "Stay here, I don't want Shale thinking I want to get off early to hang out with you guys."

Jeff left Karsen and Dane behind as he walked quickly through the store to find Shale. He passed by a person with a long ponytail stocking shelves. "Hey Mike, do you know where Shale is?"

"I think she's overseeing the construction of the slushie center," Mike replied in a feminine voice.

Jeff thanked him and made his way across the store to where Shale was, and she turned around to see him. "What can I do for you, Jeff?"

Jeff had to almost shout to be heard above the loud noises of construction and power tools. "I was wondering if I could go home a bit early. It's really slow, and Vanessa said to ask you."

"This would be your fourth time in the last seven shifts," Shale said as she stared at Jeff. "No, not this time." Jeff felt his heart sink faster then the Titanic. "You have to start sticking around for entire shifts, Jeff."

Jeff nodded sadly. "Alright." He quickly returned to Karsen and Dane by the magazine wall and shrugged. "She said no, because I ask to leave early too much these days."

"Well what the hell are we supposed to do?" Karsen asked, feeling frustrated. "Chase is MIA and you can't get off work."

Jeff smiled. "I'm sure Froster and Slurpee Boy can handle this one on their own."

Karsen sighed. "For the last time, I'm Slurpee Dude, not Boy. Slurpee Boy makes me sound so...young."

Jeff just laughed. "Once the News starts calling you Slurpee Dude, then so will I." Karsen grumbled as he turned to leave. "Hey guys..." Karsen and Dane turned back around to look at Jeff. "Good luck."

***

Froster and Slurpee Dude arrived at the CIBC bank on foot. Froster's costume now had giant F's going down the side of his arms, and Slurpee Dude had a cursive 'SD' symbol in the middle of his head piece.

"Third bank this week," Slurpee Dude said as they approached. "This is insane."

As they reached the bank, they saw nothing out of the ordinary, apart from the bank being closed and yellow police tape around the entrance.

"Um...isn't this bank supposed to be in the process of getting robbed?" Froster asked, looking around, confused at the lack of activity around.

"That's what the news said," Slurpee Dude confirmed.

"Are we at the right bank?"

"CIBC, they said."

Froster continued to glance around the area. "Well then, um, where's all the action?" They turned on the spot, scanning the surrounding area for police cruisers, and then looking back at the bank. "I'm so confused here."

"I think we missed it," Slurpee Dude spoke up. "I think it ended before we could get here. Whatever happened, we missed it."

Froster raised his arms into the air in frustration. "Oh, that is such a load of ****. I can't believe we're skipping school for nothing."

"We really need to get a vehicle that we have access to at all times. We can't always just be using our parents' cars or walking."

"Well this is a load of bull****," Froster said, still pissed that they missed all the action. "We have got to be the worst heroes in the world."

"Come on, we may as well start heading back," Slurpee Dude suggested. The two began walking back down the sidewalk the way they came from. "I wonder if they caught him this time."

"I doubt it," Froster said. "How can someone rob so many banks, yet leave nothing behind for the cops to go off of?"

"Well there's only one bank left in town that hasn't been robbed yet," Slurpee Dude pointed out. "Starting tonight, we need to stake that place out until the culprit winds up there. It's obvious he will."

All of a sudden, a high-pitched screeching noise caused them to whip their heads around and witness two oncoming cars slam into each other. Heavy rushing traffic filled the area, which was about to result in a car pile up due to the accident.

A third car slammed on the breaks, but couldn't slow down fast enough as it also hit the other two cars.

"Holy ****!" Slurpee Dude shouted, putting his hands up on his head.

Froster instantly melted into his slushie form and zoomed over to the area, positioning himself under the tires of another car about to crash, but it skidded out of control on the slushie material and the car skidded off away from the developing accident.

Slurpee Dude ran and jumped into the thick of the accident area, sluhsifying his arms, extending them, and then freezing them into ice as he ducked, positioning himself in front of another careening car. It traveled up his arms like a ramp as he ducked his head, and the car flew through the air, missing the crash and landing on the other side.

Froster started to form back into human form, freaking the hell out of another oncoming driver, sending him steering away from the area just as a fuel truck started to spin out of control while trying to avoid the crash area. While out of control, the truck rushed right toward the three crashed cars. The driver from the third quickly bailed and ran out of the way, but the driver from one of the other cars was unconscious, and the family inside of the third was stuck inside. They tried franticly to open the doors, but the doors were stuck due to the dented state of the car from the crash.

Froster and Slurpee Dude ran as fast as they could to the cars. Froster melted into his slushie form and squeezed inside the car of the unconscious person, through the cracks around the doorframe.

Slurpee Dude morphed his hand into an ice hammer and slammed it through the window of the other car, shattering it. His hand morphed back to normal.

Once inside the other car, Froster formed back to his human form and unlocked the door. He grabbed the unconscious person, pulling him out. He put the body over his shoulder and rushed away from the crash area.

Slurpee Dude started pulling the family out through the broken window as quickly as he could, glancing at the rushing out of control fuel truck. "Ok, we have to move faster here, people!"

He got the second family member out, and then reached in and pretty much pulled the daughter out, followed by the son who rushed out quickly on his own. Slurpee Dude rushed the family away from the crash area just as the driver of the truck realized it was pointless to try and get the truck under control and bailed, jumping out and rolling across the ground as the truck zoomed onwards.

The truck slammed into the three other cars and flipped up into the air, flipping several times before it landed with a giant crash right on top of the three cars, resulting in a gigantic, deafening, explosion that sent thick black smoke up into the air.

Froster laid the unconscious body on the ground and turned to one of the gasping onlookers. "You have a cell?" The person nodded. "Call 911."

Slurpee Dude faced the family he saved as the father put a hand on his shoulder from behind. "Thank you so much for getting me and my family out of there in time," the balding father graciously said.

"Just doing what I can to help," Slurpee Dude nodded. He smiled and added on, "Slurpee Dude's the name."

"But the news calls you Slurpee Boy," the father said, confused.

Slurpee Dude sighed. "The news got it wrong. If they interview you, make sure to mention that."

Froster strolled over and stood next to Slurpee Dude. "Can you guys watch over that man there..." he pointed to the unconscious man on the ground. "Just until the ambulance shows up."

The father looked at the body, then back at the heroes. "Sure thing. And thanks again, so much."

Froster nodded and he and Slurpee Dude took off running down the street, away from the area.

***

Many hours later, once darkness had fallen and all the stores closed for the night, Karsen's mom's car sat down the street from the Royal Bank.

Slurpee Dude, Slushie Man, Froster, and Slushor sat inside the car, staking the place out. Slushie Man now had a giant Superman-like S symbol in the middle of his chest. Slurpee Dude was in the driver's seat, half-asleep. Slushie Man lightly shoved Slurpee Dude, who instantly opened his eyes and sat straight up.

"I'm awake, I'm awake!" Slurpee Dude shouted. He wiped a bit of drool from his mouth.

"We've been out here for hours. I don't think the person is showing," Slushor stated. "Let's say we call it a night."

"Just when we leave, that's when the person will show. It seems that's always the case," Slushie Man said in return.

"Why are we even here in the first place?" Slushor asked. "Ever since we've started helping people with our abilities, we've gotten nothing in return. Hell, the cops even want us for questioning for some of those cases. We should use our powers for some personal gain to even things out a bit."

"You know, that's not too half bad of an idea," Slurpee Dude agreed. "It's not like the cops or City Hall is ever going to give us a medal or hazard pay or anything for the work we do."

"Just because we have these abilities, doesn't make us above the law," Slushie Man said. "No one is above the law, and that's why we're out here. To stop those that think they are."

"He's right," Froster sided with Slushie Man. "It's not a crime to do a bit of extra good, but it is a crime to act like we're above the law."

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Slurpee Dude gave in, and then smiled. "But it is a nice thought though."

"That's bull****!" Slushor cried out. "Not a crime to do an extra bit of good? Try telling that to the cops that are looking for us right now. We can have anything we want in the world with these abilities, and quite frankly, I think we deserve..."

"Look! There!" Slushie Man cut him off, quickly pointing at a figure approaching the bank from a dark alley.

They all watched him approach the bank, and once they saw the figure trying to get through the door, they pounced out of the car and rushed him, tackling him to the ground. They proceeded to check his pockets for a gun or any sharp objects.

"Thought you could get away with robbing another, bank, huh?" Slushie Man shouted at him. "Not this time, sucker."

"No! No, I..."

Froster cut the man off, "Save it for the judge."

"You don't..."

"On your feet!" Slushie Man shouted, also cutting the man off. He pulled the man forcefully onto his feet and whipped him around. The man had a straggly dirty beard, and mix-match clothes. His jacket was half-torn and covered in dirt.

"Uh, guys?" Slurpee Dude said, doubt creeping into his voice at the sight of this man. "I don't think this is our guy."

"I'm not, you pricks!" The man slurred as he shouted, snapping his arm out of Slushie Man's grip.

"Then what were you doing going into the bank in the middle of the night?" Slushie Man demanded.

"I sleep in the entry way every night!" The indignant homeless man shouted back. "I have no where else to go!"

The Slushie Bandits were all silent as they exchanged glances with one another. After a few long seconds of silence, Froster spoke up, "Well...this is slightly awkward..."

"Can I go now? Pricks..." The homeless man mumbled some other bad words about them. Slushie Man stepped away and the man walked away off down the street, mumbling about needing to find a new place to sleep at night.

"So does anybody else feel like an idiot right now?" Slushie Man asked as he turned back to the others.

"Now can we please go home, before we embarrass ourselves any more tonight?" Slushor asked with a sigh.

"Yeah, I think you have a good idea there," Slushie Man agreed. "Alright, everyone back in the car. Time to call it a night."

***

Jenna was still awake, watching TV, when Jeff walked in the door. Jenna looked at her watch and then back up at Jeff. "Another late night, I see."

"Yeah, I was hanging out with Chase," Jeff explained. "Karsen was supposed to come hang out with us too, but he has school in the morning so he ended up not coming out."

Jenna looked at him, not quite believing him. "You've been having a few middle-of-the-night rendezvous' recently." Jeff just shrugged. "So who is she?"

Jeff looked at her, confused. "What?"

"The girl you're seeing..." Jenna explained. "Who is she? And why do you feel the need to keep her a secret?"

Jeff just started laughing uncontrollably as he made his way to his bedroom, shaking his head.

***

The next morning, Karsen and Dane walked through the crowded halls of their school, both yawning and fighting as hard as they could to stay awake.

"Man, I so can't wait until after school so I can go home and sleep," Dane said after letting out a large, long, yawn.

Karsen laughed. "Yeah, I totally hear..."

He was suddenly cut off by a shout. "Karsen, you son of a ****!" Karsen and Dane turned to see Amber storming in their direction from a side hall. A few other people in the hall turned to look at the commotion. "You never called me back last night, like you promised!"

Karsen's eyes bulged as he remembered. "Oh ****, honey, I'm so so sorry! I totally forgot, I'm sorry." Karsen leaned in to kiss her, but she pulled away.

"I'm getting really sick and tired of all this bull**** these last few weeks," Amber stated sternly.

"I'll make it up to you, I promise," Karsen said in a tone that made Amber feel he wasn't taking any of it seriously.

"Whatever, I don't care anymore." And with that, Amber just stormed off again.

Karsen sighed once his girlfriend was gone. "This gig of ours is starting to cost me. Maybe Chase was really onto something last night about using ours..." he looked around the hall at the other students walking by. "...gifts...for a bit of personal gain. Make up for all the trouble we're going through."

Dane shook his head. "I really don't think that's a good idea. The theory behind it makes sense, but the actions won't make us any better then those we bring in."

"I think I'm going to go find Amber and apologize." Karsen moved to walk in the direction Amber took off in, but Dane put a hand on his chest, stopping him.

"I think that she just needs some space to cool off," Dane said. "She'll be back to you in no time."

Karsen looked down the hall, then back at Dane. "Yeah, you're right."

As they started walking again, they saw Sonum holding hands with a guy while walking down one of the halls.

"Holy ****, Karsen, look at that," Dane pointed at Sonum and the guy she was with, down the hall. "Is that Ashley's brother? When did that happen? I can't remember the last time Sonum had a boyfriend."

"Yeah, me and Amber saw them at Center Dining a couple weeks ago," Karsen admitted.

"Does Jeff know yet?" Dane asked.

Karsen laughed. "Yeah, right."

As they continued down the hall, approaching their class, they witnessed a nerdy kid getting picked on by a couple older guys that have pushed him up against the wall.

"Look at that," Karsen motioned with his head. "That's pathetic. I'm going to put a stop to it."

"Be careful," Dane warned him. "It's dangerous to use our abilities here."

Karsen smirked and looked at the two bullies. "Yeah, for them." Karsen walked over to the bullies. "How about you guys leave him alone?"

The two bullies turned to see Karsen, and chuckled. One of them shoved Karsen away. "And what are you going to do about it, tubby?"

"Trust me, you do not want to mess with me," Karsen warned.

The bullies laughed again and started shoving Karsen back and forth between them. One of them made a move to punch him in the stomach, but under his shirt, Karsen slushified his chest and then iced it over. Instead of hitting him, the bully hit his rock-hard chest and hurt his hand.

"Holy ****, what the hell are you made of?" he asked as he held his throbbing hand.

"A whole lot of ass-kicking." Karsen moved to punch him but right before punching him, he very quickly froze his fist over, just for a second to punch the bully, before changing his fist back to normal before anyone could see.

The bully, having pretty much been hit in the face by a block of ice, yelled in pain as he tumbled to his knees, covering his bloody nose with his hands.

Karsen glared at the other bully.

"Peace, dude!" the second bully held up his hands in a defensive position and then ran off down the hall.

"Thank you so much!" the nerd that as being picked on exclaimed, finally moving from his spot by the wall. He quickly shook Karsen's hand and ran off to class.

Dane walked around the fallen bully as he and Karsen continued down the hall. "That was risky. Some one could have seen use your ability," Dane said in a low voice.

"I couldn't just stand there and do nothing," Karsen said, defending his actions. "Besides, I did it so quickly, nobody saw."

"Karsen Gauthier!" Karsen and Dane turned to see the Principal standing in the hall.

"****," Karsen whispered.

"Karsen, come to the Office," the Principal ordered. "Right now!"

Karsen turned to face Dane. "Go on to class. I'll catch up." Karsen walked back as he and the bloody-nosed bully were marched to the office by the Principal.

***

Jeff and Chase were dressed as janitors, mopping the floors of the Royal Bank.

"Man, this is so degrading," Chase complained under his breath as he mopped near where Jeff was mopping. "We're not even getting paid for this."

"It's necessary to pose as janitors," Jeff explained just as quietly. "The last bank was robbed in broad daylight, and nobody pays any attention to janitors so it's our safest disguise."

Someone walked by and tracked sloppy mud all over Chase's recently-mopped part of the floor while Chase talked with Jeff.

"You! Hey you!" Chase turned to see the Bank Manager shouting from half-way across the bank. "I'm not paying you to stand around and chat. This floor is muddy. Get to work!"

Chase looked back at the new mud prints on his recently-clean floor. He glared at the back of the person leaving the shoeprints, with a look that could kill and growled. "I hate my life..."

***

Jenna worked on one of the tills in Sobeys, to lower some of the longer line-ups. Vanessa placed a small amount of groceries on the till and smiled at her friend.

"Hey Jenna, how's work been going today?" Vanessa asked, making conversation.

"Busy," Jenna replied. "I haven't even gotten to go on my break yet; I keep having to hop on till to lower line-ups."

"Ouch," Vanessa replied before changing the topic. "Hey, does Jeff work today?"

"No, he's off for a couple days now," Jenna said. "And you know what? He's secretly seeing a girl, but won't to tell me who."

"Ohhh. I wonder who it is," Vanessa speculated. "I know Amber and Sonum dropped by to visit him yesterday when he was working."

"That's a bit odd. Amber's going out with Karsen though. Maybe it's Sonum," Jenna guessed.

"I don't think so. He's in love with her. Why would he hide it?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm going to find out..." Jenna smiled a smile that made Vanessa a tad bit nervous.

***

That night, after getting off work, Jenna plopped down on the couch to watch some TV by herself. Jeff was once again, not home. Jenna checked her watch and pulled out her cell phone and dialed a number.

"Any updates?" she instantly asked as Vanessa answered.

***

A black car sat in front of Sonum's house. Vanessa looked out the window of her car, chatting to Jenna on her cell.

"No. There's no sign of Jeff, and for the record, I think this is stupid," Vanessa pouted. Suddenly there was a tap on Vanessa's window and she jumped. She turned to look, seeing Sonum standing there. "Um, hang on a minute Jenna." Vanessa rolled down her window.

"Hey. So, um, what are you doing outside my house for the last two hours?" Sonum asked as if it was a casual everyday conversation.

"I...Um..." Vanessa started to stutter over her words, trying to think of an excuse. "Well you see...Um..."

Sonum could hear Jenna's voice, sounding very small, coming from the cell phone in Vanessa's hand. "Don't say anything, Vanessa!"

"Well you see...um..." Vanessa continued to struggle. She was always horrible at lying. "Jenna...and I guess me too...have this theory that...um...you and Jeff...um...are kind of...dating...in secret. And I'm kind of...um...here for proof...yeah..."

"You guys need a life," Sonum stated matter-of-factly.

"I'm sorry," Vanessa sincerely apologized.

"Here, I'll make it easy for you so you can just go home," Sonum said, a bit of annoyance showing through her voice. "I never have been, nor am I currently, seeing Jeff. I already have a boyfriend, and I don't need him being suspicious of me, so don't talk to anyone else about this theory of yours."

Vanessa gulped and wiped some sweat from her head. "Sure thing, no problem." Without saying another word, she started her car up and zoomed off. Sonum just shook her head and went back inside.

***

Back at Jeff and Jenna's apartment, Jenna was still on the phone with Vanessa.

"Well if it's not Sonum, then who is it?" she asked.

"I don't know," Vanessa said. "But next time I'm staying home and you're the one doing the stalking."

***

Karsen's mom's car sat across the street and down a bit from the Royal Bank for the second night in a row, with the same results: A car full of overly-tired and bored people in silly costumes.

"Man, I sure could go for a slushie right about now," Slurpee Dude stated, turning on his air conditioning in the car.

"Have fun," Slushie Man said back. "The nearest place that sells them right now is a forty minute drive outside of town."

"That's a good idea actually," Slushor agreed with Slurpee Dude. "We should go on a late night roadtrip and get some. It's been awhile since I've tasted the freezing goodness of a slushie."

"We can't just leave right now to go get slushies," Slushie Man stated.

"It almost seems like the person behind all this knows the place is being staked out so he won't hit it," Froster observed.

"Maybe he has no reason to hit the last bank," Slushor suggested. "After robbing the others, he's sure to have enough money and he doesn't want to press his luck any more then he has to."

Slushie Man sighed, starting to give in. "Yeah, maybe. If there's no action within the next half hour, then we can all go home."

[Slushie Man]

***

The following day, Jeff and Karsen stood in a long line-up at Wal-Mart, with a home slushie machine under Jeff's arms, ready to buy. Jeff tapped one of his feet to the beat of the song playing over the store speakers.

"I so can't wait to hook this baby up," Karsen stated, eyeing the machine. He was practically jumping with excitement.

Jeff smiled. "I owe you for the idea. Last night when you were complaining about wanting slushies, I got the idea to pick up a home slushie machine, since no place in town will sell them anymore."

Sonum and a group of her friends walked on by, and she suddenly stopped when she saw Jeff and Karsen in the line. "Hey guys."

Jeff and Karsen returned the greeting and Sonum turned to her friends. "Hey, I'll catch up with you guys in a few." Her friends continued on, while Sonum stood in line with Jeff and Karsen to chat to them. "So Jeff, I heard about Jenna and Vanessa's wild theory."

Jeff chuckled. "Yeah, they think I'm secretly seeing someone."

"No, they think you're secretly seeing me," Sonum corrected him. "Vanessa even staked my house out last night."

Jeff laughed even harder. "Oh man, that is golden. I can't believe Jenna's getting so obsessed over this."

"So..." Sonum trailed off and looked at the floor. "Who are you really seeing?"

"I'm not really seeing anyone," Jeff chuckled. Sonum looked back up at Jeff, her eyes brightening. "Chase has insomnia and can't sleep at night, so I hang out with him to keep him company, and Jenna just came up with this wild theory that I was secretly seeing someone, and it's just funny for me to see Jenna so convinced on that."

"Well at least I set their records straight about it not being me," Sonum stated.

"Hey Sonum, are you coming or not?" her boyfriend, Ryan, called to her from down a nearby aisle where her friends were gathered.

Sonum turned to face him, before turning back to Jeff and Karsen. "Yeah, hold on a minute."

"Who's that?" Jeff asked, looking back at Ryan as well.

"Ryan? He's...um..." Sonum shot a warning glance to Karsen, before looking back at Jeff. "Just Ashley's brother."

Karsen struggled not to say anything. He didn't agree with Sonum lying to Jeff, but at the same time, didn't want to be the one to hurt his friend, so he decided to keep his mouth shut.

"Oh, cool. I haven't seen Ashley since that one party a few months ago," Jeff said in a cheerful mood. "Tell her I said hi for me." Jeff winked, followed by a raise and lower of his eyebrows as he smiled.

Sonum just laughed and joked, "You couldn't possibly ever get with Ashley...She has standards."

Karsen laughed as well at that, and Jeff faked being hurt, clutching his heart. "Ow...that hurt..." then he laughed as well.

"Well I better get back to my friends," Sonum said. "See you later, guys."

"Take care," Jeff said.

Sonum left to join her friends, just as Jeff and Karsen were next in line to pay for their purchase. Jeff bought the machine, and after he took his receipt, Karsen put a fancy small box on the till to get scanned.

"Hopefully this necklace will get me back in Amber's good books. Its center has her birthstone in it," Karsen told Jeff.

"I've known Amber for a long time," Jeff said. "I'm sure she'll love it."

Karsen looked down at it, hopeful.

***

Later on that evening, Jeff, Karsen, and Dane all met at Jeff's apartment, the new slushie machine hooked up and making some slushies for them.

"It sucks that Chase couldn't make it tonight," Dane said.

"Well it's not exactly his fault that he got called into work," Karsen defended him.

"Oh I know, just I think all four of us should be here for the occasion," Dane explained.

"Slushies are ready!" Jeff shouted out. He handed cups to the two of them, taking a third for himself. "Moment of truth..."

The three clunked their glasses together and started sipping through straws.

"Hmmmm, this is soooo good," Dane said as he closed his eyes and savored the taste.

"Holy ****, dude, this stuff rocks," Karsen exclaimed.

Dane went to lean against the counter, but accidentally knocked a glass off. Karsen moved to get it – only he moved super-fast and easily grabbed it, far from the floor. The others looked as shocked at him, as he looked at his own hand, holding the glass.

"What the hell did you put in these slushies?" Karsen asked, confused at what had just happened.

"Just what the ingredients on the box told me," jeff stated, reaching for the box to check the ingredients."

Karsen took a few steps, and he suddenly ran circles around the apartment before the others could even blink. He slowed to an instant stop back in the kitchen.

"This is some messed-up **** happening," Dane stated, eyeing Karsen up and down. Karsen put the glass back on the counter, and when he slammed his hand down on it, he accidentally took part of the counter out, loose splinters littering the floor.

Jeff and Dane stepped back a bit as Karsen glanced as his own hands. "What the hell is this?"

"Maybe it's the slushies mixed with our abilities," Dane suggested. He tried to run, as Jeff tried to lift the fridge, but neither had any results.

"Lets switch," Jeff suggested and Dane nodded. He went over to lift the fridge as Jeff started to run, but again, nothing out of the ordinary. "Hmm, it seems to be a Karsen-exclusive ability."

"Damn, that just sucks," Dane complained. "I want a cool power like that too."

"Oh yeah, that's right, I rock." Karsen took another sip of his slushie. "Hey, you know what we should do? Add alcohol to the drinks."

"Except Dane has school tomorrow," Jeff countered. "Not everyone has the privilege of being suspended."

"Phhf, I don't care," Dane said. "Wouldn't be the first time going to school hung over."

Jeff dug through his cupboards to get some alcohol, while Karsen went out into the living room and turned the TV up.

News Reporter Marrisa Neuner sat at her news desk. "...again, this just in...Police are en-route to the Royal Bank, after the silent alarm had been tripped and a 911 call made from an employee trapped inside made claims of a super-powered person breaking in. Could this be the return of the mysterious bank robber? Stay with us as we travel down to the bank ourselves to get Live reports and updates."

"Jeff! Dane! Get in here now!" Karsen shouted. They rushed in and looked at the TV. "It's happening! The Royal Bank is being robbed, and witnesses say the robber has some kind of super powers."

"This is it, guys," Jeff stated.

"If this person has super powers, it may take all of us to bring him down," Dane said.

"You're right," Jeff agreed. "We need Chase's help."

"You two go on ahead," Dane suggested. "I'll swing by Sobeys and find a way to get Chase off work and we'll meet you there."

"Sounds like a plan. Let's move out, guys."

***

Slurpee Dude and Slushie Man ran on foot down a sidewalk as fast as they could.

"Man, Dane could have at least given us a ride there," Slushie Man complained. "He's the one with the car tonight."

"All I need is to have a slushie and I can be there in a split second," Slurpee Dude reminded Slushie Man of his new powers. Slushie Man stopped running, causing Slurpee Dude to stop as well. He fished in his pockets and pulled out a set of keys, handing them to Slurpee Dude.

"Go back to my apartment, have some slushie, and then speed on ahead," Slushie Man said. "I'll be there as soon as I can get there."

"Hopefully I can hold my ground until you and the others show up," Slurpee Dude stated, starting to feel worried about going solo.

"You just have to stall him until we get there." Slushie Man assured him. "Not defeat him. Now hurry."

Slurpee Dude nodded and turned, running back to Jeff's apartment.

***

Dane ran into Sobeys, looking around for Chase. Jenna walked up to him, and Dane franticly turned to her as she greeted him.

"Where's Chase?" Dane asked quickly. "Is he on his break?"

"Chase? I have no idea," Jenna said.

"Can you page him? It's an emergency."

"Oh, is he in the store, shopping?" Jenna asked, also looking around the store with her eyes now.

"Shopping?" Dane asked. "No, he's working. He got called in earlier."

Jenna chuckled. "You must be mistaken. It's been slow all evening. We actually had to send a couple people home early because it was so slow. There's no way anyone would have been called in."

"But he said..." Dane trailed off as his mind started racing. Suddenly gears started turning and things clicked into place for him as the only possible answer came to him. "No...friggin'...way..." Without another word to Jenna, Dane turned and ran off again, leaving a mystified and confused Jenna behind.

***

Slurpee Dude, slowing down from a speeding blur, arrived just inside the Royal Bank, which had its front doors blown off their hinges already and some of the area inside was wrecked. There were a few security guards lying on the floor.

Slurpee Dude jogged over to them and bent down, checking their pulses, finding them dead. "****," he whispered under his breath.

He suddenly heard a giant crash from some place deep inside the bank and cautiously made his way across the room to investigate.

***

Dane stood in the hallway of Chase's apartment building, just outside of Chase's apartment. He quickly knocked on the door.

Please answer. Please, oh God, please, let me be wrong about this, Dane pleaded to himself. He knocked again, and after several seconds of no answer, he tried the handle and found it unlocked. He opened the door and stepped inside.

"Chase, you home?" He called out, but received no answer. He flipped on a light switch and gasped. There were two dead police officers laying on the floor in a pool of their own blood. "God, no..."

Dane turned and ran out of the apartment at top speed, a look of horror stuck on his face.

***

Slushie Man ran down the sidewalk of Main Street, rushing past all the closed store windows, when he came across Amber and her ex-boyfriend Scott walking toward him, which left him shocked at seeing Amber with him, but of course he couldn't say anything without giving his identity up.

Amber broke out laughing just as Slushie Man passed by them, which caused him to stop and turn to her.

"I'm sorry," Amber said in-between laughs. "But I really can't take anyone seriously in costumes like that."

"Um..." Slushie Man was at a loss for words. This wasn't quite what he had in mind for when the public saw them.

Amber just continued laughing. "Awww, I didn't mean to hurt you. Here..." She reached up and hugged him. "Hope you're not too hurt, Slushie Man."

"Um..." Slushie Man repeated, still wondering why what he considered a 'cool' imagine, the public was laughing at. Amber went right back to laughing as she walked away with Scott. She leaned against Scott for support as she laughed so hard she almost fell over.

Not exactly the impression I wanted to have on the public... Slushie Man thought to himself before continuing on.

***

Slurpee Dude slowly walked down into the basement of the bank, around a corner, and stopped on the spot, letting out a gasp.

Across the basement, was Slushor, emptying out the safe into a large dufflebag, the safe door laying on the floor in a twisted heap of metal.

Slushor turned at the sound of the gasp and saw Slurpee Dude.

"What the hell are you doing!?" Slurpee Dude shouted.

"I told you guys that we should use our powers for personal gain," Slushor admitted. "We do all the good that we do, and don't even get so much as a thank-you from the city for it. This is the city's way of paying me for my services."

"Look, it sucks that the city won't so much as thank us, I agree," Slurpee Dude tried to appeal to Slushor's common sense. "But that doesn't make this right."

"Well then, it would seem we have a major disagreement on our hands," Slushor said lowly.

Slurpee Dude cracked his neck, knowing what was about to happen and that there was no way to avoid it. "It would seem that way. So what do you want to do about it?"

Without any hint of having planned to do anything, Slushor dropped his bag of money and in a split second rose his gun and fired. He hardened the slushie material that came out of it.

Slurpee Dude didn't have time to dodge and instead froze his chest. The material smacked into him, sending him flying back off his feet, out of the room, across the hall, and crashing into a wall.

He slowly got back to his feet, just in time to dodge another attack. The large rock-hard material slammed into the wall where he had just been seconds before, destroying some of the plaster.

***

Froster screeched his car to a stop a few blocks from the bank and ran the rest of the way. He didn't want anyone seeing him driving that car and then being able to track him down and figure out who he really was.

As he rounded the corner, he saw that the police were outside the bank and were blocking the area off. When he tried to pass the police line, a few police stepped in his way and tried to stop him.

"I'm Chief of Police Fred Diamond," one of them said, stepping slightly ahead of the others. "I'm afraid my men can't allow you to pass."

"Come on Chief, you guys are way out of their league here," Froster warned him. "If you guys go in there, you'll get slaughtered. Look, the Slushie Bandits already have some people in there. Let us deal with this. You can send your men to the Greenglen Apartment buildings, apartment 108. You'll find two of your officers there, and the person that's robbing this bank right now, is the one that killed them."

Fred kept his glare on Froster as he called out to a couple fellow cops. "Horton, Dwally!" The two officers jogged over. "Greenglen Apartments, apartment 108. Go check it out." The officers nodded and left.

"If you really want to stop me from going in there, Chief, shoot me." Froster stepped over the police line and walked right on by Chief Diamond and the police, and into the bank.

Fred was left standing there with his men. "What the hell are my men supposed to do then?" he called after Froster, but he never replied.

As Froster entered the bank, He went through the same motions that Slurpee Dude did at first, in terms of checking out the room and checking on the dead guards, but he stopped sooner due to the noises of a battle from somewhere inside the building.

He rushed across the room and down the stairs into the basement, just in time to see Slurpee Dude, costume ripped in various places, get slammed backwards into the stairs. Blood trickled from his mouth as he removed the hard slushie needles from his arms that he just had shot into him.

Froster looked over and saw Slushor step through a hole in the wall, approaching Slurpee Dude. "Chase, it's over," Froster said to him. "The building is surrounded and the cops have found the dead bodies in your apartment."

Slushor just laughed. "With these powers, not even you guys are a match for me, so what good are the police going to do?"

Froster lept forward, planning on kicking Slushor, but Slushor grabbed his foot and swung Froster around, slamming him toward the wall. Before he hit however, Froster morphed into his slushie state at the last second and exploded into hundreds of drops of slushie as he hit the wall.

The slushie drops quickly formed back together into one pile of slushie and zoomed across the floor toward Slushor, who just laughed. Slushor used his powers to lift Froster's slushie form into the air and split apart again into hundreds of tiny pieces, flinging them all over the room in every direction.

Slurpee Dude was back on his feet by this point and slammed an ice fist into Slushor's side, causing him to double over. Slushor half-turned and rammed a fist at Slurpee Dude's head, but Slurpee Dude slushifie it, so the fist went through.

When Slushor pulled his fist back out, Slurpee Dude iced his head over to head-butt him in the face, snapping his head back. Froster was back in action at this point and tackled Slushor while he was still dazed from the headbut, knocking him to the floor.

Slurpee Dude's head returned to normal as he made a bound across the room toward the fallen Slushor and used an ice fist to slam into the back of his slushie tank, breaking it open. However, Slushor, still face-down on the floor, used his powers to make his slushie material blast outward from the shattered tank with such force that both Froster and Slurpee Dude went flying off him and half-way across the room.

As Slushor climbed to his feet, he made the slushie material slam the two others up into the ceiling and trapped them in opposite corners of it, hardening tight against the ceiling.

"I find it funny that you thought you could possibly take me on," Slushor chuckled. "My powers are so strong, yours aren't anything compared to them. And I know you've all been jealous of these powers sine you first saw what I could do." He walked over and picked up his dufflebag of money. "Don't worry, I won't kill you guys, but I will keep you up there until I'm long gone. The cops can come in and take you down...if there's any of them left alive by then."

Froster spat. "Don't count your eggs so soon." He slushified and melted around the material holding him up, however, before he could hit the ground and form back, Slushor used his powers to slam Froster back up into the exact same spot. Froster formed back into human form and roared in anger.

"No, Frosty, It's you that shouldn't count your eggs." Slushor turned to leave, but found Slushie Man standing there, blocking his path.

"Nah, I think he had it right." Slushie Man punched Slushor square in the face, making him stumble back. He followed up with a multiple-hit punch and kick combo and Slushor flew across the room and landed hard on the floor again.

Slushie Man looked up at his comrades stuck to the ceiling. "Are you guys alright?"

"I am, but he's not doing so good," Froster pointed his trapped hand across the room at Slurpee Dude, who was on the verge of passing out.

Slushie Man turned back to Slushor. "You've picked a path that you can't return from."

Slushor sneered under his face bandana from his spot on the floor. "Why would I want to return from the only path that makes sense to me?"

"You have a twisted opinion as to what makes sense," Slushie Man said. "I can't allow you to leave unless you're in police custody."

Slushie Man aimed his slushie shooters down and fired the white sticky liquid from them. Slushor took control of it and made it fly back at Jeff, slamming into him and sticking him to the wall. His head hit hard off the wall and he had to force himself to stay conscious.

Slushor got back to his feet and picked up the bag with the money. "I may be nice this time, but if you guys get in my way again, I'll kill you all." He then ran away quickly with the money.

***

Outside of the bank, the cops trained their guns on Slushor as he exited the building.

"We have you surrounded," Chief Diamond shouted from behind the door of his police cruiser, gun pointed out over the top. "You have no where to go. Surrender."

"I don't think so," Slushor replied. His broken pack on his back still had a few drops of clinging slushie on it. Slushor used those drops like speeding bullets, knocking all the guns out of the cops' hands. He laughed and ran off into the darkness behind the bank.

A group of cops ran after him, while others made their way inside the bank.

***

Later that night, Jeff, Karsen, and Dane were half-sitting/half-laying on the couches at Jeff's place, recuperating from their battle.

"Man, it's such a good thing those cops freed us and let us go," Dane exclaimed, wincing as pain shot through his back

"Did they ever end up catching Chase?" Karsen asked, adding another pillow to his other two.

"No, they didn't," Jeff replied, re-adjusting the ice pack on his head. "He got away. He's still out there, somewhere, and I have a feeling that we haven't seen the last of him."

Suddenly the glass patio door slid open and Jenna walked in, arriving home from work. "Oh hello," she greeted upon seeing Karsen and Dane there. "I didn't know we had company over. Hey Dane, did you ever find Chase after?"

"Uh, yeah, I did..." Dane replied and then trailed off.

Jenna walked into the kitchen to put her jacket on the back of the kitchen table's chair, but stopped when she saw the destroyed edge of the counter. "Um, what the hell happened to the counter?"

Jeff, Karsen, and Dane all looked at each other, unsure how to answer.


THE END


The Slushie Bandits
Episode 3: Corruption
Written by: Jeffrey Long
Produced by: Jeffrey Long
Creative Consultants: Brandon Keith and Michael Banno