Island Junkies

I waste no time. Before the missiles hit us, I erected a barrier using my own life energy. It's a direct hit, but none of us are physically harmed. But my ear is ringing due to the explosions. Something like this never affects the hero in anime, but unfortunately, I don't control the Toon Force willingly.

Before the smoke clears, I am brought down by some invisible force. I still have my barrier erected, so I shouldn't suffer injuries. But just to be on the safe side, I turn the walls of the energy shield into soft landing pads.

We crash-landed to the ground, destroying some tree branches along the way.

"What the fuck Yugi?" Nick whines, popping his neck bone. "You want to try to finish us off yourself."

"Don't look at me," I raise my hands innocently. "I am just as confused as you are."

"It was me, you morons!" Gwen says, dusting herself off. "A missile was shot at us in case either of you noticed. I panicked, so I made mass heavier with magic to get us out of the sky unless we would've been shot at again."

"You could've warned us first," Barbara says. "You almost gave me a heart attack."

"In intense situations like that, you have to make these types of decisions quickly or else you'll end up in a shallow graveyard in the middle of nowhere," Gwen says.

"I'll look for whoever shot at us," I suggest. One thing that I cannot stand is having a freaking missile shot at me. I am going to teach whoever shot at us a lesson.

I activate my Eyes of Heaven, with one of its innate abilities I can see far distances, up to seven hundred in fact. I can increase the distance if I use my Infinity, which I am going to have to because all I can see are trees.

With a single leap, I jump onto the top of the closet tree. Now that I have a clever view, I can spot a fenced-off city. It looks like it's made out of a bunch of junk that washed up on the beach. I see a tower made out of a plane and ship parts and a couple of men clapping each other's hands. They are wearing dingy clothes and hats that remind me of a homeless man. One of them is holding a rocket launcher.

I jump down and inform the others what I saw.

"There's a shanty town about a mile away," I say pointing behind me. "These guys are carrying serious firepower though."

"Bet," Nick says, slamming a fist into an open palm. "Let's pay those fuckers back for shooting a rocket at us!"

Gwen and I nod in agreement.

I face my back toward them and head toward the thick and luscious forest. "Alright then, follow me. I'll take us to them."

"Wait!" Barbara, using her natural Celestial speed to suddenly appear in front of us. She has both of her arms stretched out to prevent us from passing her.

"No way! I can't let you kids fight with guys with guns! It is far too dangerous, let's just call the authorities and report them."

Gwen scoffs and rolls her eyes.

"Compared to magic and superpowers, guns don't have shit on us."

"That and we fought plenty of guys with guns before, daily." Nick chimes in. "If you don't want to come, we understand. In fact, we prefer it. You may be a Celestial, but you're just an archaeologist, you'll just be getting in our way."

"If you think that you can get rid of me that easily, think again buster!"

I cringe at Barbara's use of the word 'buster'.

"Besides, if anything happens to you kids on my watch, it will just eat away at my consciousness for as long as I live. Even though I am totally against it, I will follow you."

"It's not like you have a choice in the matter, it's kind of our job to deal with these situations," I add. "We wasted enough time talking, let's go. Beat those hobos up."

Walking through the jungle was a nightmare. Bugs everywhere, it was humid as heck, plus, some monkeys were loud and throwing sticks at us.

"This fucking sucks!" Gwen shouts, swatting the bugs away from her.

"I agree with Gwen," Nick says. "Tell me why can't we just rush those guys?"

"Because they have guns," Barbara reminds Nick. "To get everybody's mind on the upcoming violence, why don't I tell you all about the ancient Wayoian people!"

"Pass," Nick and I say in unison.

"Don't bother with those two. If it's not a super secret technique or a stupid transformation, then they don't want to learn anything."

"First of all Gwen," I dodge a branch that a monkey threw at me. "You can't learn a transformation, that's a rare trait some alien species can do. What you're thinking of is called a Mode Change. What they both have in common is that they both can make the individual stronger, faster than in their base forms."

"Nobody cares, bowl cut!"

Obviously, I care, and I think it's important for people to know and understand the difference and similarities between these things. I don't say anything to defend myself, of course. Not because I am scared of my cousin retaliating against me. But we are coming up to the enemy's base and I don't want to have a pointless debate.

I smell the enemy before I see them and it is the worst thing that I have ever smelled in my entire life. It's burning my nose and making my eyes water. Worse still it is lingering in my throat and lungs that I cough just to try to get it out of my body.

"Damn, what the hell is that smell?" Nick hags.

"I think it's those people who've taken up residence here and shot at us," Barbara says, holding her nose in disgust.

"That's obvious," Gwen says. "Have these people ever heard of a bath? My baby sister never made anything this bad?"

"What if they're Stinktologist?" Nick asks."

"That's impossible! Those godless, disgusting heathens couldn't afford to come out here! Speaking of, there shouldn't be anybody here besides archaeologists. This is a restricted area only for archaeologists and adventurers." Barbara says.

"I guess we will add it to the list of us serving justice to them," I say, looking up at Barbara. "The sooner we deal with these guys, the better. I feel like I am going to puke."