Felixentric

Scene 20: Assholes Like You Are the Reason People are Afraid of Needles

He was panting by the time he made it to the beach, almost throwing himself into the cold sand and wheezing. But he sprinted toward the group, his brain whirring. Quinn hadn't come out of the opening yet. It would've been through a hole of trees by the end of the rocks. He would have sprinted out past Felix and toward the group.

Or maybe - duh - he'd found a safe place to watch them, from a distance so he could stay out of their way but still analyze every detail. I'll be on the front cover of the paper, Felix couldn't help but worry. My banefade face. They'll know I'm real.

He couldn't stop going hysterical. Should he stay or go? Keep Quinn away from the danger or let him spread the banefade identity all across the world? But Quinn didn't actually have his camera with him, did he?

No, but he had his word. The Banefade is Real, the title would read. Green skin. A face like a beaten dog. Words were enough.

"That's the spirit!" Hen was calling from ahead, his arms open in welcome. A smile gleamed across his face. "I didn't think you'd come so naked."

At first he didn't know what that meant. And then he knew. "Well, I can't be seen with as you a human." Felix was wringing his hands and spinning in circles. His eyes hit every crevice and nook along the railing that lead to the streets of the city. They were empty, without camera flashes and without a bush of red hair.

Hen was looking into the sea and its trees. "Are you ready?" Hen nodded toward the man in all black, but was talking to Felix.

"Ready? You haven't told me what we're doing."

"Something you've been waiting for for a little while. Something I've been waiting for for a long while. Something all four of us want dearly." His smile was like a part of his DNA. Like a bird had feathers, I'lloozjhen was a grinner.

Four?

He turned to see two other humanoids. The first was the tentacles woman on tv. He gasped. "Poli?"

She turned to him with a charming smile. She no longer had tentacles on her back, but her hands still had glows to them. "Hiya, darlin'."

"You attacked my friend!" he burst. "Er. You made other people attack my friend!"

Hen laughed and intercepted. "You know he was lying, right? That was just a cover-up, so you'd stop yelling at him and wrongly throw pity instead."

"How would you know about my roommate?" he asked first, but then processed what Hen'd said. Quinn was lying? Why? "But Poli made people go nuts, whether it was my friend or not. She's evil!"

"That was also an illusion. No one was meant to get hurt and no one really did. It was just a ruse to get in Quixotic's head."

Felix's teeth unclenched. It was all about getting back at Quixotic? Really?

And the Felix noticed the fourth humanoid. A man in a black cloak had two giant vials strapped to his arms. Metal openings, like the tips to frosting tubes, were connected to the ends. Wires ran from each to needles sticking out of his upper bare arms, while goopy semi-liquids sloshed inside the tubes in green and blue gradients.

"Chemical representation," Hen said. "We call him Chemi."

The weird part, yet, was that there were groups of fish flopping in the beach sand and Chemi was shooting spurts of the liquid at them, like bullets from a gun. When they hit the fish, the fish spasmed. Then, their scales turned green and puffed up. Then they grew legs, like crabs. Hen came over to pick one up. It stood in his hand and stared, but didn't move.

By then there were at least ten green, crab fish scuttling over the sand around the group.

"I don't understand." Felix said, but didn't mean to. The thought was just so loud in his head, that the words slipped out.