Danny’s
grandmother, Barbara, was officially released form the hospital. He felt he had been walking on egg shells for
the past few days. He made sure to watch
his front and his behind. Danny stayed
on alert for another assault like the one that nearly crushed half his rib cage
just days ago. His main concern was
keeping an eye out for the new kid on the block with powers just like, or more
powerful than his own.
Danny
accompanied Christine to the hospital to pick up their grandmother following
her discharge. The doctors said she made
a full recovery. While he was in the
building, Danny picked up a stronger perception and strong twinge of pain in
his ribs.
“Here come
my two favorite grandchildren.”
Barbara’s smile lit up the whole hospital lobby.
“Granny.”
Christine spoke cheerfully and approached to embrace her favorite grandmother.
Danny
walked over to complete the group hug.
He let out an abnormally high pitched and awkward sigh of pain masked as
a sigh of relief. “Aaaaaarrgh…..”
The joy of
seeing his recovered grandmother in good health helped numb the jolt of
excruciating pain in his severely bruised ribs.
Barbara and Danny spoke about her encounter with the Rinaldi goons when
the Red Reaper saved her. The whole
story was so overwhelming. She thought
the whole thing was a coma-induced dream, but Danny convinced her
otherwise. She coped with the facts like
only a grandmother could. She was proud
to have a super-heroic grandbaby, and she assured him that his secret was safe
with her.
Danny and
Christine drove Barbara to Hartsburg.
After a home-cooked dinner with their mother and grandmother, Christine
and Danny rode back home in Stentine
Valley
As they
walked up the driveway, Christine asked, “Whose care is this?”
“That’s a
new Infinity G35,” Danny said. “It looks
like one of Jim Bronson’s cars.”
The Trapp
House was actually blessed by two guests on this particular evening. When Danny and Christine walked inside, they
saw Jim Bronson and Chip Wellington sitting in their living room talking to
Charles Trapp, the head of the household.
“Dad, why
didn’t you tell us we’d be having company?” Christine asked.
“Yeah, if
we’d known Chip and Mr. Bronson would be stopping by, we would not have stayed
out so late,” Danny added.
“It’s no
big deal,” Charles assured his son and daughter.
“Our visit
was unannounced anyway,” Jim said. “Chip
and I wanted to wait for you to arrive before we delivered the good news, but
once we started speaking with Charles we had to let the cat out the bag.”
“What’s the
good news?” Danny questioned.
“I just
signed an endorsement deal with Quail Tek,” Chip revealed, “and Mr. Bronson
told me the Mariners are going to use their number one pick to acquire me in
the upcoming MLB draft!”
“Really? That’s not good news. That’s great news, Chip,” Danny
congratulated.
“Geez, I’m
really happy for you too, Chipper,” Christine said.
“I’m super
stoked,” Chip said.
“But wait,
there’s more,” Jim interjected. “Quail
Tek is about to launch a new national marketing campaign, and I want Chip and
Danny to be the main spokespersons and pitchmen.”
“Cool,”
Danny said.
Jim
continued, “This campaign will be very time consuming. I spoke with Mr. and Mrs. Wellington earlier
via telephone earlier. They’re out of
town on vacation. I also discussed the
campaign with Charles. I’d like to pull
Chip and Danny out of school after the Snow Games. I’ve scheduled a photo shoot for you two in
Times Square in New York ! What do you think about that, Danny?”
“I don’t
know, Mr. Bronson. This is our senior
year.”
Jim
addressed Danny’s concern, “Don’t worry.
I got approval from the Stentine
Valley High
School New
York will only be the fist of many stops nationwide
campaign. There will be plenty of
commercial and photo shoots in big market cities across the country. I’ve hired a tutor to home school you two on
the road, so you’ll be able to pick up the remaining credits required for graduation. If you want, I can flay you back to Stentine Valley
“What about
the prom?” Chip inquired.
“I can fly
you back for that took,” Jim replied.
“Excellent,”
Chip spoke and pumped his fist.
“Chip is on
board, and his parents approved. What
about you, Danny,” Jim asked.
“Sure, I’m
down if it’s okay with you, Dad,” Danny turned to his father.
Charles
nodded and said, “I think this is a great opportunity. As always, you have my full support, son.”
“I’d like
to join you guys in New York
if that’s okay with you, Mr. Bronson.
It’s been a long semester for me at the community college, and I could
use a vacation,” Christine suggested.
“Dud, we
don’t need a chaperone,” Chip joked.
Danny knew
his big sister did not intend to intrude.
With all the new revelations, Christine simply wanted to help her little
brother watch his back.
“That will
be fine with me,” Jim said. “I won’t
mind flying you to New York
if you can watch these guys and keep them out of trouble.”
They were
all in agreement on that issue. It was
settled. Charles retreated to his study
to get some more work done, and Jim made his departure. Chip stuck around because he was in a
celebratory mood. He had a conversation
with Christine and Danny.
Chip said,
“My parents are out of town, bro. Can
you say house party? Chrissy, you’re invited, too. We’d better get a move on because the other
guests will be arriving soon.”
Danny,
Christine, and Chip made it to the Wellington
residence right before the party-goers started to arrive. Soon, the driveway was littered with random
vehicles. Gaggles of rowdy teens
occupied the front and back yards. Chip
stayed inside to tend to his party host duties.
Christine and Danny intermingled with everyone outside near the
gazebo. Their main responsibility as to
steer everybody in the direction of the kegs.
Danny’s
fingers tingled while he held the red plastic cup of beer in his hand. A loud rumbling sound in the distance
approached from the east. It wasn’t
thunder rolling, and everyone at the party including Danny recognized this
familiar and antagonizing noise. A large
green monster truck with a dorsal fin mounted on the hood came barreling into
the cultesac. After violently whipping a
few lawn-mauling doughnuts in the Wellington ’s
yard, the jacked up truck came to a screeching halt near the gazebo.
The
Hemi-charged super duty monster truck was one of the Sharks’ most infamous
trademarks. It was big. It was loud, and it personified the Sharks’
strong arm mentality as a gang. Seth was
behind the wheel of the monster truck.
He dropped from the driver’s seat with a looming smirk on his face. Apparently, word about Chip’s party spread
quickly through Stentine
Valley
Seth took
one last drag of the clove hanging from his lips before he flicked it away and
said, “I’m here for the three B’s: beer,
bitches, and bud. There’s a Shark in the
water. Let’s party!”
Chip heard
the clamor caused by Seth’s verbose and unexpected visit, so he was already
making his way to the front yard.
Chip
immediately confronted the uninvited guest and said, “You don’t belong here,
Seth. You and that B.S. truck of yours
are gonna get the cops called on us with all that racket.”
The words
that Chip spoke were true, but they were certainly fight words to a violent and
volatile individual. Seth, and
instinctive creature, did not hesitate to react by lunging at Chip with a wild
haymaker. Seth’s technique was
sloppy. He reached way back to the 90’s
with his windup before executing a punch that everybody saw coming, even
Chip. He had plenty of time to evade the
blow, but oddly, made no attempt to dodge Seth’s fist. The hook caught Chip square in the eye, and
he was staggered backwards.
Chip Wellington tumbled
unceremoniously to the ground in front of the watchful eyes of his party
guest. He was surely embarrassed, but he
was not itching for a fight. Chips ego
was bruised worse than his puffy eye, yet his goal was to diffuse the situation
without ruining the party’s mood. He
simply walked away from Seth while the gangster spewed insults at him.
“You’ve
always been scary, Wellington . Consider yourself lucky. Most people don’t walk away from a Shark
attack in one piece.”
As Chip
retreated to his house, Danny decided that he had seen and heard enough. He crept away to a secluded section of the
backyard where he could morph into his Red Reaper costume without being
noticed. Danny made an airborne entrance
to the party as the cloaked Red Reaper.
He angelically descended from the dark night sky and landed on top of
Seth’s monster truck. Everyone watched
in awe as Danny raised his foot and stomped on the roof of the truck,
pulverizing the custom fitted dorsal fin.
Then he flipped off the truck and landed right if front of Seth, who was
completely thunderstruck.
“You
again!” Seth scowled.
“That’s
right. Me again!” Danny retorted.
“So you can
talk. You must have lips under that mask
after all. Why don’t you unmask and reveal
yourself, you coward? Most of us are
convinced that you’re an alien freak-o,” Seth sniped.
Before
Danny could respond, the sound of police sirens in the distance alerted Seth to
make a swift escape. He sprinted to his
now finless Shark-mobile and climbed up to the driver’s seat. He cranked the engine and floored it in a
hurry. He drove over two cars parked
near the road. The people with the big
grimaces on their faces obviously were the cars’ owners.
Soon, the Wellington residence was
surrounded by patrol cars and cops with a SWAT team. Either Chip, a concerned party guest, or an
angry nosy neighbor must have called the fuzz.
Danny had tome to make his escape too, but he decided to stick around
instead of running away from his problems.
“Maybe we can talk things out,” he
thought. “That’s what I learned in peer mediation courses and workshops.”
“Freeze,
Reaper!” a cop commanded.
All the
cops’ guns were fixed on the Red Reaper.
Danny put his hands in the air in a very non-threatening manner.
“He’s got
weapons!”
“Weapons?” Danny thought.
Right
before they law enforcement officers opened fire, Danny noticed the two small
glowing red min-scythes in his hands that got them up in arms. Danny skillfully twirled the sharp blades to
deflect all the incoming bullets. Then,
a bolt of blue lightning stuck and destroyed the SWAT van. It stunned the unaware policemen, and it
surprised Danny.
“Hold your
fire!”
The barrage
of bullets ceased. Blue light
illuminated the sky. The blue aura faded
when the mysterious costumed newcomer made his own airborne entrance to 1705 Castillo Lane . He had a glowing weapon as well, a long
sword. Danny knew he was in the midst of
the being who blindsided him near Mt.
Bethel
The Red
Reaper made an uncharacteristic and spontaneous move next. It was partially fueled by a binge for
revenge, but Danny also wanted to test out his new toys and gauge the Blue
Blindsider’s powers in a fair face-to-face confrontation. He also wanted to draw his attention to keep
the cops and partiers safe. Danny lashed
out with his glowing, red mini scythes.
The Blue swordsman blocked and parried all of Danny’s attacks
effortlessly. Danny raised his arms to
deliver overhead swings with his weapons, but his blue adversary turned his
weapon horizontally and blocked the blows with only on hand on his sword’s
handle. He used his free hand to blast
the Red Reaper square in the middle of his chest with a blue bolt of energy.
Danny’s
limp body was hurled backwards through the air by the impact. He was sent crashing through the windshield
of one of the idle police cruisers. In
one quick blue flash, the Blue Knight made a getaway by air. One of the policeman had the gumption to
unholster his cuffs and approach the Red Reaper while reading him his Miranda
Rights. When he got to “you have the
right to an attorney”, Danny shook the cobwebs loose and had the wherewithal to
fly away himself.
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