Chapter 34: Love and Death

"Hey! HEY!" Brandon yelled into the cage. "I'm talking to you!"

Annie raised her head and watched the young man outside the cage.

"What's her problem?" he said, pointing to Tricia.

Tricia was deep in her meditation. She hadn't moved in hours. She hadn't reacted to the arrival or presence of the two new boys, their instructions for guard duty, or to the flurry of activity that came when it became apparent that Joey was in the complex somewhere. She had simply stayed silent, concentrating and saving time. And now it was just the four of them left in this section of the warehouse; Tricia and Annie inside the metal mesh-link cage, and Brandon and Neal outside watching them.

Even Tricia's breathing was subdued and barely noticeable.

"You're suddenly concerned about our welfare?" Annie asked the boy.

Brandon squinted.

"You don't have to do this," she continued. "You can help us. Let us out."

"Shut up."

"You can be your own man, or you can be a lackey. Your choice."

"I said SHUT UP!" And he swung his arm at high speed and slapped the cage's metal mesh. The cage shook and rattled violently, and the impact startled Annie. Despite the fact that she sat in the center of the twenty by twenty foot cage and was nowhere near the impact, she still ducked and flinched in instinct.

Annie studied the boy for a moment. "Why are you doing this? Why do you align yourself with them?"

Brandon sneered at the girl, and pushed his arm up against the cage, displaying the stitches in his wrist to her. "Hey! See this? This is how that precious asshole of yours tried to kill me! So this is just payback!"

"If I recall correctly, you were the one who struck first. THAT was payback."

"Hey! We were just messing with him!"

"The way you're messing with us?" She gestured to the cage. "You're keeping us locked in a cage, and you know damn well they intend to kill us. That makes you accomplices in murder. That's a lot more than just 'messing' with us."

Brandon huffed, unable to respond coherently, and Neal approached him. "Don' shalk shu her," he said through his wired jaw. "Jush keep alersh."

"And what about you? Neal, right? Are you just going to be a lackey too?"

Neal glanced in at Annie and considered her. He leaned against the cage door and idly fumbled with the combination lock. "You wan me lesh you oush?"

Annie raised an eyebrow. "Would you let us out?"

He stared at her chest and gave her a wicked grin. "Show us your shishs." Brandon giggled stupidly at his request and Neal just continued to grin at her.

She glowered at the boy. "You talk to your mother like that?"

Neal raised a single finger and ignited his hand. Bright electrical arcs rippled across his hand, and up his finger, and he pointed it directly at Annie. Annie flinched back, and watched the lightning dance over his finger, and she swallowed nervously.

"Whash wrong? Scared?"

Annie nodded. "Yeah. I'm scared," she said honestly. "But you know something? So are you. I think you're scared of Joey. You know what he can do to you, and you know what he can do to us. You know the moment he touches either one of us, this is over. We win. That's why you're doing this. You're more scared of him than you are of those supervillains."

Neal hesitated, and Annie could see on his face that the hesitation meant she was right. He inhaled to say something, but a sound startled them all. A single gunshot echoed from the next room, and Annie and the two boys flinched at the sudden sound. A cold dread grew over Annie's body and in her heart as she realized who had the gun and who he would be shooting at. Neal smiled at her.

"Nosh any more," he said to her.

The Glock 22 safe action pistol, standard issue for police and FBI in the Maryland, DC, and Virginia areas fires .40 caliber Smith and Wesson cartridges which are considered by the gun industry the ideal cartridge for personal defense and law enforcement. Remington's version of the .40 caliber has a weight of 10.7 grams in the slug and fires with 485 foot-pounds of force, achieving a speed of 1,150 feet per second, roughly the speed of sound. The bullet reaches over 400 degrees Fahrenheit, is capable of penetrating 13 inches deep into ballistics gel or flesh, and producing a cavity in its target of 6 cubic inches.

Joey was standing ten feet away from Tombspawn.

In the first six thousandths of a second, the bullet traveled seven feet. In the seventh thousandth of a second, this particular bullet encountered something no other bullet had ever encountered before in the history of firearms; a dark field of energy-absorbing Omegaplasm.

In the final three feet of travel which should have taken 2.6 thousandths of a second to complete, the black Omegaplasm field absorbed over 90 percent of the momentum in the bullet. The velocity dropped to a fraction of its original speed, taking nearly 3 hundredths of a second to complete its journey.

It still hurt like a motherfuck.

First there was just the shock of the impact. Then there was the dizziness of spinning, and then there was the slam as he hit the cold cement floor. There was surprise, and then there was anger. How could he be so stupid to confront a villain UNARMED when that villain knew how to use a gun and knew how to get them? He wasn't thinking clearly. He was too busy trying to be the brave hero, and completely forgot to be the smart hero.

And then the pain came.

To Joey, being shot felt a lot like being hit by a baseball bat. The bullet hit his arm, and the blow spun him and knocked him to the floor. His jacket sleeve was ripped and his arm seared with pain. He grabbed his wound with his free hand, and felt the hot, hard metal bullet embedded in his skin. Adrenaline surged, and his instincts screamed at him.

Run!

"Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, and believe also in me!" Tombspawn recited, and he fired again. The gunshot echoed loudly in the warehouse, and the floor cracked and splintered inches from Joey's leg as the bullet wounded the floor. Joey rolled and took off, running as best as he could. "For in my house there are many rooms!" the man called out, his creepy dark voice echoing in the warehouse. Joey ducked behind shelves and continued running and stumbling, trying to keep heavy objects between himself and the pursuing supervillain. Tombspawn simply walked casually in his direction. "And if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?"

"Oh for Christ's sake, give the fucking Bible quotes a rest!" Joey shouted. There was nothing creepier than being hunted by a gun-wielding zombie who quoted the Bible. He grimaced as his arm burned with pain.

Tombspawn smiled, and continued, holding the gun in front of him and he walked slowly. "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you myself." He turned a corner, caught Joey's eye, and fired again. Joey dodged and the bullet ricocheted off metal shelving. "So that where I am, you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going. John, Chapter fourteen, verses one through four."

Joey ducked low, and saw the clear path towards the far door. Every instinct told him that right behind that door were Tricia and Annie. All he had to do was get there, get to Tricia, and infuse her with powers, and the fight would be over. All he had to do was run straight down the middle of that one empty aisle. All it would take was the courage to do it, and some speed.

It seemed all too easy.

He flexed his fingers, and wondered if Sophia's energy was still inside him pushing his inspiration and intelligence. He glanced down the empty aisle again, and put it in context with Tombspawn's words.

And then he realized what was happening.

"Yeah, I got it!" he yelled out. "I know where it is you want me to go." He took off running, heading in a different direction, towards a far wall. Tombspawn spun, startled by his sudden change in direction. Joey wasn't taking the bait of exposing himself in a run to his girls. Tombspawn stepped around a corner, and as he pointed his gun towards Joey, the boy slid down across the floor and grabbed an electrical socket.

Tombspawn hesitated. "What are you doing?"

Joey grinned at him as he summoned the black sparks. His hands surged with obsidian energy. He could feel the electrical current pouring out from the outlet and flowing into the abyss where all energy went. "What I do best. I face the demons in the dark."

Using the black Omegaplasm field he yanked hard on the electricity, surging the current in the warehouse wiring to dangerous levels. Smoke curled up from the plastic plug on the overloaded outlet, and with several heavy sounding thumps, all the lights went out in that section of the warehouse as circuit breakers tripped. Tombspawn and Joey found themselves in near total darkness.

"Clever," Tombspawn drawled. "But you're just as blind as I am." He strode confidently through the darkness. "But I can hear your breathing. Pity you cannot hear mine." He raised his gun and pointed it to the last place he saw Joey.

Crashing sounds came from two directions, and Tombspawn spun and scanned the darkness. Shadows against blackness danced around him. A gushing, rolling sound appeared at his left, and he turned and fired three times. The loud gunshots echoed, and the bright flashes illuminated the area, turning the warehouse into a set of competing ghostly after-images on his retinas.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to clear them of the blinding after-image, and peered into the shadows. He listened carefully, and heard a crackling sound. He stepped forward, quietly pursuing the sound, and eventually found the sound was coming from a plastic water bottle rolling on the ground.

Tombspawn picked up the water bottle, studied it, and placed it back on the ground. He turned and listened carefully, trying to figure out what Joey was doing. "If he were smart," he reasoned, "he would take this opportunity to make his way to the next room, or double back and find another way in. He wouldn't stay." He silently made his way back towards the center of the room.

A small crack emitted just a few feet away from him. Tombspawn swung and fired two shots into the blackness behind him. The muzzle flashes revealed nothing but emptiness, and burned images into his retinas. Something then clanged to his right, and he turned and fired again. The bullet ripped into shelves and metal cabinets, but the flash showed nobody there.

He waited and listened. "He's hunting me," Tombspawn realized.

He held his gun closely, and peered into the dark and listened intently to the silence. There was a shuffling sound in front of him, followed by a slight crack behind him. Tombspawn held the gun steady, and crept silently through the aisle, heading towards the last position of the shuffling sound.

A loud clang erupted behind him, but it was preceded by a slight shuffle in front of him. He ignored the louder sound, and continued towards the softer noise. "He's toying with me. Trying to get me to shoot at false targets. No more of that." He continued walking, and staring into the darkness. He saw a shadow move silently, and trained his gun on the motion.

"Found you," he declared, and he started to squeeze the trigger.

The shadow shifted, and something hit Tombspawn in the face and body. He spasmed in panic and the gun shot went wild. The muzzle flash showed Joey clearly in front of him, and the bullet ricocheted on the shelves behind him, missing him by a wide margin. He quickly recentered the gun on Joey and fired again.

-Click-

Tombspawn squeezed the trigger again. The gun just clicked impotently.

Twin plumes of bright sparks erupted in front of the dead man, heralding the end of the fight, and illuminating the room and the boy who stood between them. Joey's fists and eyes were glowing, burning, and spilling power onto the floor. "And that's the sound I was waiting for," he said to the zombie.

Tombspawn stood still in the aisle, and dropped the gun in surrender. He watched Joey as the boy stood there, just ready to strike. "Very well. You got me," he said to the boy. "What are you waiting for?"

Joey raised his glowing fist at the zombie, and he tilted his head. "Not really sure," he said, and he casually walked towards the supervillain. "I was thinking of telling you that nobody, NOBODY threatens my family, or that before I came here I got a nice sensory boost from a good friend, so it's not that dark in here to me, but now that I think about it, I really don't think the last words you will ever hear should be that significant. You don't deserve it. So you get this instead."

He switched his power from the white sparks to the black, engulfing them both in the darkness, and he could feel Tombspawn's reanimating energy within the body before him. He subdued the power to a dim ember, keeping him awake but unable to stand. Tombspawn collapsed, his self-reanimating energy washing away in the darkness of Joey's influence, and Joey caught the crumpling body with his good arm. He held him up, holding the supervillain's face to his own. "I came here with a pocket full of dog biscuits, which I threw at you. That's what you were shooting at. Dog biscuits." And then Joey ripped what was left of Tombspawn's soul out of his body.

Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop-pop-pop. Pop-pop. Pop. Pop.

From Tricia's perspective, that was what the gunfire sounded like. She had been sitting quietly, pulling time from the world outside, folding it neatly, and storing it inside her. As she peeked her eyes open, she could see the fresh terror on Annie's face. She started to will time to resume, just at the moment that Joey opened the far door and entered the room.

"JOEY!" Annie screamed.

Joey walked in holding his wounded arm. "Annie! Trish..." He turned his eyes towards the two boys guarding them. "Aw, fuck! Not you two now! What are you doing here?"

"They're with Tombspawn!" Annie shouted. "They won't let us out." She turned to shake Tricia awake. "Trish! Please wake up!"

Joey started making his way towards the cage. "Are you okay?"

"You just stay away!" threatened Brandon. He was twitching, on edge, and standing ready to move. Neal flexed his fingers. "You got a lot of fucking nerve, you know that?"

Joey balked. "Me? I'm the one with nerve? You've..." He paused, and considered his options. He could either come in violently, or he could be nice. He made a decision, and raised his hands in a calming manner. "Brandon, Neal, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you."

"You better be sorry!"

"I am!"

"Yeah, right. You're just saying that cause we've got your bitches!" says Brandon.

"I'm SERIOUS! And the fight's over! I don't know how the hell you two got involved with this, but if you're with Tombspawn, you've lost already. Tombspawn is dead, for real this time. I just took him out. And I didn't come here alone. I came with the others. Simon is with me, and he burned the hell out of Armory and is turning him into a pile of scrap metal right now. Jeff and Lynne are taking out the zombies, and I've got Raquel keeping Adamantine busy. And that big guy? What's his name? Muscle? Clyde's working on him." The boys startled. "Yeah, that's right. CLYDE is with ME! He accepted my apology, and he thinks this is wrong."

"Bullshit. He wouldn't work with you."

Joey walked in closer, calmly. "It doesn't matter. Look, I am sorry for what I did to you two. It was wrong. I can try and make excuses for what I did: You were scaring me, and hurting me and Simon, and I wanted to scare you and hurt you so much you would never think of hurting anyone else again. But I was wrong! It doesn't work like that. It never works like that. I only made you angrier. And I don't want you angry with me, so I'm not going to fight you any more. I'm not going to pull your powers, or give them powers to fight you. I'm just going to go open that cage, get my family, and take them home."

"Boys," Tricia said, surprising them by breaking her silence. She stepped up to the cage wall and addressed them. "Let him come."

Brandon paused, watching Joey carefully. "No powers," he declared.

Joey nodded and simply kept his hands up in a calming manner as he approached. "I don't want any trouble from you two. I just want my family back." He approached the cage carefully, and checked out the lock on the door. "It's a combination lock. Maybe we can pick it? Annie, how long would it take..."

"Unless someone knows the combination ... Sixty cubed combinations, ten seconds per try, that's twenty-five days straight to go through all the possibilities."

He ignited the white sparks on one hand. "Here Trish, maybe you can just..."

WHOOSH! WHAM!

At the sight of Joey approaching Tricia with the Omegaplasm flowing, Brandon panicked and slammed into him at high speed. Joey spilled and tumbled across the dirty floor, while Brandon skid to a halt. "I told you no POWERS!" He charged again, slapping Joey hard as he ran by. Joey spun from the high-speed impact and fell to the ground in pain. "You think I don't know what you're planning?"

Neal then lit up. Electrical arcs burst off his body and fists, and they burned into the metal cage. Tricia and Annie screamed in terror and Tricia jumped back as the metal cage was electrified. Neal then gestured to Joey, and streams of lightning flashed from his hands. They struck the ground around Joey, licking him and burning him. Joey screamed and thrashed on the ground in agony.

The girls started screaming at him. "Neal! STOP IT!" Tricia yelled. "YOU'RE KILLING HIM!"

"THASH THE POIN!" he slurred back, laughing at the sight of Joey rolling on the ground trying to dodge the lightning bolts.

Brandon called out. "Hey! Neal! Let up! I want another shot at the bastard!" Neal pulled back his lightning and Brandon charged again, slapping Joey as he tried to get up. Joey fell again, slamming into the ground. He was now semi-conscious, unable to defend himself, and groaned as he rolled on the ground.

"Like it?" Brandon taunted. Joey was barely conscious, and couldn't respond. "How does it feel to have someone toy with your life? Huh?" The bully picked up an iron pipe and swung it around. "You think those stupid powers of yours are going to save you now? I don't even need my powers to take you out. I just need this." And he started stalking Joey.

Tricia screamed at him. "BRANDON! STOP IT!" She grabbed the cage door and shook it violently, trying to break the door, and then pulled feebly on the combination lock. "OPEN THIS DOOR!" Neal was laughing, and Tricia fumbled with the dial on the combination lock. "I need the combination! What is it?"

"Jush pick three," Neal teased her. "Maybe you'll get lucky."

"Good night, Joey!" Brandon giggled, and he raised the iron pipe high, ready to swing it down on Joey's skull.

Annie screamed. "NO!"

-BOOM!-

The explosion of sound rattled the entire warehouse, and Neal and Brandon were suddenly blown down by a massive force, and they spilled to the ground. Brandon tumbled and smashed into a wall empty-handed. He groaned, shook his head, and looked up to see Tricia standing guard over Joey. She was holding the iron pipe in one hand, and the unlocked combination lock in the other. The cage door was still swinging open behind her.

"Forty, twelve, twenty-seven," Tricia stated triumphantly. "I knew those numbers would be important some day." (See Chapter 14: L.V.)

"What the hell..." Brandon started.

Tricia dropped the iron pipe and the combination lock. They clattered loudly on the floor. "Brandon, this fight is over. And as long as I am alive, you will NOT touch my son."

"How did you do that?"

Tricia ignored him, and knelt down to Joey. "Joey? Honey? Are you okay?" Joey winced in pain at her touch.

"GET AWAY FROM HIM!" Brandon screamed, and he launched himself at Tricia. He tore into her at super speed, and rammed his shoulder into her side. Tricia was thrown back from the impact, and Brandon looped around the room for a second attack. He rammed her again and again. The repeated blows sent Tricia across the room, and she tumbled against the hard concrete floor, stunned by the attack. Brandon skid to a stop and continued to yell at her. "Yeah, that's right, bitch! I know what you're trying to do! You're trying to get him to give you powers. Well, forget it!" He zipped around her several times, displaying his super speed. "I'm too fast for you."

Tricia rolled on the ground, took a deep breath, pushed herself halfway up. She glared at him. "Fast? You don't know the meaning of the word."

-BOOM!-

Tricia kicked in the super-speed and launched herself at Brandon, tackling him at hyper-velocity, and the two wrestled in a chaotic fury of blows and grappling. From Annie's view, they were just blurs as they punched and clawed at each other. They slammed into shelves and the wall, bounced off the cage, and rolled on the ground, hitting, kicking, screaming, and pummelling.

Brandon was tough, Tricia soon came to realize, and had a completely different type of super-speed than hers. While Tricia could hit superspeed by warping time, Brandon was naturally fast, and carried a huge amount of potential energy with his blows. This translated into a powerful strength and resilience in the young man, making him stronger and tougher than her, and she soon learned that a solid hit from him hurt. The saving grace came from the fact that despite how fast he was, as long as she had time to burn Tricia was leaps and bounds faster than him, and she would roll with his punches, deflecting impacts and dodging the worst of his blows.

Punching, slapping, kicking, or any other direct attack of that nature seemed to do nothing to the boy, and he whirled and swung at her constantly. And she could feel that time was running out of her reserves. She tried grappling him from behind, but the boy slammed his elbows back into her at high speed, knocking her off him.

She tumbled to the ground at high speed, and he charged after her, ducking low to reduce air-resistance, much like the way she discovered to do the first night Joey gave her speed abilities. Tricia saw him do this and remembered more details from that fight in the park. She remembered the way the gang floated in the air as they were thrown, and that gave her an idea. She stood before Brandon, offering herself as a target. Brandon ripped across the room, charging towards her, and at the last moment she grabbed his hand, spun, and twisted. She had not practiced her Tai Kwon Do in a while, but it still worked. The boy stumbled, and sailed into the air.

Deprived of all traction, Brandon was helpless for the brief second as he tumbled above ground. Tricia took advantage of that moment and burned all the time she had left. She ran to a nearby spot, picked up a two-by-four block of wood, ran back, and smashed it into Brandon's head as he was in mid-flip.

He fell to the ground and skid across it, leaving a long bloody trail on the concrete, and laid unconscious as she resumed normal time-flow. She defiantly dropped the now splintered two-by-four, and stared at the other boy stannding some distance away.

First he looked shocked and astonished, and then angry. "Neal," Tricia said calmly, but still breathing heavily. "Don't even think about..."

BBZZAAAPP-CRACKLE!

Neal reached out and unleashed a torrent of lightning towards Tricia. Brights arcs of electricity far too fast for her to dodge stretched out, and several bolts hit her. She convulsed as they hit, scorching her clothes and skin, and she dropped to the ground.

Joey by this time had recovered a bit from Brandon's assaults, and he screamed. "NEAL! GOD-DAMN IT! STOP!" He started stumbling towards Tricia.

The bully panicked and turned his power on Joey. Brilliant arcs leapt and danced around Joey, and in pure defence Joey summoned his dark energy for protection. Lightning swirled and drained into Joey's fists as he crawled towards Tricia to shield her from the electrical storm. Neal growled incoherently, knowing what Joey could turn Tricia into if her reached her, pulled back his power, and did the only thing he could think to do. He ran and dove on Joey, tackling him.

The boy pummeled Joey, slamming his fists into him, and Joey was in agony. He had been shot twice today, slammed into the side of a truck, ran through thorn bushes, survived an explosion, been hit by lightning, and been slammed multiple times by a speedster, and now this kid was just trying to beat him with his fists. His muscles ached and his skin was hot, and Joey roared, spun, and punched Neal in his injured jaw.

Neal rolled off him, moaning in pain and holding his face. Joey scrambled away from him and made his way to Tricia. She was unconscious, and he lifted her face. "Tricia! Are you okay?" He checked her breathing.

She was still alive.

Neal stumbled to his feet, hesitated as he saw Joey with Tricia, and ran the other direction towards the cage. He slammed the door shut, grabbed the latch with both hands, and concentrated. A blinding flash of light and thunder surged from his hands, and smoke rose from the door latch. When he released it, the latch was fused shut.

Then he grabbed Annie by the throat and ignited his body. "DON' MOVE OR I FRY HER!"

Joey stopped. He could see Annie struggling in his grasp, and convulsing from the low-level current running through her body. "LET HER GO!" he screamed.

"SHEP AWAY FROM HER!" yelled Neal, pointing at Tricia. "AND DROP THE SPARKS!"

Joey lifted his hands, and dropped his power-draining ability. The dark sparks diminished and died. "OKAY! OKAY! JUST ... Just calm down! It doesn't have to be like this." He could see Neal was panicking, and Annie was shaking and spasming in his grasp. Her hair was lifting from the static electricity, and her eyes rolled back uncontrollably. "You're hurting her!"

"Yeah, I know!"

Seeing Annie in pain was the most horrifying thing he had ever seen, and Joey pleaded for her life. "Neal! Please! Don't do this. Don't hurt her. Think about it! There is no way out of this for you. You've lost. You're the last one standing, and you've locked yourself in a cage with a hostage. Where are you going to go?" He approached slowly, and Neal tightened his grip on Annie. "If you hurt her, you're not going to make me afraid of you. You're not going to make me want to leave you alone. You'll just make me angry, and I will hunt you down and choke the life out of you with my bare hands if I have to. But if you just let her go, I won't do anything to you."

"Bullshih!" Neal yelled back.

"I MEAN IT!"

"You're jush saying tha' 'cause I've got her." Neal tightened his grip on Annie's neck. Annie was convulsing, unable to fight back. "I don' believe you."

Joey was tearing. "What do you want from me?"

Neal thought about it. "How about thish. You ashacked me when I was shrying to save Brandon's life. Let's see how you feel when tha' happens shou you." He squeezed Annie's neck. "I'll shop her heart, and then I'll kick you in the face when you shry shoo reshusishate her."

"Don't do this Neal."

"Make a decision, Joey. Fight me, or save her."

He concentrated, and the lightning flared brightly. Annie screamed uncontrollably. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she spasmed and shook as he electrocuted her. Even her legs were moving. "NEAL! STOP IT!" Joey screamed, and he bashed his fists on the door, trying to break the fused section. "ANNIE!" Neal just laughed, and continued to electrocute Annie.

Joey screamed in despair and desperation, and ignited the Omegaplasm in his hands and eyes. White sparks ejected and billowed out of him, reaching outward. He could feel her so close, ever so close to him, and he pushed his power beyond his limits. Torrents of white sparks erupted from his hands blasting past the chain link wall and into the cage, bathing the two inside. He roared in effort, pouring his power and soul into the cage, and then collapsed, dropping to his knees in exhaustion...

The white sparks trickled, and died down. Joey leaned against the cage wall and looked up to see Neal still holding her. She wasn't moving, and just hung limply in his arms. Neal however was still blazing with electrical arcs, and he gave Joey curious look.

"Wha' was tha' shupposed shoo be? You missed me."

Joey took several deep breaths. "I wasn't aiming at you," he said in exhaustion, and he got to his feet and took a couple steps back.

Neal considered that for a moment, frowned, and turned his head down to look at Annie. Despite the fact that he was still running a current through her, Annie was no longer shaking in his grip. She was motionless at first, but then slowly she raised her head and turned her eyes towards him. Her eyes were glowing, and the ground and the air around them started to vibrate with a growing power.

"You have any idea how much you hurt me?" she rasped at him.

It finally dawned on Neal just what he was holding onto. For the past several weeks he had been in the same class as Joey, and knew Joey was working on throwing his power at range. And a dark horror gripped his heart as he realized that Joey had finally managed to succeed in making the final connection.