“Awoooo!” The band man howled. And... and that wrapped up his band’s set.

Danny sat back, and laced his fingers behind his head. That had been... interesting. A Celtic Woodwind / Death Metal fusion band? Called the Wild Hunt? They weren’t terrible, but it just had not worked for him. And the band members had all gotten way into the theme. The main man had dressed like a wolf man, and the other band members had gone glamour with too much makeup. KISS, they were not. Hard rock, they were not. Or any sort of Death Metal he had ever seen. They looked like faeries... and maybe, that had been the point.

Danny had a feeling, just a gut feeling. But he was willing to be the curly hairs on his head that the lead singer, at the very least, was NO mutant. He just dressed like a wolf man, and tried too hard.

This was mutants night at the club he and his group were auditioning for. Mutant night meant that at least one member of the band needed to be a mutant. At least, that was what the whole point of the clubs thing was. But it was not as if one needed to show off the mutant might for mutant night. One could be a card carrying member without flashing the card... it just felt cheap to him. Mutants has to deal with so much bull, people who took advantage of them when good things happened were just low. But hell, that was up to the club owners to decide. All he knew for certain was that his set was next. Whet WERE they going to go by, tonight?

His band changed names often. A rite of passage for young bands of goofballs that had not yet made it big. His band members were people he knew from high school and college. While some people of his generation has played Halo, and were mastering Chief, him and his friends had been mastering the blade... of music! There. Now that was a neat band name. Blade of music. Reminded him of lord of dance.

His band members names were Simon, Alec, Isabelle, Alvin, abs Theodore. Ted, for short. Ted was backup vocals and bass. Ted talked. All the others had other suitable skills. He sang lead, with lead guitar.

His group got ready. Piled their things together, and worked on moving to the stage. To follow That.

A few minutes later, Hungry like the wolf played. It was a punky, catchy little cover of the song with a swinging beat... and they were playing up the gam and cheese. To sort of mock the band before them. Wild grunt, wasn’t it? They shifted mid-song into another one, all impromptu-like, at his directing. Into Howl, by Florence and the Machine. He’s been tempted by Werewolf of London, but some things are too much. And Howl was good and modern, to key off the good and old of hungry like the wolf. They killed it. Butts swayed, and by the time he was finished, Danny thought he’d done a great job. Captivated the audience, however small the audition group was.

“Thank you, my lovelies!” He finished. “Tonight, we were hunters moon!” He finished holding the mic up to his mouth. He clasped it by his chest, then returned it to the stand. Then, they wrapped up by gathering their things.

His band had showed off their skills at least once. Isabelle had swung her light ribbon around while dancing like an mffer. Take that, wild blunt. Take that, with cream.

All that was left was to see what followed, and hear the club’s hot take on all the songs. He knew the wild hunt’s take. During the set, they had glowered like their favorite animal was being turned into a wolf skin rug in front of their faces. Perfect.

Despite the mess that was Wild Hunt, Zek had to admit that the other bands were pretty good. Hell’s Angles had an interesting electronica vibe to their stuff, although he thought manifesting fiery geometric shapes was a bit over the top. Raisin Crane’s name confused him and didn’t seem to have anything to do with anything, but they were pretty solid. And Hunters Moon had torn Zek between wanting to dance and wanting to roll around on the floor laughing.

But in the end, it wasn’t his decision. It was Janine’s.

Janine sat in front of the stage on a folding chair. She was a very business-like lady dressed in a dark blue suit and suit combo with a tight bun and thin glasses perched on her Roman nose. She practically ran the club and was one of the most meticulous individuals Zek had ever met. Flanking her in a matching folding chair was David (pronounced DAH-veed), the music director, who was glaring.

When the music had also stopped and Hunters Moon began putting their equipment away, Janine and David bent their heads together and quietly conferred. Zek, however, kept his eyes on the bands. The Wild Hunt guys looked angry and not at all professionally-reserved as Hell’s Angles or Raisin Crane. Zek decided to stick around them, gliding around until about a dozen feet or so behind them. Jim, the other bouncer on call at the moment, settled for leaning against a pillar and staring them, all imposing-like with his brawn and buffness.

“Thank you, Hunters Moon, Hell’s Angles, Raisin Crane. Excellent performances,” Janine finally said, looking up from her tablet and glancing at the mentioned bands. She turned so she could address Wild Hunt. “Now tell me, why did you people even bother showing up?”

“What the $%*@&#?” exploded the lead singer of Wild Hunt as he shot to his feet. “What do you mean, why’d we bother showing up? We’re &$%^%## amazing.”

Janine arched an eyebrow. “That’s...arguable,” she said deadpan. “But a main requirement for the band to play on Mutant Night is for at least one band member to be a mutant.” She paused for a beat. “You do not qualify.”

The guy tried to laugh dismissively. “Wha-a-at?” he said. “I’m a mutant. And how do you know if someone is or not?”

“Because that’s my mutation,” Janine said sternly (it wasn't, really, but the nature of her power was far too detaile dot spend the time explaining it to them). THen she turned back around. “Please leave the premises. You have five minutes. Now, Raisin Crane, would you--”

This time Janine was cut off by a tirade of swearing as all of Wild Hunt leapt to their feet, even knocking their table over and scattering their chairs. “Listen, lady,” the lead singer snarled. No longer looking quite as foolish in his wolf gear. “You’re gonna give us a fair chance or--”

This time he was the one interrupted. “Jim, Zek, please escort Wild Hunt out of the building. They’re irritating me.”

Zek immediately started moving forward, a wide “can’t we all just get along?” smile on his face that didn’t quite seem to match his eyes. Jim eschewed the smile completely and just started marching. Several band members cursed, but the lead started digging in a bag. “Aw no, this ain’t how it’s gonna end! WILD HUNT! WE RIDE!”

Zek caught a glimpse of the guy sticking himself with something and then the guy started convulsing as a sickly green glow erupted around him. “WE RIDE!” the guy shouted again.

And then a dozen giant ghostly green wolfhounds began to appear, teeth bared and growling soundlessly.

“WE RIDE!”

Danny transformed his guitar back to pick form, and stuffed it back in his bag. The rest of his crew were gathering up their own things— mostly done— when the woman with the sharp nose stood up, and shared sharper words with one of the bands.

Thanked him, thanked the others, and then called out wild hunt. The band him and his had aped on, made fun of with their catchy, yet tasteful jibes. Called them out for not being mutants.

“Oh shi—“ Danny said.

He’d suspected the band had not brought any mutants, but here it was, painfully and bluntly confirmed. Made him glad he’d had some mutant action in his act... aside from Isabelle, that was. Alvin blurred on drums, Simon could do something with sound that was useful, sometimes... reverb, maybe? And him. He was. Hadn’t shown it but he was. They, Wild hunt, was not, and it showed. Somehow. She could tell.

The leader was pissed. Pushed. I was a teenage werewolf practically growled. He wasn’t even a real wolf man. How douchey of him to play pretend when he was not, to try and use something good for mutants for himself. The audacity of it all almost made Danny forget about the fact she’d been calling on frickin’ Raisin Bran instead of his own band. The freaky thing he did that summoned wolves, however, did the job. Danny totally forgot about being bitter like the cran in raisin cran. Which was their name, right? Not a bad name actually. Made you think.

Made you think what the tell was a raisin crane, made you think.

A sound like a record scraping to a halt cut through the dramatic ambience of the moment, just as Danny was saying to himself “You bet I’m wondering how I keep getting into sh** like this.” He stopped. Looked to Simon. “Really, Simon?!”

Simon smiled sheepishly. Maybe sound stuff was more than just reverb. Maybe it was Sound Effects. They’d need to use him better.

Wild hunt man shouted ‘we ride’ one more time.

“Ride this.”

Without a thought for why, or what possible strategy there was to it, Danny picked up his music bag and lobbed it at the Wild hunt lead singer’s head. It was just a backpack, mind you. A perfectly normal looking black school bag. The guitar pick inside the bag, and the fox kit medicine kit, added up to the actual real weight that crashed into wolf man’s head.

“Wild thump,” Danny stated brazenly, as the man tumbled onto his ass. “Get a real life, and stop taking advantage of us m— meep!”

He’d been standing on the stage, looking down at the jerk. Figured he’d won. Then. A ghost wolf hippity hopped up into the stage and bared its teeth. Danny took two smart steps back.

Usually, an electric guitar to the face crumpled fools. Made them unconscious. Either the tool was tougher than he’d looked, or his wolf buddies didn’t require conscious thought to control.

Danny grabbed a mic stand to stave off the wolf. As he batted it away, a loud boom shook the area and made the wolves cower in on themselves with their oh so sensitive ears.

“Simon, nice.” Isabelle commented appreciatively. “Do it again.”

Simon did not get to do it again, unfortunately. His grand gesture had drawn about half the pack surging towards the stage. With a crack, Isabelle produced her whip of light. Danny continues beating on the wolf In front of him, in the hopes he could get an opening and dart past it down to ground level so he could continue beating on the wolf man.

His bag was down there, dammit. Nobody better break his fox kit. An ex had given him that!

As for the rest of his band... Alvin has blurred into the background fast as he could. Which was pretty damn fast. And Theodore and Alec had executed flawless Brave Sir Robin approaches. Exit, stage left.

Everything started moving very quickly, after the long drawn out bit of summoning the ghost dogs finished, that is.

I guess we know why they’re called Wild Hunt now. Zek only had the moment to spare for such idle thoughts. After all, he wasn’t even ten feet from the wolf dude when three green ghost dogs were suddenly blocking his way.

Panic and alarm crashed through him and reflexively he threw an orb at them.

The orb hit the middle dog and there was a flash of light. It vanished. And daggers started piercing his brain.

Zek nearly doubled over. “Aaaagh!” he yelled as he clutched at his head. That vague space he felt/sensed, where something he’d caught should be, felt like it was on fire and struck by lightning at the same time. Immediately he brought the orb back, pulsing into scarlet light for just a moment before flashing. And some green vapor appeared for another moment before evaporating.

The other dogs had leaped back when their comrade vanished. Zee stared at them with wide, pain-ridden eyes as they stared at him. He unleashed a stream of invectives. “What was that?!” It was like the time he’d stuck a fork in the power socket.

“I am not doing that again,” he swore as he straightened up. He’d deal with the migraine later. Because as he straightened up, so did the other dogs.

Zek didn’t notice the wolf guy get clobbered by a flying backpack. He was too focused ont he dogs. But he did hear the sound of thunder, the feedback of an amp or something. Music to Zek’s ears. The dogs fell back again and Zek didn’t waste the time to start scrabbling backward, checking his surroundings. Couldn’t stop the dogs directly (without, like, brain damage or something), but that just meant he had to get creative.

Balls flashed in his hands and got tossed at some straight-backed dining chairs. He stopped his backwards retreat and throw another ball at a table. It vanished too. Then he started to charge at the dogs, yelling as loud as he could He brought his hands up and after a brief red glow, a chair was in his hands.

He began swinging into the ghost dogs with all his might. It was like fear therapy. It felt right.

One of the venue’s people was screaming and doing weird mutant stuff but Danny was more focused on staying alive and stuff to really pay that more than a passing thought.

Ah ah ah ah staying alive, staying alive. The song began playing in his mind.

It was interesting that the ghost dogs could go through people, but solid objects. Metal objects. Seemed to hit them. He figured that out the hard way as he bum-rushed one of the wolves in a moment of ‘IDGAF’ bravery that was more an ‘F this’ than actual heroism. Danny brought his boot up in a kick at one wolf. Boot went through. Then, he went through the wolf with his forward momentum... except for the mic stand, which he had horizontally across his chest. He clotheslined himself with his own weapon.

The mic had not passed through the ghost hound. But he had. Until the mic. The result was a dead stop, followed by him being shoved backwards onto his ass.

“Weird...”

He stopped paying attention to his band mates, and focused on how he could use this.

“Metal hurts them!” He shouted. “Like some sort of dumb fairytale lore thing!”

Then he rushed at the nearest group of wolves and started swinging the mic stand.

On the floor, the wild hunt band leader groaned and stirred.

Simon and Isabelle were fending them off with their respective powers. Seemed the chair thing the one venue worker was doing was working, too. And was that Alec in the corner, with a metal chair of his own getting ready to sneak up on a wolf? Guess he wasn’t so Brave Sir robin after all.

Zek smashed the chair into the first dog and was rewarded as it abruptly collapsed in on itself and went crashing into another couple of chairs. Then he stabbed it legs-first at the other ghosthound. “Ya! Ya! Take that, mutt!” he cried. The legs jabbed into the dog and elicited silent cries of pain.

A feral grin stretched across Zek’s face. Ghost dogs weren’t real dogs and therefore elicited no moral hesitation in removing them with extreme prejudice.

“Take that! And then!” he cried as he assaulted the ghost with his chair, beating it back in a table and hammering it again. Finally the hound just kinda shattered into dozens of pieces before sublimating into a fast-disappearing green mist.

Zek took a moment to admire his work. The sight of the vanishing dog was just so beautiful. But adrenaline didn’t let him stop for long.

His brown eyes snapped up to find Janine. A guy was yelling that metal hurt the dogs and it seemed Janine and David had quickly jumped on the idea. They were back to back, each with a chair in hand, slowly rotating around each other as they moved toward an exit. Janine had her clipboard wedged in her armpit. Jim was making his way to them and seemed to be using a different form of defense, mainly one of the members of Wild Hunt being dragged by his feet by the burly bouncer and occasionally swung around to interpose him between himself and a dog.

So far the dogs seemed to be leaving Wild Hunt alone. But they were harrying everybody else. Hell’s Angles had huddled together and a wall of flaming shapes surrounded them like a kaleidoscopic igloo. A dog prowled around it, but a single touch of a shape sent the dog bouncing back.

The various other venue folk had managed to clear out already and Hunters Moon seemed to be mounting a good defense and --whaaa? The crazy singer was ;leaping towards a group of dogs! With just a mic stand!

Zek didn’t have time to observe the battlefield. He tossed a ball at Wild Hunt and caught a band member before throwing an inert orb into the mass of dogs that the Hunters Moon singer was charging into. He threw several more balls that way, aiming to distract and hurt or whatever. He definitely was not going to try and capture any more of them though! He started jogging that direction himself.

Clang, clang! Clang!

He hit the first dog, parried a bite, and stabbed down with the mic stand. The whole fight became a blur of more of... that... and before he knew it, he had breezed his way past his few wolves and was at the edge of the stage.

It wasn't purely due to combat prowess, of course. Danny, combat prowess? HA! Ha ha. The other bands had helped. Thrown in their lot. Distracted. And his own band. Fought. Even the people running the club, were clubbing, with chairs. He'd lost count of how many wolves there were, or how many he had fought. Danny had but one thing on his mind. He leaped off the stage, like a rock god doing a wheeling power chord on an electric guitar... only with the mic stand in hand. Instead. Then, he came at the lead singer of the wild hunt.

Yep. He was still conscious. Just faking it. And... he was hairier than before, wasn't he? Oh man. How lame.

"So not only did you have the I Was A Teenage Werewolf thing going on. You had the wolves. AND you became a freaking hairy monster." Which probably explained the extra stamina. Danny blew out a breath that puffed hair out of his eyes. Then, he sighed. There was only one solution to ending this blur of chaos and discord. A doggy grin slipped onto his face as he said "Let's rock!" And then, he went at the wolf man with the mic stand. The very bendy now, not quite as good as it had once been, mic stand.

Wolf guy put up a pretty good fight. Dodgin, and circling him. Lunging at him when he dropped his guard. Wolf guy scored a solid hit with a passing claw. Did that mean he'd turn into a werewolf at the next full moon? Was it a full moon? No, he was pretty sure it was not. And the so-called solid hit was more a grazed arm now, wasn't it? He smashed his fist against the wolf's jaw in a good counter-blow. The punch sent the wolf reeling back. But not out of the fight.

God, this whole thing was hairy. He was bleeding, and he wasn't sure how he'd gotten this far using the mic stand polearm. Wasn't like he trained in martial arts, or that jazz. What he really needed... and the music started playing in the back of his mind as he thought the craven thought... was a hero.

He started humming the song. And hoping for someone with inherited silver or whatever that bullcrap was.

Simon jumped off the stage to land beside him, and whipped out a star of david necklace on a chain. All of a sudden, there he was. Heroic-like. Whipping the star of david necklace at the wolf man's face. This was it! This was how they beat the-- oh the chain snapped.

Simon looked disappointed about the whole thing.

"That was my mother's chain..." He mourned.

Silent howls greeted the arrival of energy fastballs striking the flanks of several spectral hounds. Dismay and confusion and a lot of flinching infected the hounds and it seemed that Mic Stand Warrior managed to do the rest. Zek saw several hounds shatter into sublimating wisps of green.

And then the guy charged a...a werewolf? “What the--” Zek said. Like, granted, it was thematic and all, so points for that, but like, come on! Glowing energy dogs weren’t enough?! And the short little singer dude was some kind of hardcare metal fool for taking the wolf-dude on. Zek would’ve absolutely watched and applauded if he hadn’t been on the clock.

I am definitely bringing this up when my performance review comes around.

Guitar Hero was losing quick though. And a last-second savior also failed.

“Looks like I’m up to bat, then.” Zek said. He was only about a dozen feet away. Easy-peasy.

Zek hopped up on a chair and, taking advantage of the lycanthrope’s momentary off-balanceness, Zek launched a ball that swallowed the man up.

He shouted to the other guys, “You guys okay? ‘Cause I’m about to bring him back, so you may wanna get away or get ready to hit. Three...two…” Zek threw a red orb toward the ceiling. About twenty feet up, it turned into a table. A suddenly falling table. He threw another red orb at the floor in the middle of the space between him and the other guys, right under the falling table. The wolf guy reappeared two feet in the air and at a 45 degree angle, his face closest to the floor.

“...one!”

Yeah, he could’ve just kept the guy in storage indefinitely, but where was the fun in that?

Simon shouted "What the hell is this? Dungeons and Dragons!? He just freakin' cast Banish or whatever and now the guy is coming back!?"

"I-- what the hell, Simon? Why are you so NERDY?" Danny couldn't. He just couldn't even. But he could hit the wolf dude, when he came back. It seemed his hero had shown up, after all. Pity. He'd been hoping for a gorgeous girl. Perhaps some leggy breathtaking blonde who could speak with animals? She could have waltzed in, and spoken softy and caused all the ghost wolfies to turn on their summoner. But hey, a handsome guy was OK too!

He could think the guy was handsome. Plenty of the lady folks in the crowd obviously did. And he was even more handsome, for his heroism. Alvin, as one noteworthy individual, would probably be asking for the guy's number after this whole mess was over. But-- for the moment, Danny focused on just the ONE thing. The wolf. And not the fact that his band member was probably going to be relying on him to be his wing man, once this was all said and done.

And for the moment-- If Simon hadn't shouted about Dungeons and Dragons crap, he would have thought the person had been vaporized. But banishment was cool too, right? Sure. He could almost pull that off with non-living things.

The guy counted down, and--

hey, the table trick was pretty cool. If only Danny could have pulled that stuff off. Oh wait, he actually could. This was... so lame. But he had to do it. As the table and the guy fell, he dove for his bag on the ground nearby. Rooted around inside it, and pulled out his guitar pick. He sighed. Alas, it had been a good guitar. But-- maybe it would serve them one last time in getting him a little attention and a gig? Or at least, it'd help save all of their bacons.

The guy fell. The tables slammed down on top of him. He cursed. He cursed some more. Danny flipped the pick in the air and caught the electric guitar. And then, he turned and let out a scream. Smashed the guitar into the back of the wolf man guy's head.

The guitar shattered. Wolf man crumpled. Simon ran up a moment later, and kicked wolf man in the huevos rancheros. "That's for being a douche!" He shouted. Then, he adjusted his glasses and stepped back, suddenly self conscious. "Not that... there's anything wrong with douches." He mumbled quickly. Under his breath.

The guitar had broken. And when it had, the guitar pick had separated from it. It had landed on the floor. Danny bent and picked it up. It was his lucky pick. He stuffed it hastily into a pocket.

"So yeah." He said, and turned back to the crowd as the green ghost wolfs... whatever remained of the green ghost wolves, that is... disappeared. "We were Hunter's Moon. Thank you, and good night."

The wolfman smashing into the floor face-first was expected. Planned, even. As was watching the table come crashing down on him. What Zek hadn’t planned was the lead singer of Hunter’s Moon pulling a guitar out of nowhere and smashing it into the dude’s head. By that point, there wasn’t much fight in the guy.

There was absolutely no fight when the Guitar Fighter played kick the can with wolfman’s cannolis. Zek immediately winced in sympathy, then smiled devilishly in delight.

And the wolves vanished. “Woohoo!” Zek shouted. Various sounds of relief could be heard around the big ol’ room. Not that it really sounded too different, since none of the hounds had made any sounds. But now people could step back and take a breath.

Zek turned to the guy who’d landed the finishing blow. “Nice move, man,” he said. “I’d say that performance of yours was a smash hit.” He gave the guy a thumbs up and then lobbed a couple of golden balls at wolfman and the table. Both vanished. “Alright, now he’s taken care of.”

And not a moment too soon.

“Zek!” Janine’s voice clearly cut through everything. Somehow she still looked as sharp and perfectly poised as ever, still brandishing her clipboard but having relinquished her chair. Which, Zek noticed, was positioned perfectly at its original table.

“You have the singer?” she asked. It came out more like a confirmation, like she was checking off something she already knew.

“Yes ma’am,” Zek replied, raising his voice. “Got one of his band mates, too.” Speaking of. Zek glanced back to where Wild Hunt had been. There were two guys standing by their table, looking a combo of shocked, embarrassed, and resigned. There should’ve been a third guy, but he was nowhere to be seen. Jim was making his way over to them.

Janine nodded sharply and turned back to David, who pulled out a phone and started tapping on it before putting it to his ear. Then she started making her way over to Raisin Crane, all of whom were looking scattered and disoriented. Hell’s Angles were still calmly seated behind their fire-shape fortress.

Zek glanced back at the members of Hunter’s Moon. “Sooo, yeahhhh,” he drawled. “Thanks for the assist,” he said jauntily. “I can’t promise we’ll do this every night, but you never know. Personally, I’m rooting for you guys to get the gig and not just because you pull things out of air, too.”

Their gig lady, she was impressive. Untouched, despite the hectic, befuddling, mind-muddling nature of whatever the hell they'd just went through. Prim, primped, proper. Professional. Much like the guy she employed. The one who had once again made the wolf man vanish.

How had he even changed, if he wasn't a mutant? Danny knew nothing of M, or any of that. Why would he know about drugs that made you into a mutant? That didn't sound very fun at all, as far as recreation was concerned. Seemed like it would be more trouble than it was worth. And to think, he could have simply gone away and gotten drunk... now that the guy had made him vanish again... probably under lock and key, so to speak... it seemed more and more unlikely he would be able to go for a brewski, or engage in any other recreational activites, for the foreseeable future.

"Freaking idiot." He muttered. "Should have just gone home and figured out where he'd gone wrong in the set. Then tried again later... yeah. No problem." He added, looking to the guy. "I'm just glad I was able to help." Usually, rushing into danger wasn't in his wheelhouse. But he wasn't going to announce THAT! It vastly diminished his aura of cool.

"So. He's probably going to jail for all of this. After it's over. Assault and destruction of property." At least, for some of it. The table that had fallen on him. That had not been his fault. "Interesting trick, with the table. And the-- what, vaporization?"

"Transport to alternate dimensions." Simon chimed in helpfully. "Like a goddamn Pokeball. So cool!"

"So cute!" a voice came from behind them. Danny glanced that way. A man in a neat black suit with white shirt and black tie stood there. Alvin, back from the shadows. Looking nice with his lightly spiked hair and his Indie charm.

Danny arched an eyebrow.

Alvin added. "The Pokemon thing. If that's what it was. I mean. I saw it. And. Wow. You made that guy go poof! And the wolves. Looked like it hurt though, question mark? And Pokemon are cute. Like Pikachu." A lopsided smile slid across his face. "Wouldn't mind to have a Pikachu."

"Alllllvin!" Danny sighed. "We're kind of in the MIDDLE of something, here?"

Alvin only smiled.

There was a click. Simon let out a eureka! "Looks like the chain wasn't so broken after all!" He slipped it back on over his neck. As they stood there, the other bandies began to congregate nearby. Isabelle was combing her hair. Fighting wolves gives loads loads of tangles.

It was time for Zek’s compliment to be returned. But for once someone else managed to sneak in a word edgewise before Zek himself could. And then another person managed to do it after the first guy finished! Zek barely managed to keep a nonplussed look off his face. They were stealing his shtick!

And they were talking about Pokeman or something. Off hand, Zek couldn’t remember what that was, although it did sound like some kind of reggae band. And nothing else made sense.

So he did what he normally did when he had no idea what was going on - he baldfaced lied and went along with it.

“Yep, alternate dimensions,” he said agreeably. “Fresh out of Pikachus though.” Whatever that was. And as the Musical Wolf-Slayer began to get annoyed (a state Zek generally enjoyed people in) Zek winked at the reggae-obsessed guy. “Nice suit, by the way.” Zek flashed the guy a prize-winning smile and then shifted attention back to the singer.

“Let me guess,” he said. “You shrink things and right-size them on command?” Zek had caught some kind of motion before the guitar appeared, but there weren’t any convenient lights or manifestations to clue him in on what happened. Sometimes he wished his own power was more subtle, but then he remembered the shock value that typically occurred when people thought he vaporized things. Which could cause its own problems, which could also be super fun.

As Zek spoke, he lobbed an orb back where he’d first encountered dogs. His aim was off a few feet, but it was good enough that when he released the table it was within a few feet of where it should’ve been, falling only a couple of inches through the air. Probably good as new.

Alternate dimensions?

“Wow!” Danny chimed in.

Simon was disappoint. No pikachus. Meanwhile, Alvin was also disappoint. No peeks, at all.

Everyone was talking at once so it took Danny a second to realize the guy was speaking... to him?

Something about shrinking things?

Then the guy displayed his own power. Danny opened his mouth to explain but decided show was better than tell.

He pulled his lucky pick out. “I combine objects. This was my guitar. It’s...” he looked at his lucky pick again. Upon closer inspection, it was broken. Had been broken. When he broke the guitar on his foe. “... not so lucky any more. Must have broken when I broke what it was combined with. Dammit.” He frowned. That was all sorts of sad. He’d have to find a new lucky pick out there.

“They become one. When they break they both break and split into two units. If I had my Fox kit keychain, I could show you a pretty nice first aid kit.” He sighed. Cracked a small smile, the pick was just a thing and he could live without things. But he’d gotten it from someone special. He stuffed it back into a pocket. Maybe he could bronze it or fix it with super glue and keep it for sentimental reasons. Wouldn’t work for anything else, now.

Simon grinned at the guy. “Your powers pretty neat too! Not Pokémon neat but—“

Alvin laughed. “Will you drop the Pokémon? You’re freaking him out.”

Zek stared as the dude demonstrated….absolutely nothing. The pick was a guitar? Zek wasn’t a musician, but that didn’t seem to mesh with what he knew of instruments. But the guy seemed pretty serious about it and somehow it was now unlucky. Zek kept a pleasant smile on his face because it was rude to just trash someone’s beliefs and superstitions. He’d save that for later if he needed.

The smile turned more sincere as the guy explained. That made a lot more sense and Zek didn’t need to slowly edge away from the guy anymore. It sounded really similar to what he himself did, but instead of making glowing balls, this guy just cut to the chase with two different things. “Cool!” he said genuinely. “That must make packing things for a move insanely easy!” At least, that’s how Zek would use it. That’s basically what he did with his balls.

Zek giggled a bit as Alvin called the other guy out. “Nah, I’m not freaking out,” he said easily. “I’m just afraid I don’t know anything about Pokemon.” He winked and ducked his head as if he were actually shy. “I might need someone to...teach me.”

Post battle banter and conversation. Always fun.

Packing for a move? He grinned at him.

“Yeah! I mean, the thing takes on the weight of the thing combined with it and the heavier one takes precedence, but that still would make a big thing so much easier to move right?” He said.

It would, wouldn’t it? Unless it were so big you needed two people to carry it to spread out the weight and divide it. Then, it might make it harder to move, say, a bed. When it was the size of a hamburger. And couldn’t he only do up to a certain weight or size or— okay! He was getting too much into specifics and the best thing here to do was to smile and nod and not burden the man with all the minutiae of his power.

Danny smiled and nodded.

And then they moved on to Pokémon talk and he just sighed.

“Basically,” he cut in over Simon who had brightened up, ready to expose all the details. “They’re things in balls. And they fight for you when you put them out of a ball. Like an anvil from on high. Or a wolf.” And that was the entire premise in ten seconds. Except “it’s a video game and cartoon about collecting critters. Starring a rat. Like Mickey Mouse.”

Simon added “Cuter than Mickey.”

Alvin went off to check on his equipment. He tugged Simon away as he went. “Come on, Romeo.”