Hero Pt. 2

When Bolt answered the door he was in his underwear, exposing a tanned, toned torso that made Ed feel uncomfortable. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he was on the verge of asking Bolt for a favour he would hear about until the end of all time, he also had to do it while Bolton looked fantastic.

Bolt didn’t even say anything. For a long moment the two men just stood staring at one another – though Bolt’s look was closer to a glare, thanks to the gritty sleep in his eyes.

Finally Bolton said, "You can look, but you can’t touch." There was none of his usual obnoxious spirit behind his words. He was clearly very tired.

"Do you always sleep in your tighty-whiteys?" Ed figured helping him out would be too good an opportunity to pass up, so he could give Bolton as much flack as he wanted without negative repercussions.

"Only after I bang someone."

"Ah. Feel free not to fill me in on the details."

"It was two chicks at once tonight. That’s why I’m so tired—"

Partway through Bolt’s second sentence, Ed cut in. "I need your help." He’d rather ask for Bolton’s help than hear more of the tale.

"At two in the morning?"

"Clearly, if I’m asking you for help, it’s going to be urgent. I only have twenty-four hours to save Francine, and it’s not like I’m a real hero-type. But you were a destined and everything, right? You’ve had training. You’ve got the personality. And the energy. I can hardly walk up a flight of stairs anymore. Come on Bolt. You gotta help me."

"What’s wrong with Francine?"

"I’ll explain on the way." Ed shifted his feet anxiously. "Come on! Put some pants on and let’s go!"

"Ed, I’m really tired. You might have heard: I just banged two chicks at once…"

"Bolton. This isn’t some horse shit. You have to help me save Francine’s life."

"Listen. I don’t even know what’s happening here. Can’t you make Rook do it?"

"No. I convinced him to OD on sleeping pills (here Bolton nodded and said, "wise move") and he won’t be awake for probably a day. And then it’ll be too late. And Francine’ll be dead. And it’ll be your fault. And I’ll be a dick to you forever because of it."

"I’m hardly even a hero anymore, old man. That’s why I’m here." Bolton moved his hand towards the doorknob, so Ed stopped the door with his foot.

"You just slept with two chicks at once. I’m fairly certain that makes you a hero to most guys. Even I’m impressed, in a grossed-out way."

Bolton rolled his eyes. He crossed his arms. He seemed thoroughly done with the conversation. Ed had never seen him act this way. He must have been truly tired. It almost didn’t seem like he was talking to Bolton Win at all.

"Listen, old man. I’m actually tired. You can stand here all night with your foot against the door. I’m going to sleep."

Ed grabbed Bolton by both shoulders and tried to look down at him, but Bolton was taller than he was. "Bolton: If you help me save Francine, I will allow you to sleep with her." It was an easy enough bargain. Francine’d never do it anyway.

Bolt looked at him with a flicker of mischief in his eyes. He smiled his lopsided smile. "Like you could ever stop that from happening, old man." He told Ed he’d send the girls home and get dressed.

They left the house behind the two women and Bolt fell into step beside Ed. The old hero filled Bolton in on the situation and asked him what the plan was.

"The plan?" Bolt raised an eyebrow and took on an air of superiority. "Well, we gotta find out where these guys are, right?"

"Right." Ed tried to quicken their pace, thought they did not yet have a destination.

"And this shit is all Rook’s fault, right?"

"Yeah, pretty much. But we can’t ask him about it. He’s fairly comatose, remember."

"Don’t worry; that’ll only work to our benefit. Come! To your house!"

They turned down an alley that Bolt assured him was a shortcut, though the time of their trip lengthened when they had to hop a fence. Ed wasn’t much of a climber.

Inside the house, Bolt asked, "Where’s your roommate’s room?"

"You can’t get in. He padlocks the door." Ed sat in a kitchen chair and caught his breath. Picking up the pace hadn’t been the best idea.

Bolt put his hands on his hips and stared down at Ed. "What the hell is wrong with you that makes him padlock the door?"

"Nothing’s wrong with me," Ed told him, too tired to have his temper flare. "Rook’s just crazy. He was a spy in his twenties, he got caught and they did a bunch of experiments on him. He’s paranoid, and apparently his pupils won’t undialate. Something like that. He told me once."

"Fascinating." Bolt was down the hall investigating the lock and looking completely uninterested in Ed's explanation. "Does he bar his windows, too?"

"Yeah."

"Figured." Bolton bit his lip. It looked great when he did.

“What are you gonna do?” Ed asked. Bolt was taking too long already. Plus, sometimes, he got a little bitter when Bolt looked good doing something so insignificant.

“I’m not sure. We’re not allowed to have weapons here, so I can’t cut it open with an axe or anything.”

“Don’t you know some epic fighting moves? I thought you fought your way to victory.”

Bolt gave him a tired look. “That was a long time ago, old man.”

Ed rubbed his face with a hand. “Bolton, if you don’t do this soon--”

“Then Francine’ll die, bla, bla, bla. I know. Believe me I know. You told me already.” He sighed. “I guess there’s something I could try...”

Ed smiled at him. “Yeah?”

Bolton crossed his arms and looked thoughtful. “It, you know, should work. Maybe.”

Ed felt his temper flare. “Bolt!”

Bolton told him to hush. Then he stood with his nose touching Rook’s door. He let out a low hum in the back of his throat and took a big step back. He lifted his right arm straight up, and his left arm spun in circles. Ed blinked at the bizarre display. Bolt stopped humming, and the house fell silent for nearly a minute, save for the swoosh of his left arm.

“Ed, come here,” he said.

Ed did as he was told. Bolton almost never used his actual name: this was serious.

“Stand in front of me, go in from my right.” Bolt’s voice sounded almost strained, as if he were trying to save as much energy as he could. Ed did as he was told.

Bolton stopped swinging his arm. He took a hold of Ed’s head. Suddenly his lips were next to Ed’s ear, and when he asked, “Do you trust me?” it tickled.

Ed was only able to respond with an, “Umm,” before Bolton slammed Ed’s head into the door, right next to the padlock. To his surprise, it didn’t hurt at all, and not a splinter got into his skin. The door exploded open, though, revealing Rook’s room. It was covered in magazine clippings and newspaper articles, full of chests of drawers and desks, and right in front of Ed was Rook’s bed, with his roommate sleeping on it.

“What the fuck, Bolt?” Ed screamed, even though Bolton’s trick hadn’t hurt at all.

“Don’t wake your roommate,” was Bolton’s answer.

“What is wrong with you?”

Bolt shrugged. “It’s a real technique. The arm waving was a personal touch, though.” He began to chuckle. “I can’t believe you let me, though.”

“I didn’t know what you were--”

Bolton put his finger to his lips and pointed to Rook.

Rook was drooling on his bed, dead asleep, as if the two men hadn’t just made enough noise to wake up a neighbourhood right outside his room.

“Let’s get to it,” Bolton said. "Handsome fella, isn’t he?" He joked, leaning in to look at Rook’s strange red-orange hair, his dry lips, and his pale face that was cracked and creased beyond its years thanks to torture and experiments. Then he stood and rummaged around the room. Ed looked over his shoulder to see if he could find anything Bolt missed. After almost an hour of searching Rook’s closet and drawers, looking for safes under posters and knocking at floorboards, the two once-heroes were at a loss.

"Let’s check under his bed." Ed had said this four times already, but Bolt refused to give the idea merit.

"Don’t be dumb, old man. You’ll wake him up."

"Bolton, he slept through a man smashing his door open with his face, then screaming about it. I’m not even sure he’s still alive at this point." Ed walked towards his roommate’s bed.

Bolt stepped in front of him. "But if we do find anything important it’ll probably be booby-trapped."

"He’s not a killer, Bolt. He’s just neurotic."

"You don’t know that. Who knows what he used to be back on his home planet."

"A spy. An intelligence guy. A hired geek. Besides, the knock at the door was probably meant for him. He has nothing to hide." Ed shoved Bolt aside. The young man stood his ground for a moment, but a quick poke to the ribs got him out of the way fast enough. It wasn't incredibly manly, but it worked.

There was a little wooden box under his roommate’s bed with a lock keeping it firmly shut. Luckily, Ed was a terrible roommate, and he had figured out Rook’s combinations long ago. He tried two and failed, but on the third try he heard the lock click open.

"There we go," he whispered. All the while he had kept Bolt back with a fatty arm; he would not relent that Rook was some kind of murder machine, and kept shouting that Ed shouldn’t be opening the box in the first place.

Ed gave the handsome man a shove and stood up. There was only one thing in the box: a lightly folded piece of paper. Ed opened it slowly, in some ways afraid of what it would tell him. Perhaps their mission was impossible, or the information it relayed just wouldn’t help. Nothing said this had anything to do with Francine's kidnappers. Bolt had simply put the idea in his head.

The words on the piece of paper could not have confused him more. He gasped, then grunted, then lifted an eyebrow, having absolutely no idea how to feel. Bolt looked over his shoulder, suddenly curious, asking, "What’s it say, what’s it say?"

"It says:

"To Edward: Bring the goods or you know what’ll happen." He turned to Bolt. "Shit. How are we gonna save Francine? We don’t even know what these goods are. What are the goods?" He felt a terrible turning in the pit of his stomach.

"Well, that’s not the real problem here," Bolt told him. "Think of it this way, Ed: we’re not supposed to have weapons on this planet. So there are no guns, no swords. They’d probably be unarmed, or armed with like, steak knives. So we have a huge fighting chance to overcome them. You said there were two voices at your door -- the odds are even, even if you’re clearly not a fighter anymore. The issue is this: where do we find these guys? Until you know that, there’s literally no way I can help you further. I’m not a trained detective. I’m a trained ass-kicker. If anything, you’d be the brains here. Mind you, that doesn’t give me a lot of hope."

"Oh, screw you," said Ed. "Clearly, I’m much smarter than you think." He had seen the pen marks through the paper before Bolt began his speech. Ed flipped the paper over to reveal the words ‘123 by the shoreline’.

There were no street names on the planet: there weren’t enough inhabitants. You simply looked for the house number and the area the house was in. Ed’s place was usually some variation of 43 on the beach, or 43 on the coastline. Bolt lived at 172 near the meat store. There were almost only houses by the sea, houses by shops, and houses next to the jungle.

"Well shit, Bolt. That’s right down the street from here." Ed’s stomach was unknotting.

"Seems almost too easy."

"Really? Ed was heading towards the door. "I thought maybe they wanted to make it easy, because they don’t want to kill anyone, and just want their goods. But why is it addressed to me?"

"Rook set you up, I’m betting," said Bolt, giving the scrawny man a suspicious look. "Or he was willing to throw you to the dogs to save his own ass. Either way, he screwed you."

"Heh," said Ed, who was already trying to decide which direction house 123 was in.

"That’s it? Just ‘heh’? Old man, he left you hanging, and now your girlfriend could die. And all you gotta say is ‘heh'?"

"Well, yeah. There are moments when Rook shows a lot of brains, and I could see how he used to be an intelligence guy. But for the most part I theorize that they did a lobotomy on him at some point. He’s just not … right. At any rate, I’m always frustrated at that moron for something, so I figure I’ll just add this to the list. Getting mad doesn’t help me find Francine. Speaking of which, let’s find that house."

He left the room. Bolt trotted out behind him, reminding him to leave prepared.

Ed grabbed knives and forks. Since two men lived in Ed’s house, there weren’t many special, or in this case particularly useful utensils in the house, but Bolt said the fact that they felt well-armed would prepare them for the mission to come. Ed could certainly agree with that. He hadn’t felt so prepared for a fight since his soldier days, and he was not even sure if a fight was to be expected. He could only imagine that Bolt was exaggerating how heroic they would have to be. In Ed’s mind, they would probably only have to explain the mix-up, or figure out what the thieves wanted and find a way to give it to them.

Clearly Bolton disagreed, for as they made their way down the street – keeping a good pace in case the men were doing disgusting things to Francine – he tried to explain battle tactics to Ed. "I think I should sneak in around the back, because I’m figuring you’ll find a way to make a lot of noise", "if you throw the fork with your wrist pointed like this, at an angle, the head will always point forward", and "just remember, if one of us deserves to make an awesome speech at the moment of revenge, it’s me. You can go help your lady-friend, I guess, and explain what she owes me". Ed hardly heard any of it. He was simply too excited to be Francine’s hero. A real hero.

But once they got to the house, Ed’s stomach felt like it would fall out of his ass. Both men’s jaws dropped as they read the sign on the door.

Of course we’re not here. We thought you’d be smarter than that, Edward. Use the dream message.

"Dream message?" Bolt bit his lip thoughtfully. It still looked fantastic. "Sorry, old man, I got nothing to tell ya." He turned on his heels. "It was worth a shot."

But Ed knew what it meant. He just hoped they could get there in time. He grabbed the sexy hero by the shoulder. "Oh, no, no, no. I still have need for you. Do you know your way around the jungle?"

"Only about the first three miles in." He gave Ed a suspicious look. "What do you know?"

"'The man in the dream said to go to into the jungle and find the Pond of Love'. I heard Rook saying it to himself one time. Do you know where that is? The Pond of Love?"

"Yeah," Bolt said. "But it’s a huge journey. To make it across town we’d have to use a cart. And then we’d have to go through the swamps. The Pond of Love is just a small pond that’s shaped like a heart. Lots of plunderers and drug dealers hide out there because it’s out of the way, but not enough that they’d have to wait for days for someone to get there."

"How long does it take to get there?"

"Well, for someone like me, maybe four, five hours. I’m not sure you’d be up to it at all. It takes physical strength, cunning, and not weighing too much."

"I’ll make it." Ed walked over to a skinny green pole across the street. These were streetlamps, but they also had another use. There was a little red button on each, and when it was pressed a cart would come to pick the presser up. There were no cars on this planet; there was hardly any point. But children of heroes could get well-paying jobs picking people up and carrying them to their destinations in carts drawn by the powerful but unintelligent reptilian beasts that inhabited the planet.

Bolt ran across the street after Ed. "Listen, Eddie, I really don’t think you can make this trek. At least not in time."

"Do you want to go alone?"

"No, not really. I don’t go into that jungle often, and they tell us it’s safest to go with a buddy.

"Listen, Ed. Why don’t you just give up? There are other people to befriend on this planet."

Ed could have smacked him. "Bolton, I don’t care if there were a thousand people worth knowing on this stupid planet. Francine is my best friend -- a sweet, well-meaning person. And I know if anything happened to me, she’d come looking for me. I need her to be happy. And she certainly doesn’t deserve to die from some goddamned mix-up. And I just can’t have her raped by idiot criminal wannabes. I can’t live knowing I could have prevented these things. Bolt, if there’s ever anything I had to do in life, it’s this. I’m not even a real hero. My good deed was practically a mistake. Maybe this is why I’m on this planet. To save Francine."

A shiny metal cart pulled up in front of them, led by two reptilian beasts that drooled pathetically.

"You’re a real hero, though. And I need your help," said Ed. Bolton looked as if he were going to say something once, twice, but nothing came out. "Are you going to help me, or not?"

Bolton sighed and ran a hand over his face. "Well, if I can’t stop you, you’re definitely going to need me." He climbed into the cart behind Ed. Ed told the driver their destination, and they were off.



It only took the crocodile-like creatures ten minutes to haul Ed and Bolton to the outskirts of the jungle. Once they were there the slobbering beasts yanked at their yolks and grumbled to be set free, to meander through the trees once more.

Ed and Bolt hardly had time to thank the taxi driver and give him a food voucher each before they were off into the jungle. It started out as thick grass and light flora, but within only a couple minutes of walking the trees were tall and thick-trunked and exotic, and the grass came up to their knees, with some random pieces even tickling their chins. The foliage made the trek tough; each step was an effort, and the men had to watch out for where they were stepping, as tree roots and rocks were well-hidden but common.

Eventually they reached the bizarre portion of the jungle. They saw plants that came in hues of pink, blue and yellow, which would open their mouth-shaped petals and sing like birds. They saw shrubs that had eyes. They saw trees that moved very slowly – one stroked Ed’s leg gently as he walked past. It was a very nice sensation, though he could only assume it was meant to feel nice so that the tree would have the opportunity to eat him. He moved on quickly, and with a shiver.

About an hour and a half into the trek they paused to catch their breath. Ed was thirsty but they had yet to reach the swampy portion of the jungle. Bolton, who did not seem the least bit phased by their trek, found water in the leaves of some trees, and it tasted very slightly like the smell of flowers. Ed drank it gratefully, and splashed a bit on his face to get the burning sweat out of his eyes.

"Are we making good time?" he asked Bolton.

"Well, you have twenty-four hours to save her, old man. So yes. I usually clear the ground we covered in forty-five minutes and it’s been over an hour, mind you. And the swamps are usually a pretty slow journey. I don’t bother to go through them a lot; I’d rather work out in my room than venture through sticky, smelly, shit-infested waters. But I know two things: First, we can’t raft through the swamps because they swallow heavy stuff. And second, it’s safest to walk near the middle of whatever river we choose to use. You sink much less easily that way."

"How do we avoid the shores to get to the middle?"

"We float on our backs. It’s a very sticky, wet, smelly situation. If you wanted to turn back now, Ed, I would never blame you. The swamps are awful. I mean, you didn’t seem to enjoy the jungle very much. And that’s just the jungle." Ed could tell Bolton was sincere; he hadn’t even called him old man. And he hadn’t made some kind of joke after he used the words sticky, wet and smelly. But there was simply no turning back.

"No, no. This has to be done. I just appreciate you coming along."

"Well, once you know what to expect, it’s not so bad," Bolton told him.

Within the hour this would turn out to be terribly untrue.

They lay down on the banks of the river and Bolton pushed Ed into the water – though to feel it, it seemed more like mud. Then Bolt followed, making a face as the gross liquid sank into his pretty blonde hair, wormed into his ears, and covered the borders of his face. Ed figured he felt the same way Bolton’s face looked. It was a terrible feeling.

Following Bolt’s example, Ed used his arms to very slowly, very carefully propel himself into the middle of the river. It felt more like he was pushing through a crowded street in a downpour than anything else.

Suddenly Bolt was standing over him, frowning. "I fucking hate this fucking river of fucking shit." He didn’t seem quite as collected as he had while they had rested. He wrung his hands with each other to try and get the sticky river residue off, but it hardly did a thing for him. "Fucking ew," he muttered as he gave Ed a hand. As Ed stood, the slimy quicksand slid down his clothes: into his shoes and his pants. He squirmed.

"Let’s get through this," Bolt said, slowly taking a step forward through the river, then another. Ed followed his lead once more. Walking slowly was tiring and awful and every second seemed like an hour: an hour too late to save Francine.

They followed the river for perhaps forty minutes. Bolt said there were dangerous things on land, so they kept in the river until it forked around a triangular island. It was on this island that they would find the Pond of Love.

Both men were breathing hard now, and Ed’s legs ached from the act of walking slowly.

‘We have to climb up the bank now,’ Bolt told Ed. He had stopped and placed his hands on his hips. The quicksand came up to his knees, and as he stood he sank. But it felt so good to stand still that Ed didn’t bother to move, even as he saw Bolt slowly disappearing, millimetre by millimetre. What’s more, the bank was a steep cliff, and Ed did not look forward to the climb.

"Are you sure there isn’t somewhere less steep if we keep going?" He did not want to keep going. But he also didn’t want to climb that cliff. He probably couldn’t. Not at this point in his life, or ever.

Bolt sat and thought about this. "Well, it’s worth a look. We’re ahead of schedule. It’s probably only two hours’ walk through the jungle once we’re up."

They continued on, and ten minutes later they found a part of the shore that looked more like a hill than a cliff. It was still awful to climb, and Ed was sure he was ten pounds heavier thanks to the mud all over his body. When they made it to the top, the two men flopped down in the grass. It was strange grass: slightly more fluorescent in colour than Ed was used to. Bolt stood to get his bearings and collect more water from leaves.

As he did, Ed focused all his thoughts on a single blade of grass, trying to take his mind off the ache of his body.

He noticed that the grass moved. Not like when the wind blows on a blade of grass, but in the way a worm moves in the cold: there was life to it, beyond that of your typical vegetation. Suddenly, but rather slowly, it twirled; curled, then uncurled.

Ed found himself smiling despite his current woes: it was just so intriguing and bizarre. "Bolt, you hafta see this," he said, his voice hardly more than a whisper in wonderment. "The grass is … dancing. It’s alive."

Bolton was climbing a tree trunk. At Ed’s words he froze. He barely got to say, "Shit," before a vine whipped out from the treetops above them and gripped Ed’s ankle. In seconds he was dangling in the air, six feet above the magical grass. In one smooth motion all the mud that had covered Ed’s body and stuck in his clothes slid down him, covering him in muck all over again. It landed with a soft, squishy thud on Bolton, who was now standing below Ed, looking up.

"Bolton!" Ed called down. "Bolton, what the hell happened? This rope’s really tight! Get me down!"

Bolt wiped slime from his face and muttered curses under his breath. "That’s not a rope, Ed. It’s … it’s a vine. From a carnivorous tree. It’s going to start sucking you up through little openings soon."

"Don’t let that happen!"

"I… I don’t know how." Bolt ran around frantically, looking around the jungle floor. "I don’t know what to do."

There was a sharp, stabbing pain in Ed’s ankle. He began to panic. "What do you mean, you don’t know what to do? Get something sharp maybe … or find out where the vine goes. Or something!"

Suddenly Bolton screamed. There was a sharp, husky sound next to Ed’s left ear, and when he turned to see what the sound had come from, Bolt was there, dangling by his own ankle as a vine wrapped around his leg. The pain in Ed’s ankle deepened.

"I think it’s started to eat me! Come on!"

But Bolton was not listening. He made a choked crying sound in the back of his throat. It was an embarrassingly high-pitched sound, and childlike. Bolt swung wildly from the vine, clawing at his ankle. He was struggling, not using his head, not being a hero.

Ed tried to calm his own breathing, but the fact that a trained hero was panicking did not make it easy. His ankle began to burn.

"Bolt!" he yelled, trying to keep his voice as low and manly as possible. If he survived this, he wanted to be able to make fun of Bolt for this, without him being able to say a damn thing back. "Come on, man. You’re the hero of a world. A real hero. Calm down. Your masters must have taught you not to panic like this! Calm down and think!"

Bolt stopped clawing and crying and put his head in his hands. He still swung slowly. "I’m not a hero," he muttered.

Ed was positive he had heard the young man incorrectly. "Come again?"

"I said I’m no hero, Ed. There was plenty of training but I wasn’t listening. I was too busy telling everyone I was going to be a great big hero."

"But you saved your planet. From the mutated animals. You told everyone that story, it has to be true or we’d find out."

"Yeah? Well you didn’t." Ed had never liked the little fucker. But he had never thought of him as a disgrace. Despite everything Bolton still seemed like a winner. "I’m a worthless, lying asshole, but I’m smart."

"Well, you couldn’t have lied completely. You were delivered to the planet of heroes, where we don’t pay taxes and you get three free massages per year. There has to be some kind of background check." Blood dribbled onto Ed’s face. It must have come from his ankle. "At least, you must know something that’ll get us down from here."

"I don’t know a damn thing."

"We’re going to die, Bolt! Come on, think!"

"I think I deserve to die."

Ed sighed. "Well fuck. Maybe you do. But I sure as shit don’t. I was just about to become a badass hero. And I’m not gonna let Francine die." He thought for a moment. Then he used all the strength he had to reach up over his gut to his bleeding ankle. The vine looked like a dark-green tentacle. There were little holes all over the thing, with light green, leaf-like teeth gnashing within them. He poked at the thing, and it bit hard at the air. From the little mouths came little gasps of breath.

Ed let himself fall back down to a hanging position, gasping for air. Blood was rushing to his head and he was feeling ill, but he had a plan.

He reached into the front of his pants. As he did so, he saw Bolton give him a look that seemed much more characteristic of the young man he knew. He pulled out a handful of the mud that had gotten caught on his big stomach. It was gross and warm.

Ed once again did a curl, and with his free hand he grabbed the vine. He immediately felt five or six mouths nuzzle into his palm. He took some mud with his finger and shoved it into one of the little mouths. The entire vine seemed to clench up. The mouth opened wide and the vine swayed a little. Clearly it enjoyed mud in its face as much as Ed did. He covered four of his fingers in the stuff and shoved them into the vine’s mouths. Then he did the same with the mouths nearest his bleeding ankle. The vine began to thrash wildly. Ed managed to shove mud in three more mouths, and the rest he smeared all over the vine in thick chunks.

the vine let go of his leg and he was on the ground with grass winding and unwinding itself all around him. He saw stars for a moment, then his vision cleared and he saw the vine that had tried to consume him writhing in discomfort. There was a crash beside him. He rolled over to see Bolton laying on his back beside him.

"We should probably run," he told the apparent liar.

"Definitely."

"Which way, though?" Ed stood and gave Bolton his hand.

"This way," Bolt said, and he ran. Ed leapt after him, hoping they would not have to run for too long.

"We must be so far behind schedule," he puffed.

"Nah," Bolton told him. "I lied about how long it’d take. I just wanted you to decide not to take this journey since, you know, I’m not a real hero and all. It’s about a half-hour walk through the jungle to the pond, assuming I still remember all the landmarks."

Ed took a big leap so that he was astride Bolton, then he caught him across the chest with his arm. Bolt smacked into it with a grunt, fell to the ground, and gave Ed an annoyed look.

"Listen Bolt, you gotta tell me what the fuck’s going on here. Within the last five minutes you’ve gone from being some prick who was destined for greatness and defeated great evils and even though he annoys the shit out of me, I have to respect that he spent his whole life learning to be awesome so he could save his planet to … well, to just some prick." He was out of breath.

"Fair enough,’ Bolt said with a nod. He stood. "But let’s walk and talk. I have no idea how many of those carnivorous trees are around here." They continued their journey at a slow walk.

"So, I’m a destined," Bolt told Ed. "There are three kinds of hero allowed on this planet: destined, trained and accidental." Ed nodded. He knew this. "Accidentals like you are the ones that populate this planet the most. They accidentally saved the day and can’t handle the fame and fortune. Trained are the ones that are raised to kick ass and save the day or whatever. Like that weird ninja lady who never talks that goes to the Dot sometimes. See, apparently she went against certain rules of her people because she knew that if she didn’t, millions of innocents would die. She was crucified for being a saviour, so she came here.

"Now, think about the destined you usually see on this planet. How many of them are under the age of forty? Not many. The destined are like messiahs. For example, on my planet the scriptures said a child would be born with eyes like the sky to two runaways. He would be superior to his peers in every way. The family would receive seven curses, and the seventh would be that the parents would die on a stormy night. That’s when a master – which is one of the guys who know all the scriptures and beliefs really well – would find the boy and train him to excellence. One day a great evil would fall upon the land and the boy – hardly a man – would save the world. Then he’d become a prophet, never marry or settle into a living space, and he’d teach the world all that he’d learnt and the age of purity would begin. All those things happened to me."

"Damn. Quite the burden on your shoulders."

"You have no idea. Because here’s the thing: the scriptures never indicate when or where this’ll happen, so masters run around finding blue-eyed orphans and they take us to their temples-on-islands and train us our entire lives to be badasses, but also to be prophets. When I was a kid, I could lop off your head with a butter knife from forty-one feet away, and balance on my baby toe under a waterfall for an hour. Then I became a teenager and two things happened: I excelled at everything more than the rest of the possible-messiahs. I also learned that this process of training kids who might be saviours had gone on for thousands of years, and nothing had ever happened yet. So all these kids would be virtuous and never be allowed to listen to music or fall in love or have sex, and they’d just wither away and die. So I stopped trying. I’d sneak out to villages and show off the skills I knew and tell girls I was in training to save the world and shit, but I’d rarely go to training.

"But the master who had found me, Isha-Derrinoh, he had an affection for me. I was like his son. And he saw that even though I never went to training, and I was a shit disturber, I was keeping up with the class; I was best in my classes. I was truly superior. He’d begged me to start acting like a saviour, but I thought he was just trying to keep me in line.

"Then when I was twenty, there was a storm of poisonous rain. It killed every single one of my classmates who were training outside. I myself was inside sleeping. Hours later, these… abominations fell from the sky. Creatures that you couldn’t even imagine. Dog-like things with fur made out of teeth, rodents that bled poison. None of them had eyes, just these elongated black holes. And when they cried, it sounded like children screaming. And they smelt like decay. Nothing could ever be as frightening. They were the essence of fear. And I was the saviour of the world: my job, my life’s work, was to battle them to the death.

So it was me and the masters against a plague of horrors. And I thought I’d be good. I was the messiah; the scriptures guaranteed that I would win. Besides, I was better than anyone. Ever. At anything. So I went out and fought them. And it was awful. It was disturbing and scary and I got beaten shitless, and they just kept coming and nothing could stop them. So I hid. While the masters were off helping me try to overcome the beasts, I ran off and hid under my bed, crying and covered in blood.

"It took two days for Isha-Derrinoh to find me. I told him I was too scared, I couldn’t face that shit. It was just too much. I’d never even paid attention in class; I didn’t actually know the first thing about saving the world. So he did it for me. He battled the most horrifying creatures I’d ever seen, and he climbed a mountain, and he closed their rift to our world. He told everyone he was me afterwards. That one of the creatures had cursed me to be years older than I was. And he took my place as a prophet. Because he loved me, he sent me here, and convinced the planet's government that I had served as a hero in the battle that changed the eras. I just wasn’t a messiah. Which I guess is true in some ways.”

After a moment of silence, Ed realised Bolton was finished speaking, and that he was ashamed. "So you’re the essence of bull shit." He felt some sympathy for Bolt: he was raised to believe he was better than everyone, and turned out to be less than useless. But he was still an asshole and a liar, which had almost gotten Ed killed.

"I am. But I try to tell myself, ‘at least you’re good at lying’."

"Is your name even Bolton Win?"

Bolton laughed. "Fuck no. My name’s Gerrisahnah Meche."

"I really fucking hate you," Ed told him. "I mean, I feel bad for you in a lot of ways. But mostly, I really fucking hate you."

"Yeah." Bolt looked away. "I can see why."

"No, you don’t even get it. All day I thought you were looking out for me. But it turns out you were only looking out for yourself."

"Well, you know how it is with lying. It starts out small enough, then everything about you becomes all about keeping the lie up."

"You should probably stop now."

"Lying? Or talking?"

"Making excuses. But lying too. You can sure as shit stop that."

"Alright. Well, the truth is, with me removed from my planet, I might have caused the end of days." He finally looked at Ed. "And the nice, lovely truth is, I really do get a lot of chicks, just for being me: attractive and charming."

Ed rolled his eyes, but for some damn reason he couldn’t help but smile a little too. At least he had always hated Bolton for who he really was. Even if he had the wrong name all along.

Bolt stopped to take in the features of the land, then told Ed they would continue to the west; he turned right.

"Do you know about super heroes?" He asked Ed.

"Like those legends on some planets about people who get special powers from happenstance?" Rook had mentioned it.

"They're more just fun stories than legends. But yeah, those. Sometimes I imagine what our super powers would be if we were super heroes instead of just heroes," he told Ed without looking back at him. Ed’s ankle was in terrible pain and his pace slowed and slowed. He was thankful for Bolt’s lie about the length of their journey. "Mine’d be lying. Clearly."

There was a pause, then Ed asked, "What would mine be?"

Bolt seemed about to answer, but instead he put his finger to his lips. He motioned for Ed to come closer to him as he crouched behind a big-leafed bush.

"Two criminals and a damsel in distress," he whispered, pointing forward.

In a clearing behind the bush stood two men. One was fat and bald, and gross-looking even from a distance. The other was lean and olive-skinned. They stood talking to a blonde woman who was tied to a chair with her back to Ed and Bolton.

"Francine," he whispered.

"Unfortunately, they haven’t gotten her naked yet," Bolt whispered. He smiled at Ed. Ed frowned back. "It was a joke, Ed. Jeeze."

"How do we save her?"

"Well. We could sneak around and overtake them. Or, we can go for a full assault. Do note, they are armed."

Ed saw two long swords at each of their sides. The criminals must have welded them. They were much more useful weapons than forks and kitchen knives, surely.

He realised how unlikely it would be to just explain a situation to these men. They clearly weren’t smart people: they were criminals in a world inhabited by heroes.

"I guess it’d be best to sneak around," he told Bolt. Just as he said these words, one of the men drew a penknife and slipped it under the shoulder of the woman’s shirt, cutting it with a smile. His mind was instantly changed.

"We’re going in," he told Bolt simply. He reached into his pocket and grabbed what he could: two forks and a knife.

He didn’t even wait for Bolt: he tumbled through the branches in front of him and landed on his face in front of the two criminals. They looked frightened. Ed guessed that they thought he would be something wild and horrifying that the jungle had just spat out at them. As they realised what lay in front of them instead, they smiled at each other.

"Can we help you?" said the skinny one: the voice that had done most of the talking at Ed’s door that night. He was drawing his sword.

"Die!" Ed shouted. It was not cool or witty, but it was efficient. And he timed it perfectly with throwing a fork straight at the man’s forehead.

He did not know what he had been expecting: it was a fork. As it was the thing protruded from the man’s forehead with a bonoinoinoing. At this instant Bolt joined Ed in the clearing. When he saw the situation, he just stood with his arms at his side and his jaw hanging.

Then the man started to scream. His partner ran up and tugged at the fork, but the lean man only screamed louder and batted his hand away.

"Shit, what did you do?" Asked Francine. Except that wasn’t Francine’s voice.

Ed turned to look at her in confusion. This woman was gangly and gawky, skinny, with pasty skin and a tiny, tiny mouth. She was definitely not Francine.

"Wait… Who are you?" he asked her, ignoring the two men who danced around the clearing, trying to get a fork out of a forehead.

"Same ta you." Her voice was grainy, as if her throat needed to be cleared. "Do you know Rook or somethin’?"

‘Y-yes?’ He looked at Bolt, who shrugged back, then continued to watch the two criminals stumble around with amusement. "I live with him."

"So he had to ask his roommate to save his girlfriend? Ah jeeze. Mom was right about the boys I like."

"Girlfriend?" Ed almost choked the word. Not only was Rook having a girlfriend a bizarre, unlikely and mildly disgusting thought, but it answered a lot of questions about the whole night. He just was not sure what the questions were exactly. Right now, all he knew was that he had come out to this stupid jungle to save some woman he did not even know. A woman with terrible taste in men.

"Well, Bolt," he said. "I think these guys have some explaining to do."

"I know I'm confused," Bolt said.

The bigger man, more in control thanks to a lack of fork in the forehead, moved his hand towards his sword.

"No, no," Bolt told him. "Use that sword and you, too will receive a fork to the face." He pointed his fork at the man. "Drop your weapons, in fact." The deed was done.

Five minutes later the five of them sat next to the heart-shaped pond. They had untied Rook’s girlfriend – Mimi – and Bolt had given her his sweater to wear over her ruined shirt. No one could get the fork out of the criminal’s head, but now he only whimpered about it from time to time.

"So who wants to explain why the fuck we’re out in this stupid jungle right now?" Ed asked. "You. The one who’s not crying." He pointed a fork at the ugly man.

"Well, uh," the man thought for almost a full minute. "Your roommate’s name is Rook. And he lives with you. Edward."

"My name’s actually just Ed. Ed is my name."

"Ed." The man nodded. "Well, you see, we’re drug dealers. It’s good stuff, really. Lots of heroes are drug addicts. Maybe they lived like rock stars. Maybe they got addicted to something while they were being tortured, like Rook. And see, he owes us a lotta money. We didn’t know his name, so we looked him up. Turns out he never registered as living in your house. Well, he never wrote his name on his lease."

"Why am I not surprised?" Ed rubbed his temples.

"See, we thought you were him, ‘cause you live at his place. We just had the wrong name. Simple as that."

"How very annoyingly simple," Ed sighed. But then he thought of something. "Not entirely, though. Did you tell him in a dream to meet you here?"

This time the man with a fork in his forehead laughed. "Do you realise how drug-addled your roommate is, Ed? We walked into your house, told him he was dreaming, told him where to meet us. We were just fucking around with him. It’s funny. We called him by your name though, so I guess he thought he was off the hook and this was your problem or something."

"Honestly, I want to kick his ass. But I think I’ll just get him help."

"That’s a good plan," said Mimi.

"Honestly, it’s your story I’d really like to hear," said Bolt. "Explain to me what’s so damn sexy about a scatterbrained, gawky mother fucker like Rook."

"There’s nothing sexy about him. That’s what makes him so great. Grateful people will go the distance to stay with you, because they never really expect to date anyone else."

Bolt nodded. "You’re a smart girl. I don’t envy you. But you’re a smart girl."

"Hey well, he’s spectacular in bed. I’m doubting you put any effort in, pretty boy."

‘Oh, come on…’ Ed muttered to her, covering his ears.

"Wanna find out," Bolt asked. Then he looked her up and down and reconsidered. "Actually, it’s okay."

When Mimi looked hurt, Ed decided to change the topic. "So, what did Rook owe you? Maybe we can work something out."

"Just food vouchers. Quite a lot of them. But if he’s going to rehab… maybe we can let it slide. We don’t have any superiors on this planet or anything," the lean one said. “We’re just the bored sons of some retired heroes."

Bolt shook his head at him. "Man, you guys are shitty, shitty criminals."

"Don’t complain," Ed told him. He slapped his knees and stood up. "Well, we might as well leave," he said. "Come on, guys. Let’s see what awful things this stupid jungle has in store for us this time." He helped Mimi to her feet and Bolton fell in beside them. They left the two criminals to contemplate the fork.



When they got out of the jungle – this time without incident – Mimi called a cart to take her home. She decided she would deal with Rook in the morning.

As she was wheeled off, Bolt asked Ed, "Going home?"

"No," he told the handsome not-hero. "I’m going over to Francine’s. I think I’m gonna ask her out. I figure, if I care enough about her to go through all that shit, I might as well, right?"

Bolt smiled. "Ed if you had a super power, it’d probably be transformation." He gave Ed a genuinely kind look. Then he looked thoughtful. "Wait, but I thought you said I could have a go at her."

Ed’s cart arrived. He climbed onto it and turned to Bolton. "Yeah. I lied." The cart rolled away.



Ed knocked on Francine’s door. When she answered he apologized for coming over so late. And he apologized for being grumpy earlier. And he apologized for what he was about to do. And then he kissed her. He explained to her what had happened that night, and what everything meant to him now. And then she kissed him. And they didn’t stop kissing until morning. And they kept on kissing for the rest of their lives.

Because Ed was Francine’s hero.