THIRTY

The whole drive to the hospital Invulnergirl had been sitting next to Johnny Bubblegum. He’d been unconscious the entire time, the wounds had been too much to bear. He got hooked up to an IV in the hospital and got a private room over there. Nurses and doctors hustled by his bed.

“Those wounds are very bad. We need to give him more blood!”

“We should close up the wounds!”

“That must have been some sharp blade.”

The words of the medical personnel started to blend into a blur for Invulnergirl. She wished she could do something. Then a new voice spoke.

“I came as fast as I could. How is he?”

Invulnergirl’s jaw dropped. The voice belonged to the leader of the Heroic Alliance, the champion known as The Athlete. His costume was a blend of a marathon runner’s outfit and a standard superhero spandex one. His mask covered half his face. There was a huge “A” emblazoned all over his chest. On his back were his telescopic spear and on his arm his throwing discus.

“Athlete? Wow! Uh… He’s not good,” Invulnergirl managed to say.

The Athlete extended his hand. “I heard from the F.S.H.R. you were instrumental in saving his life. Thank you so much.”

She shook it, still in awe. “Yeah. Yeah, kind of I guess. But I shouldn’t have gotten him hurt in the first place.”

“Sometimes there’s now way to avoid us getting hurt. What you do after that is what counts. You’re still very new at this, right?”

“Yeah. Just a couple days of wearing this mask.”

“Well, you already show promise. I wish the other folks of the Heroic Alliance were here, but they’re battling some demons in another dimension. In a way I was lucky to have been captured by Doctor Mozart when they went over there. Now I’m at least still on Earth.”

“You got captured by Doctor Mozart?”

“Yeah, not a big deal. I escaped without too much trouble. Those deathtraps of his are usually easy enough to escape from after some tries. Mozart got away I’m afraid.”

“Oh… All right…” Invulnergirl just couldn’t believe how relaxed The Athlete was about that. It sounded pretty worrying to be in the deathtrap of a big name supervillain like that. Would she ever become that confident?

The Athlete walked over to one of the doctors. “Hey, doc. How is he?”

The doctor was as starstruck as Invulnergirl had been. “Err… Not good. He’s losing a lot of blood still. We will stitch it up but there seems to be some damage to his lungs and liver.”

“We should give him some of this special bubblegum. That really speeds up his healing,” The Athlete said.

“He’s out of gum,” Invulnergirl told the experienced hero. “That’s more or less how he got into this condition.”

“Then we’ll have to get some of it,” The Athlete said.

“You have some?”

“Not exactly. I know someone who does, though. Getting it won’t be without danger though.”

“Then let me help you.” There didn’t seem to be much Invulnergirl could do anymore in the hospital.

The Athlete mulled over that. “Not sure if you should go with me. This can get really dangerous for someone with so little experience.”

“Listen, I’m not called The Indestructible Invulnergirl for nothing! Nothing can hurt me, so there will be no danger for me.”

“Indestructible?” The Athlete echoed.

“Let me show you,” she said and took a syringe from a hospital cart. She jabbed the needle in her hand. It didn’t pierce it.

“We’re not going to take on someone with just needles,” The Athlete said. “Have you ever heard of The Hoarder?”

“I read something about him, yeah. He collects and sells superhero memorabilia, right?”

“Something like that. He is responsible for suppling a lot of supervillains with the most advanced kind of weaponry and magical items. That means he has a lot of weapons he can test your invulneralibitly with.”

“Anything to save Johnny,” Invulnergirl said.

The Athlete smiled. “You really sound like a superhero already.”