(Featuring characters and concepts created by 
Matthew E. Ellis, J. Calton Evans, 
Eric W. Fritzius, C. Marcus Hammack,
James Martin, Billy Moody, Sujay K. Shaunak, 
Christa Sherman and Marcus Vowell)
 

August 8, 1995

    A large mailing envelope lay in approximately the center of the kitchen table of the house on Edgewood Drive.  As far as such envelopes go, it was not an exceptional one, being of the traditional length and width and composed of the kind of white fibrous paper-like material that is nearly impossible to tear unless one is possessed of super-human strength.  Unfortunately for the two people staring at it with hawk-like determination from opposing sides of the table, the only person they knew with super-human strength happened to be out of town. 

    "This is going to kill me," Matthew Ellis said, slumping over onto the surface of the table.  "This is absolutely going to kill me!" 

    "No, I'm going to kill you if you don't stop saying that," Sujay Shaunak said coolly from his equally slumped position on the opposite side of the table.  Both of them were still wearing their costumes: Sujay in the lengthy gray robes of his mentalist, heroic alter-ego, Mobius, and Matthew in the green, pink and yellow day-glo visual nightmare that he wore as the time-altering crime-fighter, Tempo.  He had, at least, thought to remove the bright pink domino mask which he usually wore and it now lay on the table beside a small stack of comic books, mere inches from the envelope itself.

    "Where is he?" Matthew said in frustration.

    "I already told you," Joe Evans said from his place on the living room floor where he was in his natural state, playing a video game on the Super Nintendo.  "Juice and Gauge are still..." He paused his sentence to execute a particularly dexterity-taxing maneuver with the Nintendo's control pad.  "...on patrol.  It's where you two would be if you weren't wusses." 

    "Hey!" Sujay said, unslumping.  "You try wearing this cloak in down town New Auckland this late in the day and then come tell me I'm a wuss!  At least you can turn invisible!  Sunlight goes right through your ass.  You wouldn't even need your Hopscotch costume.  You could fight crime naked!"

    "Who says I don't?" Joe grinned.  Sujay grimmaced back at him.

    "I thought the heat didn't bother you, Mister East Indian Pants!" Matthew taunted.  "You're the one who's always complaining it's too cold when everyone else is sweating buckets."

    "You stay out of this!" Sujay retorted.  "I can't see colors in my left eye because of that gaudy circus suit you wear."

    "You're going blind all right, but it ain't from starin' at that costume," Joe said with a conspiratorial wink in Matthew's direction.

    "Oooooh," Sujay winced.  "That was wrong!  You, sir, are a fat bastard."

    "Why thank you!" Joe said with a big grin. 

    Matthew went to the refrigerator for a soft drink.  Finding none, he settled for milk, which he began pouring into a tall plastic cup.  "You know, I can't help but think that had someone," he said, casting an accusing eye in Sujay's direction, "remembered to put Juice on the mind-link before someone left this morning we wouldn't be having any trouble telling  Juice that he has important mail."

    Sujay stood up, pulled back his hood and frowned at Matthew.  "Someone is so sorry."  He pushed in his chair.  "Someone is now going to go and take off his costume."  He stomped across the living room floor, making sure to flap his cloak in Joe's face in the process before disappearing into the back hallway.

    "I think you pissed him off," Joe said.

    "Yeah, but he had it coming," Matthew said.  He took a big gulp of milk and immediately spat it back out, managing to get most of it in the sink.  He screamed in revulsion. "Ugh!  Does no one buy fresh milk around here?  This stuff is…" he looked at the expiration date, "It went bad in July! "

    "In this place you drinks your milk you takes your chances," Joe said.  "You've been here for two months and you're just now figuring out the milk thing?  Boy you are slow."

    Matthew glowered at him.  "Sujay's right.  You are a fat bastard."

    "Why thank you!" Joe said with another big grin. 

    Matthew threw his cup toward the sink, picked up the envelope and bounded into the living room.  He always seemed to move a little faster than most people¾except, of course, for Bluestreak.  "This is just too cool!" Matthew said staring intently at the envelope's front.  "Don't you think this is cool, Joe?"

    "It's cool, Matthew."

    "I can't stop thinking about it!"

    `I COULD MAKE YOU STOP THINKING ABOUT IT'  Sujay said over his mind-link.

    Matthew screamed and grabbed at the sides of his head.  He immediately rolled his eyes upward, as though looking at his forehead, and held up a finger of warning.  `DON'T EVEN!'  he thought back before severing his connection to the link.  He shook his head for a moment.  "I'm still not used to him doing that."

    "You don't get used to it," Joe said.  He noticed what Matthew was holding.  "Go put that back on the table!"

    "Come on, Joe!  You're just as curious about this as we are."

    "Yeah, but I also know that Juice would climb down my neck with a verbal back-hoe if I so much as broke the corner seal on that envelope.  It's addressed to him and he will be the one to open it."

    "I know, but this is Juice's dream, and all!" Matthew said, standing up to pace the floor.  "It's all he's talked about for two months and now its finally going to happen if he'd just hurry up and get here to open it!"

    "We don't know it's going to happen.  Now why don't you put the envelope back on the table and go change into your civilian clothes like a good little super-hero.  What if the Jehovah's Witnesses were to drop by again?  They probably have a special pamphlet for people who dress like you.  Now go!"  Joe pointed a finger in the direction of the bedrooms.  Matthew begrudgingly walked toward the hallway.   "Leave the envelope!" Joe warned.  Matthew mumbled something uncouth and tossed the envelope toward the couch and walked back to his room.  Joe continued with his video game until his attention span dwindled and then he yanked out the game cartridge and slammed in a different one.  Presently there came a knock at the door.  No one else was around to answer it.  Joe momentarily considered yelling for Sujay or Matthew to come get the door, but decided that the odds of this happening were stacked against him.  He hit pause and got up to answer it himself.

    "Hey Joe, you big smeghead!" said the tall, blond, generally Aryan-looking fellow standing at the carport door.

    "Marcus, you cheese-eating dog!  Get in the house!"  He turned toward the back hallway.  "Hey guys, Marcus is here!" 

    "Prime or Beta?" called Sujay from his room.

    "Beta!"

    "Oh," came the almost  disappointed reply. 

    Marcus gave Joe a confused expression.  "Beta?"

    "Yeah.  We all decided that you're Marcus Beta."

    "Marcus Beta, eh?  So who's Marcus Prime?"

    "Quartz."

    "The guy in the crystal armor I met in Alaska?"

    "That's him.  His real name is also Marcus."

    Marcus looked somewhat less confused. 

    "Hey Beta!" Matthew said entering from the hallway wearing fresh clothes.  "How'd it go at the registrar's?"

    "Amazingly smooth considering the horror stories you guys told me.  I was expecting to have to make a deal with Satan to get in, but they said all my forms were in proper order.  I guess I'm now officially transferred to New Auckland University."

    Matthew grinned and offered his hand to shake.  "Congratulations!"

    "Now all I have to do is move all my stuff down here and I'll be set."

    Matthew picked up the envelope from the couch and began bouncing.  "Did you tell him yet, Joe?  Did ya tell him?"

    "Don't start this again!" 

    "Tell me what?" Marcus asked.

    "About this!"  Matthew said, holding out the envelope.  Marcus took it and looked at the writing on its white surface.  There was the standard postage found on mailings of this size and weight as well as the official post-mark across the stamps and two full addresses, both written in the same sloppy print handwriting.  The one in the envelope's middle was the Edgewood Drive address of one Eric Fritzius, while the upper left portion of the envelope bore the return address of a local publishing company called AC Press.

    "What's this?" said Marcus.

    "The reply to Juice's submission to AC Comics!"

    "AC Comics?  A comic book company, I take it?"

    "Yeah."

    "They don't do Flaming Carrot, do they?  A friend of mine had some of those."

    "I don't think so,"  Matthew said, zipping over to the table to get one of the comics next to his mask.  He zipped back, foisting the book in Marcus's face.  "They do the Avatar book.  Juice wants to write for them."

    "An Avatar comic book?" said Marcus.  "I didn't know you guys had your own comic."

    Sujay was shaking his head as he entered from the back hallway.  "Boy, you must've spent the last few years under a big rock, Beta."

    "Well, I really don't know a lot about comic books," Marcus admitted.

    "How can you be a super-hero and not be a comic book fan?" Matthew said.

    Marcus considered this for a moment.  "Well, I was kind of born with these powers.  I didn't just put on a costume and become Wavefront because I read a good issue of Spider-Man one day."

    "Hmm.  Good point."

    Marcus looked at the cover of the comic he held.  It bore the Avatar logo below which were drawings of several of the team's members engaged in battle with the forces of villainy.  A text blurb on the cover read "Dr. Wasp's Revenge!"  In the foreground a man wearing a dark insect-like costume was holding a gun to the head of an extraordinarily buxom blonde who was wearing what amounted to a red leotard with an impossibly low neckline.  Looking on in horror from the background were Mobius, Juice, Hopscotch, Quartz, Maniac, Bluestreak and part of Thud's arm.

    "Hey!  You didn't tell me we had a babe on the team!" said Marcus.

    "That's Flashpoint," Joe said.  "She's no longer with us."

    "How come?"

    "She was almost killed during a fight with the Mercy Gang and decided to hang it up."

    "Wouldn't need a very big hanger," said Marcus.  "Did she actually look like that?"

    "Well actually..." Sujay began.

    "Oh, yeah," Joe interrupted.  "Exactly like that.  Boy, did you miss out."

    Marcus studied the cover for a few moments more and the opened the book and flipped through it.  After a moment he held up a page and pointed to a place on it that showed a young black man riding a hover-board.  "Who's he?"

    "Maniac," Joe said.

    "Skitso," Sujay said.

    "Gauge," Matthew said.

    Marcus looked confused again.  "Which is it?"

    "What he said," the three said in unison.

    "Uh.."

    "Believe me," Sujay said.  "It's a long story.  I'm not even sure I understand it.  Just get Gauge to tell you about his past lives sometime."

    For a moment Marcus looked as though he was about to embark upon another question but seemed to think better of it and simply said "Uh, yeah."  He flipped through the comic for a while.  "Do you guys see any money from this?"

    "Not directly, no," Sujay said.  "Unlike Mentor's Avatar team, we decided to nail everything down in contracts.  Basically we let AC Press use our names and costumes for the book and they agree not to speculate on our secret identities at all.  In exchange, they have to give 5 percent of the book's monthly sales to one of a big revolving list of charities that we chose."

    "And this works?"

    "So far so good."

    "It also helps to attract some of the big-name talents of the comics field to work on the book," Joe added. 

    "Which increases the sales and the money that goes to the charities.  I get it now," said Marcus.

    "Too bad I'm not in the book yet," Matthew said.

    "You're not?"  Marcus quickly flipped through the book again.  "Hey.  You're not!  What's the matter?  They couldn't get the ink bright enough?"

    "Ha.  Ha.  It just so happens that I've only been with the team for a few months, so I'm not in it yet."

    "How long does it take?"

    "It depends on when the writers want to put you in," Matthew said.  "Juice said it took them over a year to add Bluestreak and then another six months before they added Quartz."

    Joe smacked himself in the forehead suddenly.  "Oh!  Wait just a damn minute!" he said in a less than thrilled tone.  "Now I know why you're so fired up for Juice to open this envelope.  You think that if he gets the job then he'll write you into the book!"

    Matthew appeared very sheepish under the intense glare of the others.  "Well... that's part of it."

    Sujay frowned.  "Making number four on the Worst Dressed in New Auckland list wasn't enough for you?" 

    "Hey!  Lay off with the clothes jokes!" 

    Joe and Sujay were about to respond when they were cut off by Marcus.

    "Oh, and it's suddenly our fault that you dress like a mad Shriner?" Marcus said.  "Where's your fez?"

    "Oooh!" Joe and Sujay sang out.  "Score one for Beta!"

    "Come on guys!" Matthew whined.  "Yeah, okay, I want to be in the book.  But you already have your place in comic-book history.  I just want mine too."

    Sujay, Joe and Marcus exchanged similar grins.  "Freshmen!" they said in unison.

    "You are so wrong!" Matthew said.  "Fat bastards, all of you!"
 

    There was more razzing of this nature at Matthew's expense, but it eventually drew to a close when it appeared Matthew was about to throw a fit.  They knew from experience that Matthew's fits tended to invoke his time altering powers, which could make it a truly slow afternoon for everyone.  Joe went to the kitchen to see if the food fairy had visited his cabinet—she hadn't, despite repeated glances into the pantry.  He opened John's cabinet and stole a bag of Doritos and moved back to the living room, where everyone was seated waiting for Marcus to finish reading the Avatar issue.

    "So what did you think of it?" Sujay asked.

    "It was pretty good, I guess," Marcus said.  "Dr. Wasp seemed like a nasty guy to have to deal with.  Was he that tough?"

    "We don't know," Joe said.  "We never fought anyone called Dr. Wasp." 

    Sujay nodded.  "They made him up."

    "Really?"

    "Yeah.  We tried to tell them about some of our real adventures but the AC Comics people seem to be worried that the real criminals might sue for libel or something."

    Marcus' face contorted in disbelief.  "That seems kind of... stupid, really." 

    "Stranger things have happened.  Believe me."

    "So is there a chance they might let Juice write this?"

    "It will probably be a while before that happens," Joe said.  "His submission script was a Juice solo-story.  They'll probably only use it for a fill-in issue if they're late one month or if the regular writer goes on vacation."

    "Yeah, but if they like his work they might let him write the regular book someday!" Matthew piped in hopefully. 

    "Well, I hope so," Joe said.  "Unfortunately he's got competition like you wouldn't believe.  I mean, if they really need a fill-in issue they get folks like John Byrne to do one."

    "Who's John Byrne?" asked Marcus.

    "Heathen!" shouted Joe.  "Only the greatest comic writer/artist of the past two decades!  We're going to have to educate and convert you to true geekdom before you graduate."

    "I still say Juice should have done what I suggested in the first place," Sujay said.  "He should have submitted the story as if it were written by Juice: The Energy Guy instead of  Eric Fritzius: Unestablished Writer At Large.  They would be crazy not to publish it if it were written by Juice himself."

    "But that wouldn't be based entirely on his writing ability," Matthew said.  "It would be just another sales ploy.  Juice said that if he can do this as an unestablished writer using his real name then he'll have done it on skill alone.  Besides, he's already had one dream dashed this year."

    "Hmm.  Yeah, I guess that's true," Sujay said.

    Marcus raised an eyebrow in Sujay's direction, indicating that he had no idea what any of this was about and that further explanation was necessary and desired.  Sujay took the hint.

    "Eric told us that one of his dreams was to be a disk jockey on the radio.  Well last year NAU started up their campus radio station and Eric went down to be a volunteer DJ.  They seemed to like him a lot because they gave him a four day shifts a week.  Well, everything seemed to be going fine until the weather hit a cold snap, producing dry air just ripe for static electricity, which, as you know, wrecks havoc with Juice's 5thMatter body.  That was already giving him enough trouble until the building's air-conditioning came on causing a power surge in the on-air room equipment which bathed the room in EM energy.  Eric lost stability and his human shape popped, turning him back into Juice.  Luckily this was on his Saturday shift when no one was there to see it happen.  He didn't want to risk it happening when someone was there so he quit."

    "Bummer."

    "And now he has the chance to write comic books like he always wanted.  As Eric," Matthew said.  "He had to give it a go."

    "Do you all always refer to him as though he were two different people?" asked Marcus.

    The three looked at one another.

    "He kind of is," Joe said.

    The smoke detector in the stairwell beeped three times in succession.  To anyone else this would just have sounded like the annoying reminder of an over-zealous smoke-detector whose batteries were in need of replacement.  To the residents of the house, however, it was a signal of impending arrival.

    "Yes!" shouted Matthew, snatching up the envelope from the arm of the couch.  "He's here!  Let him in!"

    Joe was considering the notion of delaying just to make Matthew sweat.  But before he could put his plan into action, Matthew had zipped over to the light switches by the door and flipped up the third switch.  The switch flashed green then went out.  Presently the crawl space door, set into the side of the stairwell, opened partially and a distinct hum could be heard intermingled with shouting. 

    "Dammit Smoky!" came an irritated voice from below.  "Turn it the hell off before I shoot you!" 

    "Just let me fly up the tunnel," called a second, marginally deeper voice.

    "I can't even see the damn tunnel!" screamed the first. 

    Clouds of black vapor were now beginning to seep around the top of the crawl space door.  As the door was opened wider they began billowing out into the stairwell.  An arm swiped out of the darkened hole, momentarily clearing a path through the vapor.  Gauge gave a grunt as he hoisted himself out of the crawl space and got out of the way.  The clouds began to increase in thickness, behind him, in much the same way that the humming sound was increasing in volume.  Then, through the fumes, flew the ebony form of Juice: The Energy Guy.  He kicked the door closed with a passing foot and soared over Gauge's head, into the living room, where he had to suddenly halt his flight to avoid colliding with the four people waiting there.  This resolved itself into a less-then-graceful midair somersault followed by a quick side-float to the left, into the kitchen proper.  He alighted upon the tiled floor and the fumes which had been flowing out of the top of his head ceased to do so.

    "I, uh...  I meant to do that," he assured them. 

    "Sure you did," said Gauge, emerging behind him from the stairwell. 

    Juice was about to attempt a snappy comeback when he noticed that the others were staring at him like four full-bladdered travelers who had just discovered a gas-station attendant with the key to the can. 

    "Uh…what's going on?"

    Matthew stepped forward and held out the envelope to him.  "It came."

    The sections of Juice's face that served to represent his eyes widened in shock.  His mouth section became a grim white line.  He reached out for the envelope and then suddenly jerked back his hands in shock.  "Hold on," he said.  His eye sections squinted into tight lines and he tensed up.  The hum rumbled to life again as Juice's body began to noticeably shrink.  Then his body reshaped itself from its 6' plus height into a stocky 5'9" body.  Clothes formed around its limbs and gradually they took on color.  The color spread through his skin and then his newly formed hair and in a very short time Eric Fritzius stood before them, breathing heavily from the effort. 

    "Sorry," he said.  "Couldn't take the chance that I might accidentally eat the envelope."  The others all nodded their agreement.  Matter absorption could be a tricky ability to control.

    Eric reverently lifted the envelope from Matthew's hands as though it were an ancient, fragile and infinitely priceless tome; an autographed copy of the Bible, or even Action Comics #26 in mint condition, for instance.  For a long time he simply held it in his hands, looking at it.  He gave the others a suspicious glance.  "You haven't opened it yet, have you?" 

    "No," Matthew said.  "I wouldn't let them." 

    "Good.  I'll just..." he paused for a moment, looking back at the envelope and losing himself momentarily.  "I'll just go open this in my room, then."  He turned and walked slowly up the stairs.

    After the door closed, Gauge turned to the others.  "Was that what I think it was?"

    "Shh!" hissed Matthew, nodding affirmation.

    They waited.  Everyone remained silent, listening for any indication at all as to the envelope's outcome.  Nearly a minute passed this way.

    "This is going to kill me," whispered Matthew.

    "Shut up!" whispered everyone else.

    After another minute, Sujay spoke.  "Must be bad news.  He isn't screaming for joy."

    "Are you kidding?" Gauge said.  "He probably hasn't even opened it.  He's just up there staring at it."

    They again grew silent.  Five minutes rolled by without so much as a sneeze, the only sound an occasional passing car.

    "What's taking so long?" Matthew said breaking the silence. 

    "Shh," shushed Joe.  "Do you hear that?"

    Ears strained to hear as a distinct humming sound filtered down from above.  It rose in pitch, hitting a brief surge as Eric no doubt transformed into Juice again. Oddly, though, it didn't die down afterwards.

    "Is his...  Is his hum getting louder?" Marcus asked.

    "It is," Joe said.

    "Hit the deck!" Sujay screamed.

    They dropped to the floor just as a sudden explosion of energy erupted above them, rattling the windows on the upper and lower floors. 

    Marcus peeked out from under his hands.  "Was that a good explosion or a bad explosion?" 

    From upstairs came the angry shout of a single curse.  It was a nine letter word, rhyming with mod-ham-knit. 

    "Uh, that would be a bad explosion," Joe said.

    The door to Juice's room was yanked open and a menacing hum flowed down the stairwell, prophesying its owner's imminent arrival.  The people on the floor started scrambling for seats.  There weren't quite enough to go around and Marcus was left standing, musical chairs style. 

    "Look at the time!" Marcus said, pointing to his bare wrist.  "You guys have your hands full and I have that whole moving from Alaska thing to take care of.  Save some house for me.  Good luck!"  He began heading for the door.

    "Oh, no you don't!" Joe said.  "You're on the team now so you get to brave this storm like the rest of us."

    Everyone tried to appear otherwise occupied when Juice stormed into the room.

    "This!" he shouted, shaking a single piece of blue paper in his clinched fist.  "This, my friends, is some bullshit!"

    Matthew blinked nervously.  "Bad news?" 

    "No!"

    They all looked at him blankly.

    "No?" 

    "No!" Juice shouted again.  He looked down at the blue piece of paper.  "They say they liked my submission and would like to do a Juice solo-story one day.  They said that if I were to send them a second draft they'd be happy to consider it."

    "All right!" Matthew shouted.

    "That's wonderful!" Joe said grinning.  Everyone stood up to shake Juice's hand until they realized that he still wasn't smiling. 

    "What is it?" Sujay asked.  "What's wrong?"

    "It's bullshit," Juice said plainly.

    "What are you talking about?" Gauge shouted.  "This is great news!  You should be happy!"

    "The bullshit part is their reason for requesting a second draft in the first place!"

    Everyone looked expectantly in his direction.  "So...  What is it?"

    Juice's mouth area pursed in frustration for a moment.  "They say my characterization needs work."

    There was a very long pause before everyone, except Juice, burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter.  Juice watched in disgust for a few seconds, ate the blue paper and left.