01. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.

"I could have taken them!" That would be Rachel, of course. Beautiful, crazy Rachel.

Not necessarily in that order.

Ah yes, the life of a superhero. Once again we'd gone to battle against terrifyingly bad odds, barely escaping with our lives, and were now trudging home late at night, in the rain, wearing nothing but our skin-tight, badly-coordinated morphing outfits and no shoes.

The non-human members of our sorry little group had flown straight home. Cassie had morphed to owl and headed to her place a few bus stops ago. She could have gone with the others, but I guess she wanted to walk with us for a while. Me, Jake, and Rachel all lived in the same neighborhood, so we walked together. Jake pulled out ahead after Cassie left. He gets broody after a battle. I was exhausted and depressed. My fingers and toes looked like prunes, and I had aches in muscles I didn't even have anymore. Not exactly a sight that would instill confidence in the hearts of our fellow man.

Naturally, Rachel was elated, because Rachel is insane. And it was left to me to deal with it, because Jake sure wasn't going to.

"You would have died, Rachel," I said. She rolled her eyes. "Or isn't there enough room left over in your brain to be able to accommodate the concept of death? Too much time spent cramming it full of winter sale schedules?"

"Yeah, that's it," she said dryly. "I could have done it, though. There were, what, nine Hork-Bajir left? Ten?"

"Try fifteen," I retorted. "With reinforcements on the way. Unlike you, my gorilla can see more than a foot in front of me."

"What, fifteen of them against six of us?" she snorted derisively. "We could have taken them. Piece of cake."

You know that thing they always tell you in English class? "Show, don't tell"? Yeah. Now you see. Insane.

"You were only missing an arm. You try fending off fifteen Hork-Bajir when you're holding your stomach closed and one of them is trying to decapitate you. And did I mention the reinforcements?"

"I would have backed you up," Rachel grumped. Which was true, she would have. She would have died in the process, but hey, we can't have everything.