My fight-or-flight response reacted as well. My fingertips spit flames, and my eyes burned gold. I was ready to go to war if necessary.
“What do you really look like?” Alana Catherine inquired. “Show me your true self.”
Tom Hanks hissed at her. “I take orders from no one. I am the Higher Power. Theoneandonlytrue Higher Power.”
Jennifer chuckled. Again, I almost wet myself. Why wasn’t the Trinity terrified? Did they have no sense of self-preservation?
“Welp,” Jennifer said. “I’m guessin’ that means you’re butt ugly. I’m thinkin’ you might be so ugly that your face would make a freight train take a dirt road.”
Tom Hanks wasn’t sure what to do. Hell, I wasn’t sure what to do. If I took my shot and failed, we were all probably dead. I needed to be top tier sniper accurate, and the timing had to be right. In other words, it couldn’t be now. Not yet. Not unless the Higher Power forced me.
Shitty Ritchie, never one to be left out, joined the ugly game. “If I had a dog as ugly as you, I’d shave his ass and make him walk backward.”
Candy Vargo laughed. Tom Hanks did not.
Jennifer was on a roll. “I’m guessin’ that you must’ve fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.”
“GOOD ONE!” Shitty Ritchie squealed. “And I heard that you’re so ugly that you didn’t just get hit with the ugly stick, you got walloped with the whole forest!”
Jennifer and Shitty Ritchie traded high fives. Alana Catherine just smiled and continued to stare at It. It was growing more furious with each passing insult.
“I am beautiful,” Tom Hanks shouted. “I am the most beautiful and powerful being in the Universe.”
Tom Hanks raised his Tom Hanks’ arms into the air and slashed them down to his sides. In a flash of multi-colored glittering lightning, he disappeared, and a being that was truly stunning took his place. It was unclear if the being was male or female. It had long, shiny golden locks and a face so symmetrically perfect it didn’t seem real. It was tall and lanky, but muscular at the same time. It wore an intricately woven cream silk robe. I didn’t see breasts or an Adam’s Apple. It was truly androgynous.
“Happy?” the Higher Power snarled. “Or maybe… jealous?”
“Neither,” Alana Catherine answered calmly. “There’s nothing to be jealous of.”
The Higher Power screamed in fury. The Universe appeared to scream with It. The sky darkened to inky black and an icy wind picked up.
“Here’s how this is going to work,” It ground out. “I will take one of you. You shall choose. If you deny my request, all three of you will die.” It smiled. Its outer beauty belied a putrid interior.
“No,” Alana Catherine said. “Neither option is acceptable.”
“IT’S NOT AN OPTION,” It shrieked. “It’s a command. I will not be disobeyed.”
“Until now,” Jennifer muttered under her breath.
“Give me the disgusting small one,” It demanded. “No one needs something like that. It’s repulsive.”
“Shitty Ritchie is not repulsive,” the little guy shouted, stomping his foot.
“Wrong,” the Higher Power shot back. “Richard Smith is the most pathetic, revolting, repugnant, vile, loathsome, abhorrent joke of an Immortal who has ever been created.”
“Don’t fall for it,” I warned Shitty Ritchie, still looking for an opening. “It’s trying to piss you off so you go at It. It will then say it killed you in self-defense.”
“Sticks and stones might break your fuckin’ bones, but words will never hurt anything but your feelings,” Candy said in warning to Shitty Ritchie. She could see, as well as the rest of us, that the little dude was about to blow. “You can survive a bruised ego.”
“You will apologize to Shitty Ritchie,” he yelled at the Higher Power. His eyes were wild, and he was beginning to resemble a feral animal who might or might not have been infected with rabies.
The future was not looking bright.
“I will apologize over my dead body,” It bellowed.
Shitty Ritchie laughed. He laughed so hard that I thought he was having a psychotic break. The sounds he made were unhinged.
“Fine,” Shitty Ritchie snapped after pulling his shit back together. “Have it your way.”
