AAOOOSC! Future!

One fine day in New York, Jonathan Toews and Sidney Crosby are in John’s house, sitting on his sofa next to each other in his living room.

Toews is sitting normally with the soles of his feet on the ground. Sidney, on the other hand, is sitting normally as well, but since his legs are so short, his feet barely come up to the edge of the cushion he is on.

John is standing in front of them with his coffee table, which is littered with newspapers and empty bottles of almondade, standing between them.

“Ah, Tazer boy--” John faces Toews. “--Crosby--” He reverts his head toward Sidney. “--I am elated you are able to approach here this very day!” he finishes off sophisticatedly.

“Why are we here?” Sidney asks, extending his both hands toward the Islander.

“That is right…!” John begins pacing back and forth, across his living room. “I solicited Niemi if I could pull you guys separately for the day to probe a divergent way of training. I conjecture that the training I am about to inaugurate will be much more productive and finer than the training of GHP at the moment.” He halts in his tracks, facing them once again.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Toews mutters under his breath, reverting his gaze away from his mentor.

“What was that, smalls?” he questions, cocking a suspicious eyebrow.

The ruler of the NHL looks at John with shifty eyes; he knows that if he tells John that something would go wrong with his training, he would immediately reject it, knowing the type of person he he is. “Oh, nothing… Nothing important.”

John slowly nods his head. “Very well…”

“What-what is this type of training gonna be like?” Sidney asks, gazing at the Islander with wide eyes.

“I am gratified you inquired that, Crosby!” He lifts his pointer finger up. “It consists of an auxiliary!” He turns around and strolls out of the living room, into the hallway where his lab is located.

“Oh, well, that was short-lived,” the Penguin starts. “He just left us hanging!”

“He’s grabbing what he needs for his new type of training,” Toews tells him flatly.

“Ohhhh! Duh!” Sidney slaps his head and starts laughing: “Uh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh! I guess I’ve been hanging around Beau for too long!” He calms himself down and turns to the Blackhawk. “Do you know what he’s gonna bring?”

Toews shrugs. “No, I’m not sure.”

Sidney makes a bewildered look, leaning back a bit. “So how do you know that something bad’s gonna happen in the training even though you don’t know what he’s gonna bring?”

“It’s because of my powers.” The ruler of the NHL runs his fingers through his short hair. “They’re really weird. Sometimes they work, other times they don’t. Mainly the powerful powers don’t work as well as my simple powers. Like I can use my energy easily, but nigh-omniscience is really hard to control, since it’s so powerful. And sometimes, I get confused and I don’t know the powers I use, like what they do.”

“What is ‘nigh-omniscience'?”

“It’s the power to know almost anything.”

“Oh…!” Sidney looks up in deep thought, then looks back at him. “Like you know that something bad’s gonna happen, yet you don’t know what John is getting!”

“Yeah…” Toews nods his head. “You can say that…”

“But if something bad’s gonna happen, shouldn’t we not do it? I can tell John we are busy. You know, I do need to take Bubby and Bubby Jr. a bath!” He points his thumb over his shoulder like as if he is pointing where the gorillas are.

“No, we just have to go with it.” Toews shakes his head. “Trust me, I know John and he would not take ‘no’ as an answer. But what’s gonna happen shouldn’t be too bad.” He shrugs and adjusts his shirt’s collar.

“Alright, if you say so…!” Sidney swings his eyes over to the doorway of the hallway just as John enters the living room again, pushing a dolly that has a metallic, person-shaped robot perched on it.

The two other captains widen their eyes at the sight.

“Isn’t that one of...Kari’s robots?” the Penguin squeaks out with fear.

The Islander sets the dolly down. “It is, indeed.” He turns from gazing at the turned-off robot and looks at Sidney. “But I reconditioned it up and programmed it according to my liking. So for this new modus operandi, we shall utilize this cyborg!”

“When did you get the time to program that thing?” Toews gapes while pointing at it.

“Don’t you reminisce about that I was labouring on an enterprise in the course of the skirmish against Luis Suárez and his clan?” John inquires gravely.

“Oh…” Toews looks to aside with furrowed eyebrows, rubbing his chin. He then gazes back up at the robot and its maker. “So that's what you were working on!”

“Yes, yes.” The Islander nods his head.

“That makes sense…” He wags his finger in the air.

“Are we gonna train now or what?” Sidney asks, crossing his arms with impatience.

“I surmise we can train now. Alright one and all--to my quadrangle.” John grabs the handle of the dolly and pushes it to the left, toward the big sliding glass door that is showing the beautiful outside of his backyard.

Toews jumps up from the sofa and rushes over to the sliding glass door; he pulls it open for his mentor.

John turns to him and with a small smile, nods. “Thank you, Tazer-boy.” He then continues wheeling the dolly and the robot into the outside.

The captain of the Blackhawks along with the captain of the Penguins follow the captain of the Islanders into his backyard.

It is rectangular shaped with a porch connected to the house. In front of the porch is grass with plants surrounding it; there is a wooden fence that marks the perimeter of the backyard. It is a nice New York summer day with blue skies, fluffy clouds, and the sun shining brightly. Well, that is because John is in a good mood; the weather around him reflects his mood.

John sets the dolly on the left side of the backyard, next to the porch, on the grass. With a grunt, he lifts up the lifeless robot and plops it onto the grass. He opens the back of it, flips some switches along with turning knobs and connecting complicated wires, then closes the back tightly.

Suddenly, the darken eyes of the robot flash to life, emitting a bright yellow colour.

“Now,” John begins to say, stepping out to the side from behind the robot to see his two guinea pigs, “this cyborg will assail anyone who emits powers at it. It will use material arts on you as a counterattack. It is your aspiration to demolish it. Capisce?”

“But didn’t it take a lot of work to make that?!” Sidney cries out, extending his arms out at it.

“Do not fret, I have fabricated a multitudinous quantity!” He dusts his hands together with a smirk.

“Are you gonna fight it as well?” Toews asks, cocking his head to aside.

“No, just you two. I am obliged to register a memorandum on this…” John strolls up to them, then breezes past them to clamour onto the porch. “You may commence. Good luck, gentlemen.”

Sidney and Toews stare at the motionless robot; they then gaze at each other and exchange looks.

“Do you wanna fight it first?” Sidney asks.

“No.” Toews shakes his head. “Do you wanna fight it first?”

“Nooo…” He shakes his head as well. “You fight it first.”

“I don’t wanna fight it first. You should fight it first.”

“But I don’t wanna fight it first. You should fight it first--you can destroy it easier.”

“But you’re small and it’d miss you!”

“Hey, don’t say I’m small!” Sidney snaps, balling his fists and shooting daggers up Toews with his eyes. He then softens his features. “But it is nice being small if no one can catch me. Let me try.”

He swaggers up to the robot and scans it with his eyes. He lifts his head up to catch a glimpse of its menacing eyes. He looks around his surroundings, seeing Toews waiting for him to do a move while John is sitting on a porch chair, scribbling furiously in his notebook.

The Penguin looks back up at the robot. “Well, this is easy.” He presses his hand against the chest area of it, releasing puffs of sub-zero air, which begins to freeze the outer metal shell and the inside of the robot.

Suddenly, the robot swings its arm straight into Sidney’s stomach, making him fly airborne, over to the other side of the backyard. He crashes onto his back and continues sliding on the grass, pass Toews, with his legs sticking up. He finally hits the plants, stopping his movements.

Toews looks at Sidney laying on the ground with an aghast expression. “HEY!” He snaps his head at the robot, shooting him a dark look with lowered eyebrows. “Get this, metal brain!” He then lifts himself into the air, balls up a thick mass of yellow energy and blasts it at the robot.

Once the energy made contact with the robot, the robot is flung against the wooden fence and drops into the plants, becoming concealed by the clump of leaves.

“There,” Toews says with a satisfied smirk, dusting his hands.

The plants begin to shudder and the robot comes soaring out from them, with its arms extended straight at the Blackhawk.

“GAAHHHH!!!” In haste, he uses his left hand to punch its head.

The punch redirects the robot’s flight, making it crash land to its left, right next to Sidney, who is still lying on the ground.

Toews brings himself down, slamming his feet against the grass. He has his eyes glued on the robot as it is beginning to stand up. “Prepare to die!” He then thrusts both hands out in front of him, emitting more yellow streaks.

But before the streaks could touch the robot, it picks Sidney up, who is half-awake and clueless, and holds him out in front of it as a shield. The streaks hit the Penguin and he immediately disappears.

Toews gasps once he notices what the clever robot did. “AHHHH!!!” he yells in fright. “BE GONE!!!”

White beams of energy emit from the ruler of the NHL as he throws his arms into the air, blinding the scene for a moment. Once the whiteness disappeared, the robot is gone.

“JOHN!!!” Toews crazily gazes behind his shoulder to look at his mentor. “JOHN! SID’S GONE!!!”

John looks up at his notebook with bewilderment. “Crosby’s gone?”

“YES!!!” The Blackhawk hastily rushes up to the porch and scrambles onto it, standing in front of the Islander. “I struck him! The robot grabbed Sid when I used my powers and used him as a shield! HE’S GONE!!!”

John, with a tranquil manner, leans to his left to gaze at the backyard, since Toews was blocking his view. “Hm, that’s is quite riveting. If you manipulated ergokinesis on Sid, he would still be present. But it is like as if he dematerialized…” He then straightens his posture, reverts his gaze at him, and rips off his glasses. “Which powers did you wield?”

“I have NO idea.” Toews says roughly with wide eyes.

“Let us see.” The Islander pulls out a thick rectangular, plastic device with a green screen on one side; it reminded the Blackhawk of a thermometer. He grabs Toews’s hand and waves the device over it.

With deep breathing, he takes a good look at the screen and purses his lips. He gazes back up at him as the skies begin to darken and winds begin to pick up. “No wonder Crosby’s not present--you used remote time-travel on him. You sent him into...the future.”

Notes