AAOOOSC! #10

Sidney, Nathan, Jonathan, Carter, Matt, and Ryan burst into the main room of the headquarters with the ruler of the NHL still swung over Carter’s shoulder.

“We got him!” Carter shouts. “We got him!”

From the main table, the three Gulls skaters, Brandon, Joseph, and Nick seem like they were playing a game with cards before the others intruded. They stop what they are doing and peer up at the seven.

Nick raises up his deck of cards fanned out in his hands. “You guys got Marián Hossa?” He plucks a card out and shows it to them; it is a trading card of Marián Hossa.

“Nope, but close!” Carter then thrusts Toews into the seat next to Nick.

“Oof!” Toews exclaims as he hits the chair. He pulls himself up and shoots Carter a glare. “Can you go more harsher than that?”

Carter shrugs. “Eh, I can,” he says, not getting the rhetorical question.

“We’ll be back-- We gotta get the others!” Sidney tells Toews. He then speeds off into the hallway with the other power players.

Toews senses someone staring at him, so he turns to his left to see that it is Nick who is doing so. “Yeah?”

“Do you have Marián Hossa?” He shows the card of Marián to him.

“He’s not even playing with us,” Joseph hisses at his teammate. “What do you expect him to do, randomly pull out a Marián Hossa card for you?”

Toews flicks his hand in the air; a card immediately pops out from behind his fingers. He then holds it out to Nick.

Nick looks down at it. It’s a Marián Hossa card.

“Oh, thanks.” He smiles like a young child, takes the card, pairs it up with his card and puts it aside. He then turns to Joseph. “What was that again, Joey?”

Joseph rolls his eyes, having them land on his cards. “Who has Zach Parise?”

“Uh…” Brandon flips through his cards. He then shakes his head at his teammate. “Go fish.”
Joseph turns to Nick.

“Go fish,” Nick tells him.

Joseph averts his eyes to Toews.

Toews shrugs. “You think I’ll randomly give you a card of my rival?”

Joseph begrudgingly snatches a card from the deck in the middle, then peers down at it. “Ryan Kesler. KesBoss. My man.” He then puts it in his hands with his other cards.

“We’re back!” Sidney shouts as he rushes back into the main room with all the other GHP members, minus Patrick, of course.

They all gather around the table, forcing the three Gulls to relocate their game area to the other end of the table.

Once everyone is seated, Toews gazes around the hockey players lining the table. When his eyes land on Matt and Ryan, he knits his eyebrows, then immediately raises them.

“Matt Hackett and Ryan Faragher!” He looks taken aback, not because of the two goalies themselves, but because of the information his powers gave him about the two.

“Yup, that’s us.” Ryan gives him a cool look, swishing his index finger from himself to his buddy.

“And you’re the ruler of the NHL?” Matt has awe-filled eyes.

Toews nods his head. “Yeah.”

“Wow, that’s awesome!” Matt seems highly impressed.

Toews studies them more. “Power play of the San Diego Gulls, power player of the Utah Grizzlies, got sent back from 2016 along with those guys…” He points to the three Gulls skaters, who are immersed in their game of Go Fish. He then reverts his index finger at them. “We’ll help you get back to your right time.”

“Sounds good,” Ryan remarks.

Matt gives him a small smile. “Thank you.”

Toews then gazes around the rest of the members. Then his eyes fly open. “Wait, you guys…” He begins to be filled with growing anxiety. “...we left Kaner back in the EHP HQs…!”

“No, he’s here,” Sidney tells him from the end of the table.

Toews’s eyes widen with hope. “He is?”

“Just not in this room.” Sidney smiles sweetly. “He’s in the hospital wing, since he was all beat up when Carter took him here.”

Toews turns to face Carter, who is to his right. “You brought him here? From the EHP HQs?”

Carter nods his head. “Yeah. After I attempted to save you, I saved Kane. Poor guy, he was injured big time…”

Toews sighs and dips his head. “That’s because Jimmy did that to him. To show off that he had control over my powers. It was terrible to watch.” He then slowly lifts his head back up to Carter. “But thank you for saving him.”

Carter smirks at him. “No prob. Always glad to save my rivals.”

Pekka chuckles at the last sentence Carter said.

Toews then takes in all of the people at the table again. “But where’s Niemi?”

The table falls into an unsettling silence, which is interrupted by Joseph celebrating:
“WHOOOOOO!!!” He stands up in triumph, hands raised in the air.

Everyone turns their heads to the other end of the table with looks saying, “Shhhh!!”

Joseph returns them the same look, then sits back down.

The GHP members turn back to their focus.

“Antti…,” Sidney starts off. “Well, he’s no longer part of the GHP.”

Toews slightly gawks at him. “Why?”

“John took away his powers,” Carter informs him seriously.

Toews turns to him. “John took away his…” His eyes grow wide. “What? But-but--”

“That’s another thing we gotta talk about,” Sidney cuts in. “We gotta talk about John.”

Toews swishes his head to Sidney with his eyes going crazy. “But John! Wh-what’s going on with him?”

“He’s back with his plan,” Jonathan replies solemnly. “He has paired up with the League Leaders to get rid of all of the power players’ powers.”

Toews looks like as if time froze him in a petrified state. “No...I thought…”

The others stare at him with sorrowful looks. Toews’s mentor has gone against him. And it doesn’t help when…

Toews gasps quickly. “The machine. That machine I was hooked up to in the EHP HQs-- Galchenyuk said that--” He gasps louder. “Oh my goodness…it is true… Why else would John make it?” Toews’s hand on the table’s surface begins to grow tense as it forms into a fist. “He is against us...he-he-he didn’t keep his promise.” He shakes his head slowly. “I should’ve known all this time that he would go back to his old plan.” He then pauses. “That’s why I felt so unsettled in the ice cream parlour shop. My powers...they were warning me about John’s betrayal.”

“You powers can warn you when bad stuff is gonna happen?” Carter seems very interested. “That’s sweet!”

“Not sweet when you don’t know WHAT bad stuff is gonna happen,” Toews replies. “I knew something bad was gonna happen, but I didn’t know what, so I had to ignore it since I had other things to do. But now I know: it’s John.”

“So what are gonna do with John?” Nathan asks Sidney.

“We’re gonna have to put him where he belongs!” Sidney points to the surface of the table.

“In the NHL jail?” Jonas guesses.

Sidney seems unsure. “Eh, I wasn’t thinking about an actual place; I was just saying to give him what he deserves, serve justice!” He raises his fist in the air with triumph.

“I’ll be more than happy to do that,” Toews replies sternly.

Everyone’s heads turns to Toews. They all have shocked faces.

“After you were just in hostage forever?” Pekka points out.

Toews shrugs. “I feel fine. I still have my powers.” He throws his hands in the air, emitting a rain of cards over him. The cards spin around and flutter to the floor, littering the area around him.

Nick then shuffles behind him, ducks behind his chair, then comes back up with a card in his hands. He shows the card to the others; it is a Mats Zuccarello card. “Thanks,” he says in his sleepy tone, then lumbers back to the other end of the table.

“Do you have powers that are actually useful in a fight?” Pekka asks.

Toews whips an aerokinetic sword out of thin air, spins it twice, then holds it out at Pekka, forcing Carter to press himself against the chair as it cross in front of him. “Yes.”

“So you’ll confront John?” Sidney tilts his head with his eyes on him.

Toews pulls the sword away from Pekka and retracts it into his hand. He turns to Sidney. “Yeah, I have to. I’m the one who he’s closest too and has the best chance to knock some sense back into him.”

Sidney nods his head. “And while you’re doing that, we can be attempting to get you and your buddies back to 2015!” He turns to Matt and Ryan with a smile.

“Awesome!” Ryan high-fives Matt.

Sidney then straightens up, becoming more authoritative-like, despite his short stature and kiddish mien. “And as your Master of the GHP, I declare that we shall start working on these plans now.”

Notes