The stars twinkle against the inky skies of San Jose. A shooting star streaks across the sky, heading toward the SAP Center.

Miro Heiskanen soars over the lit streets with the aid of light pulsing at the soles of his shoes and drifting off into delicate sparkles in his trail. The cold air flaps his clothes and his fluffy hair away from his face. His narrowed eyes are on the approaching arena from below.

He locks his eyes at the front of the arena, which juts into the corner of the streets. Its large, teal-colored All-Star banners are lit, including smaller banners displaying each one All-Star player lining its perimeter.

“Aivan siellä on rakennuksen etuosa… Monet fanit tulevat olemaan siellä. Koska tämä on rakennuksen etuosa...rakennuksen takana on oltava toisella puolella, pelaajien sisäänkäynnin tulisi olla rakennuksen toisella puolella.” So that’s the front… Lots of fans will be here. Since this is the front, the players’ lot should be on the other side…

As he nears the arena, he catches sight of his own green-colored banner by the right side of the building. He giggles. “Voi, se olen minä…!” Hah, that’s me…!

He then passes over the front and hovers over the glowing roof.

He gazes out to the left, pointing at the dimly-lit parking lot beyond the roof. “Se on faneille tarkoitettu pysäköintialue…” That’s the parking lot for the fans… He rotates his head toward the right. “On aita… Ja siellä—” There’s the fence...and there’s the—

“SILENCE!!!” a booming voice echoes from below.

Miro instantly freezes in the air with wide eyes.

“Thank you,” another voice states calmly. “You guys read my plan?”

Miro drives his eyes ahead into the dark skies as he focuses on the growing conversation.

“Naw,” a third voice pipes up, “why do that if I can just crush this whole thing with my powers—!”

“Yeah, and wake up the whole town?” the first voice, this time in a regular tone, remarks. “No, we’ll get busted.”

“I read your plans,” a new voice claims.

“Thank you,” the second voice states. “I appreciate that, man.”

Miro descends onto the roof, softly landing on its smooth surface. He lowers himself onto his knees and peers over the edge.

Down below, standing in a circle in the player’s parking lot are four unfamiliar men blended with the dark.

Devin Booker smiles at James Harden. “Yeah, no prob, man.”

Isaiah Thomas holds two rocks in each of his hands. “So, I can’t crush anything?” He slams them against each other.

James gazes at him with an unamused look. “You can, but not so recklessly. See—” He whips out a sheet of paper with one hand and holds his free palm out to it. A white light shines from his palm and onto the paper, like a flashlight.

“—I have you deteriorating the foundation of the arena, bringing the building down. Devin melts anything that isn’t crushed; I emit radiation to cut off all communication lines; and Russel provides the thunder to cover any sounds.”

Devin throws a pointer finger at Russel. “HAH, you so ARE gonna wake up the whole town!”
Russel Westbrook rolls his eyes. “In a non-concerning way, yes. Thunder is more common than an arena falling in the middle of the night.”

With a gasp, Miro pulls away from the edge and throws himself into a sitting position, his arms propping him up. His eyes are wide, his breathing is hard, his body is frozen.

“Arena,” he squeaks out, “he-he aikovat—” The arena; they’re-they’re gonna— He yanks out his phone from his jacket’s pocket and stabs his fingers at it.

A “no signal” alert pops up on his screen.

Miro whimpers and lowers his phone. “...En voi soittaa Sebsille.” ...I can’t call Sebs. He gazes around with lonely, panicked eyes. “Ja minä olen ainoa täällä…!” And I’m the only one here…!

He then shoots back to the edge and peers over it. The basketball power players below continue conversing with each other.

Miro pulls away, shaking. “He aikovat tehdä sen…! Se on meidän areenamme…” They’re gonna do it...! That’s our arena… He gazes down at the glowing surface below him. “Mutta mitä voin tehdä? En halua satuttaa ketään, jolla on yliluonnollisia kykyjäni!” But what can I do? I don’t wanna hurt them with my powers!

He closes eyes and places his face into his palms, gripping onto his hair. “Ah, Miro, sinun on tehtävä se! He aikovat vahingoittaa areenaa!” Ah, Miro, you have to do it! They’re gonna harm the arena!

Miro then snaps his head up with sharp, determined eyes. “Tiedän, mitä tehdä.” I know what to do.

He then whips around in a spiral of yellow energy as he levitates into the air and blasts away from the arena. “AUTAAA!!!” HEEELLLP!!!


Down below, Patrik Laine sits in the grass at the Arena Green West, the park across from the SAP Center. He rubs two sticks together over a pile of other sticks. He increases the speed of his movements until his hands and sticks are a blur.

With a growl, he clenches his teeth and his eyes burn at the sticks. His raging eyes then glow red before two laser beams emit from them, striking the sticks. Fire erupts among the them.

Patrik halts his rubbing and stares at his work with awe-filled eyes. He lets out happy grunts and tosses his sticks into the pile. Fire bursts from the pile, illuminating the area in its warm rays.

“Patrik!” Miro shouts from afar.

With a content smile, Patrik holds his hands out to the fire and rubs them together. He then retracts his hands and peers to the right, spotting Miro standing next to him.

“Patrik!” Miro interlaces his fingers by his chest. “Vau, hyvä, olet täällä! Olen pahoillani, mutta tarvitsen apuasi!” Oh, good, you’re here! I’m sorry, but I need your help!

Patrik blinks at him. He then extinguishes his fire with large swipe of his hand over it, turns around, and darts across the park.

Miro whirls around, watching him dive down the edge of the park and disappear behind it. “Patrik!”

He rushes up to the edge and peers below. Darkness covers his vision. He holds his fist out and opens his hand, emitting a ray of soft light to illuminate the area. Leaves, bushes, and gurgling water of the Los Gatos Creek stare back at him.

Miro closes his hand, cutting off his light, and pulls away. He groans and turns to the right, catching sight of the lit-up puck-shaped banners spotting the walkway among the palm trees.

Popping out from the bunch is a red-colored one, the one nearest to him

Miro gasps with hope springing into his eyes. “Hischy!”

He darts over the park and places his palm on the hard frame of the banner. Instantly, the outline of the banner itself glows a deep red; it swirls deeper into the center of the banner, covering it entirely. The energy churns with streaks of black and white.

With anxiety gripping him, Miro flies into the portal and lands on one end of a dining table in a small apartment.

“Hischy!” he shouts. “I’m sorry, but I need your help!”

On the other end of the table, Nico Hischier peers up with large eyes and stuffed cheeks. In his hand is a fondue fork; in front of him is a small, bubbling pot of fondue cheese and a basket of cubed bread.

“Hm?” is all he can muster out.

“I need help! I’m sorry I…” He gazes around with worry crawling on his face. “…I…”

Nico swallows and furrows his eyebrows with his fork pointed at him. “Heisky, calm down; why panic?” He stabs a cubed bread with his fork.

“Power players—” He slams his palms against the table and leans forward. “—lots of power players—are gonna make the arena explode!”

Nico swirls the bread into the cheese. “You can stop them.” He slips the bread into his mouth.

He shakes his head. “No!”

Nico gazes at him while chewing. He swallows. “You have powers.”

“But I need help!”

“No—” He rotates his fork at him once again. “—you just don’t wanna use ‘em on them.”

Miro dips his head and rubs his arm. “Or else I might hurt them.”

Nico grabs another piece of bread with his fork. “Heisky, hurt them.” He dips it into the cheese. “They want to hurt the arena.” He then eats it and points the fork to the pot. “I can’t leave my delicious fondue behind.”

Miro stares at him with a pleading look and whines. He then whirls around and stalks into the living room and halts at its window. He slides the window open, crawls onto its ledge, and throws himself into the night.

Nico raises his eyebrows at the opened window. “Wow, that bad, eh?”

---

Miro soars through the frigid east coast night. Light snow flutters around him, drifting down to the brightly lit city below. He dives down and narrows in on a specific apartment window. He throws the window open and slips inside it, landing on the tile flooring. He turns around, closes the window, and whirls back around to face his next pair of friends:

“How dare you insult my cooking skills like that!” Nolan Patrick shrieks from the kitchen, gripping onto a frying pan on the stove.

“Well, all you can just make are ham and cheese sandwiches!” Carter Hart remarks, his hand out at the pan. “How can you even consider that a cooking skill?”

“Because I put in the pan.” He shakes the pan. “And I cook it.”

“Then you burn it, making the smoke detector—”

As Carter turns to his left point at the smoke detector, he spots Miro standing on the other side of the countertop.

He lowers his hand and softens his expression. “Oh, Miro, hey.”

Nolan shoots a bewildered look at him. “‘Miro’?” He then looks at the same direction as his teammate. A sweet expression pops up on his face. “Heisky. What’s up?” He rounds the counter and steps up to him.

Miro gazes at him with a tired look. “I need help.”

“With what?” Carter walks around the counter from the other end to reach the other side of the visitor.

Miro plays with his fingers as he musters out, “There’s these power players...and-and they’re gonna make the arena explode…”

Nolan furrows his eyebrows. “What arena?”

Miro peeks up at him. “The one in San Jose.”

Carter and Nolan turn to each other.

“We gotta get on that,” Carter states.

Nolan pulls away from the two and struts into the kitchen. “Lemme grab my sandwich—”

Carter shoots him a joking grin as he corrects, “You mean your piece of coal?”

By the stove, Nolan whirls around with a glare. “No, my sandwich—” He picks it up from the pan and holds it out to him.

Carter holds a hand out at it. “It’s black!” He marches up to him. “Do you see the black here?!” He points to the charred patches on the bread. “It’s burnt!”

“No, it’s not, you can see gold right here!” Nolan jabs his free finger at the veins of golden bread lying beneath the black patches.

Miro swings his weary eyes from one friend to another as they both continue barking at each other:

“But if there’s black, then it’s burnt!”

“Are you blind? There’s gold. It’s not entirely burnt—”

“Hah, see!? You admitted it’s burnt—”

Miro pads back to the window, opens it up, slips through its space, and jumps back into the night.

---

Moments later, Miro nears the SAP Center from above. He spots Russel floating directly over the glowing roof of the arena, forcing him to halt yards away from it.

With the cool breeze fluttering through his hair and clothes, Miro murmurs to himself, “Minun täytyy…minun täytyy käyttää yliluonnollisia kykyjäni heitä...vastaan pelastamaan areenan...” I have to...I have to use my powers against them…to save the arena…

Russel presses his finger to his ear. “Ready.” He then holds his hands up to the sky.

Purple clouds gather above him and expand across the entire city. With horror, Miro spins in his spot, watching helplessly as the clouds obscure the stars.

Then, Russel claps his hands over his head. Thunder rumbles through the clouds.

Miro gasps and shoots his gleaming hands out at the clouds. Light accumulates from inside the clouds, shining as patches through its thin spots.

Russel lowers his hands with furrowed eyebrows up at the glowing clouds. “I didn’t put lightning in yet…” He swishes his head from side to side before landing them on Miro.

They stare at each other. Then, Miro raises a glowing hand up at him. He musters out in his accent, “Stay...away...from the arena.”

Russel mirthlessly chuckles. He presses his finger to his ear. “Guys, we got a hockey power player trying to stop us.”

Instantly, the other three basketball power players swoop up into the sky and join their sidekick’s sides.

James, floating with fire beneath his feet, crosses his arms at the hockey player, “Oh, that’s one of the rookies.”

“Are you sure he’s a hockey player?” Devin asks; his feet glow a magnificent orange with black, bubbling spots. “I didn’t see him in any of the posters or those little emojis—”

Isaiah takes up two rocks from the bobbing rocks holding him up in the air and smashes them together. “Can I crush ‘im?”

James eyes him with a small smirk. “To the ground.”

Isaiah hurls the merged rock straight at Miro. Miro’s eyes fly open as he leans back and gasps just as the rock disappears in a flash of red energy.

Isaiah gawks at the space his rock disappeared in. James throws his hands out from his sides, emitting clear energy around him.

Isaiah holds a finger up. “Hold a moment—”

He is then knocked off his floating platform of rocks and plummets downward. “AHHH!!!”

Devin peers down at his falling friend. “Friend, no—!”

Suddenly, a whizzing person smacks him with a blunt surface, causing him to lose his balance and tumble across the sky. “AHCK!”

Miro gasps happily at the sight of the person. “PATTY!”

Nolan, on his glider, whirls around just as Devin shoots a roaring ball of orange and black, popping spots at him. Nolan deflects it with a bat of his throwing star.

“I’m here—” He leans backward as another ball of solar energy roars in his path. “—I’m present—” He throws his feet up, bashing yet another solar energy ball against the underside of his glider. “— and I have every sense of the word ‘arrived’!” He then dips down to let another ball of the sun’s energy speed above him. He flies up back to his path and shouts, “CARTER!”

Devin is then thrown aside and flies down the skies. “AIIIYYYEEE!!!”

Russel faces Nolan and claps his hands together. Invisible waves of shock ripples through the air, tossing Nolan out into the dark skies. Miro gawks at the sight. He spots the red energy glinting again.

“Cue the thunder!” he then hears James barking.

Miro whirls to face the two. Russel claps at the clouds. They respond with ground-shaking thunder.

James then conjures a crackling, fiery ball of radiation and hurls it straight down at the arena’s roof.

Pure trepidation grips Miro. “EIII!!!” NOOO!!!

He blasts downward with his own soft yellow energy streaking behind him, becoming parallel to the descending ball of radiation, and passes it. He then dips below the ball, crossing its path, and catches it with two arms around it.

Due to the accumulated force the ball of energy has gathered, Miro plummets down the same path as the ball. He clutches it against his chest, his eyes squeezed closed, his teeth clenched, his whole body tense.

Suddenly, the fall snaps into floating. Miro senses himself bobbing with no surface near his sense of touch. He opens his eyes.

All around him is black. The only light is from his glowing hands and forearm and the intense ball of radiation.

He peers at the roaring ball with its red and orange surface bubbling and popping, yearning to combust. With a frown, he opens his arms and pushes the ball away from him.

The radiation drifts away. Rays of white light begin to shoot out from its sides as blinding, white cracks snap their way up its surface.

Miro gasps and cranes his head away from his arm shielding his face.

He then feels the texture of rough grass blades against the backside of his body. With confusion pouring over his mind, Miro pulls his arm away and peers up ahead.

Staring down at him is Nico. “You’re okay, Heisky?”

Carter’s face slips into view. “Hey there, Miro the hero…!”

Nolan appears in his vision, across from Nico. His eyes are flat on Carter. “Not even my sandwiches can handle that much cheese.” He peers down at him. “Well, you saved the day.”

Miro’s eyes light up. “What?”

Nico holds his hand out to him. He takes his hand and climbs back on to his feet.

“It’s still up!” Nico holds his hand to the left.

Miro turns to his hand’s direction and cranes his head up. Across the street from where he stands in the Arena Green West, the SAP Center glows above its precious city.

“Really?” Miro turns back to them. “I saved it?”

They all look at him with proud smiles.

“That’s right,” Carter remarks.

“Thank you!” Miro pulls them all into a hug. “You guys helped a lot!” He then pulls away and gazes around with wariness. “But where are the bad guys?”

Nolan flicks his wrist. “Oh, they were just taken away by their ruler—”

“Hello, gentlemen,” an unfamiliar, authoritative voice states from in front of them. The four peer ahead or turn to gaze at the voice’s owner.

Zion Williamson, in his red royal robe, approaches them. “My deepest apologies for the hardships my fellow power players put you men through.”

Miro gives him a sweet smile. “Oh, it’s okay.”

The NBA ruler halts in front of them. “I will make sure this behavior will not come about again. Each league has their fair share of attendance in their All-Star Events.”

Carter holds suspicious eyes on him. “Oh, so that’s why they wanted to blow up the Shark Tank.”

Zion nods. “Yes.” He shakes his head. “Some people’s kids.” He then grabs onto the edges of his robe and pulls them together. “They will receive fitted consequences for their conspiracies and attempts. Thank you for stopping them and saving the arena. You did the right thing.”

Miro smiles warmly and proudly.

Carter bows with an arm out by his side. “Anytime, Your Majesty!”

Nico and Miro stare at his action. Nolan snorts.

Zion holds a palm out to him. “Oh please, just call me by my name.” He places his hand on his chest. “I get too flattered with such an esteemed title.” He then waves to them. “Good night and have fun in your All-Star festivities.”

Then in a flash of golden energy, he disappears.

The four hockey players gaze at each other with various degrees of smiling.

Carter shimmies his shoulders as he sing-songs, “Miro the hero…!”

Nolan slaps his shoulder. “Carts, stop it, he might not like it.”

Miro beams at him. “I like the name!”

Carter grins at his teammate. “See?”

Nolan crosses his arms. “That’s because he’s being too nice.”

“Let him speak—”

“He’s gonna say only nice things, no matter what—”

Miro sighs as the two teammates burst into an argument again. He dips his head.

Nico approaches him and gives him a nudge with his shoulder. “We make a good team.”

Miro lifts his head at him and gives him an askew smile. “A pretty good team...!”

“Fondue at my house?” He juts his thumb behind his shoulder. “I can’t finish off the loaf.”

“Okay! I guess I can sleep in tomorrow.”

“Great!” Nico wraps his arm around his shoulder. “You can tell me about the All-Star festivities!”

They then vanish in a glint of red energy.

Instantly, Nolan and Carter halt their bickering and turn to the empty space the two other friends were once standing in.

Nolan shoots the space a scowl. “Ugh, thanks a lot, now we gotta fly—”

“We can use the portals…” Carter holds his hand out to the walkway with the banners and palm trees.

Not saying a single word, Nolan whisks past him and toward the walkway. Carter follows behind him.



The End of “I Need A Hero.”

Notes

Episode 6/15