by Danny and I'm Not Mister Mxypltk
On a plane heading for Berlin:
"Our ETA for Berlin is 3:15 p.m., local time. The time currently is two o'clock p.m. Enjoy the next hour and fifteen minutes as we continue our in-flight presentation of Pauly Shore's Biodome..." came the voice of the captain through the plane's PA system. Danny Hearn's head rolled slightly to the left of his seat, and he looked out the window. He rubbed his eyes and yawned once, loudly. Mick Harrison looked at him from the seat next to him and grinned.
"You said you weren't tired," commented Mick.
"I'm not. I'm just..." Danny's sentence was cut off by the onset of another yawn. Mick raised an eyebrow at him.
"Okay, maybe I'm a little tired. We'll rest for a few hours when we get to our hotel. Then we'll go find this professor guy. Okay?"
"Okay," Mick replied, nodding. The stewardess came past them with her trolley full of drinks, and Mick took a beer from her.
"Anything for you, sir?" she asked Danny.
"No, thanks. I'm fine," he replied. Before she left, Mick reached onto the cart and grabbed a packet of honey-roasted peanuts. He then proceeded to struggle with the packet.
"Peanut?" he asked Danny.
"No, thank you."
"They're good."
"I'm sure they are."
"You want one?"
"No."
"Velo?" Mick asked, turning around in his seat and offering a peanut to the passenger in the seat directly behind him. Marv Velo eyed the open packet, then shook his head.
"Suit yourselves..." Mick said, facing forward again. He put on his headphones and looked at the screen in front of him.
"Heh. That Pauly Shore..." he said.
Danny rifled through the pocket on the back of the seat in front of him, where the airline had graciously provided him with complimentary magazines. At the bottom, he found a coloring book and a small packet of crayons. He pulled them out and flicked through the book.
"Coloring books are for kids," Mick said, lifting up one of his headphones.
"I've never seen one before," Danny said.
"You never had a coloring book when you were a kid? Man... that's just not right," Mick said, and replaced the headphone.
"Modern sensibilities when it comes to realism in the art world would have you make the sky blue. But don't let that restrict you. These things are open to interpretation. Most abstract artists would never dream of doing anything as bourgeois as making the sky blue," Velo said, leaning over Danny's seat and pointing at the coloring book.
"Huh?" replied Danny.
"That's a fine-looking orange crayon, for instance."
"Right..."
"Just trying to help."
Something out of the corner of his eye caught Danny's attention. Across the aisle from them, sitting in the center of the plane, a group of men were leaning in toward each other and conferencing quietly. They were a few rows ahead of Danny, Mick, and Velo, which made it hard for Danny to see exactly what they were doing.
They all suddenly stood up and simultaneously reached for their carry-on bags in the overhead luggage compartment. Danny raised a hand over the back of his seat and directed Velo's attention toward the men. Looking over, he found that it wasn't necessary. Velo's curiosity had already been piqued.
The men -- four of them -- all reached into their bags and pulled out balaclavas, throwing them on over their heads. They reached back into the bags and pulled out handguns, waving them over everybody in the plane. They all spread out, running to all four corners and standing guard.
Passengers yelled and screamed to each other. They clung to each other for comfort. They begged the stewardesses to help them. Some even choked on peanuts.
Mick continued to enjoy his movie.
"Right! Everybody bloody well shut up!" one of the gun-wielding men said.
"What accent is that? Irish?" Velo asked, leaning toward Danny.
"Sounds like it," Danny replied. Leaning close to Mick, he raised one of the headphones and said, "Call M'xy."
"Right," Mick said. "M'xy..."
If anyone had been paying attention, they would have noticed the air pressure in the cabin suddenly drop dramatically. They would have noticed all the birds in the sky for miles change course and begin flying in the other direction. They would have noticed all the engines on the wings stop running. All of this for just a second. After the minutest moment, things returned to normal. As was the nature of the havoc that M'xy's entrances usually caused.
Danny looked down and noticed M'xy sitting there next to him. "Quick! Disguise yourself as Mick!" Danny whispered. He hoped nobody noticed. He was fairly certain everyone's attention was elsewhere.
"PHWOOSH! On a big jet engine. Um... I am M'xy!" K'tl said. But heeding Danny's words, he remained in the guise of Mick: No top hat. No outward displays of power. The only hint that he was an immensely powerful fifth-dimensional being was a pale light exuding from his eyes.
Danny and Velo slowly stood. Danny placed a hand on K'tl's shoulder, getting him to stay seated. K'tl did so, as much as it rankled him to take instructions from Danny. He didn't want to blow his cover.
"Yeh wankers! Stay the feck seated!" one of the men yelled, and pointed his gun in the direction of Danny and Velo.
"Whoa. Calm down," Danny said, palms raised.
"We can talk here," Velo said.
"We're flying this bastard plane to Cuba!" the gun-wielding man yelled.
"Wait! Cuba? Why Cuba?!" one of his companions said.
"'Cause I bloody well say so, yeh eedjit!" the first one replied.
"Yeh've gone mad, Shaun!"
"Hey! I thought we said we weren't t'be using real names!" a third man yelled, cutting in.
"M'xy, disarm them," Danny said softly to K'tl while the hijackers quibbled amongst themselves.
They remained armed.
"Feck off! We're going to Dublin!"
"Aye! Dublin!"
"Wha' happened to Cuba?"
"Cuba can suck me bollocks!"
Velo turned to Danny and shrugged.
"M'xy..." Danny said, his voice sounding sterner.
"You guys are drunk, aren't you?" Velo said, addressing the hijackers.
"What business is it of yours, then?"
"Well, we've 'ad a few..."
"Shut up! We ain't to be tellin' them anythin', Paddy!"
"NO REAL NAMES, BILLY!"
"What d'yeh want me to call yeh, then?"
"Code names, remember? I'm Super-Hawk-Three-Thousand!"
"And I'm Night-Cheetah!" another of the man yelled.
"In answer to the question, sir... we ain't drunk," the man closest to Velo answered.
"Are you sure?" Velo responded.
"Aye! Of course!"
"I think you're lying."
"What makes yeh say that?!"
"You've wet yourself."
The gun-wielding man looked down at his pants. "The bastard tap at the pub sprayed me in the loo!" the man yelled.
"So you were at a pub? And you're not drunk?" Velo asked.
"SHUT UP!" the man replied. He pointed his gun at Velo.
"Bloody hell. You guys are the worst terrorists I've ever seen," Danny said.
"What the fuck makes yeh say that?!" another of the men yelled, training his gun on Danny while the first man kept a close eye on Velo.
"Well, just look at you!"
"Wha'?! We got the guns! And the whole Cuba thing! And we got these fancy balaclavas and such!" a third man yelled at Danny.
"That's not a balaclava! That's a bar mat with eye holes cut in it!" Danny yelled back.
"...So it is..." the man replied, rubbing a hand over his head.
By this point, all four of the men were focused on Danny and Velo. Their guns were pointed directly at the two men as they both stood next to each other in the aisle. The hijackers slowly walked in toward them. Velo and Danny looked at each other and nodded.
"Airport security is very tight these days, you know," Velo said.
"Which means," Danny continued, "that either you're remarkably clever, or those are plastic toy guns. And since I'm fairly confident I can rule out the former, that means we can do this..."
Danny and Velo both leaped sideways, away from each other. They ran headlong into two of the men each.
Danny was a little disappointed that he didn't even have to use his powers. Two well-placed punches to the jaw and they were both on the floor, one lying on top of the other.
"Quit touching me, yeh wee homo!" one yelled.
"Well get the hell off me!" the other replied.
Looking behind him, Danny found that Velo had fared similarly well. And looking around the plane, he noticed that many of the passengers were offering the two of them a round of applause.
"Well, that's always nice," Danny said as they both walked back to their seats and sat down.
"By the way, you and me are going to have words..." Danny said to M'xy.
"DANNY!" K'tl yells. "What do you wanna talk about?"
"Keep it down, M'xy," Danny said as he looked around to see if K'tl's screaming caught the attention of any of the other passengers. It turns out all the other passengers were too distracted with the commotion caused by the failed terrorist attack to notice him.
"M'xy, why didn't you do what I told you back then?!" Danny continued as he sat in his seat right next to K'tl.
"What did you tell me to do, Danny?" K'tl asks, making a plastic question mark pop above his head.
"I told you to disarm those terrorists, M'xy! Why didn't you do that? Had they been more competitive, we could be dead by now!"
YOU would be dead... K'tl thought. "But I did!" he then said.
"You didn't. They still had their guns on their hands, M'xy."
"But I took away the bullets, silly!"
"Did you?"
"I sure did!"
"Oh. I'm sorry, then."
"No biggie."
Danny remained silent for a moment. "Hey, M'xy, can you call Mick? I know he'd hate to miss the end of that movie they're showing."
"Of course, Danno! Bye-bye! And remember, I'm M'xy! MICK!"
"Mick? Are you there?"
"Yeah, man... What happened?" Mick asked, confused.
"Just some Irish terrorists trying to take the plane to Cuba. You know, the usual," Danny answered. "Listen, Mick, I have something to ask you..."
"What?" Mick said with the headphones in his hands, ready for a dose of Pauly Shore.
"When there's trouble... don't call M'xy right away. Call him only if it's really necessary."
"Okay... why?"
"Nothing. Just a hunch."
Meanwhile, below them, Tom continued walking through Europe, heading for Berlin, just as the voice in his head told him to.