Episode #3: The Bouncer

Hidoi had flattened quite a few thugs so far, but according to the last one that felt the ends of his Mind Stick, he wasn't making even a dent in their numbers. The goons worked for goons who worked for more goons, and who knew how far up that ladder went. Hidoi didn't mind, and planned on thrashing every one of them he saw.

After meeting another Airbender lady named Avery, who had a pet panda spirit thing called Lil' Bai, Hidoi started to head toward home before it got too dark. He didn't get very far before he heard someone below yelling up at him; another female voice. Hidoi looked down to see her standing nearby a building that had a bunch of neon lights, that had a long line out front.

Hidoi parachuted his way down to her. Alot of the people in the line, teenagers several years older than he was, watched the kid float from above with strange looks. “Hey kid, I saw you beat up some of those rent-a-thugs, that was awesome,” said the woman, who looked and dressed pretty young herself, standing beside a tall muscular gentlemen wearing a suit and glasses, looking at a clipboard in his hands. He'd occasionally check the list and let people in. Hidoi shurgged his shoulders at the compliment.

”You saw that? Well somebody's gotta stand up to those guys...”

“And that's gotta take a lot of guts, especially since you're only a little kid! I know some fully grown adults who should follow your example!... Say, how about you work here for a night, huh? Our regular bouncer had to call off sick, and you can handle yourself in a fight should there be trouble, how about it?”

”Me? A bouncer in a nightclub?...Cool!”

He'd probably get in trouble for not being in before it got dark, but for this chance, he was willing to hear his mother yell at him. The woman took his hand and led him past the line and the doorman inside the club, and took him on a small tour. There was a main area for dancing, space to sit down and relax, and upstairs was VIP. The woman, who'd introduced herself as Carla, had to talk loud over the music. The whole time Hidoi got funny stares, but didn't seem to care.

Hidoi was invisible for the most part while “Bouncing” in the bar, but he didn't mind. He got to see how young adults acted in a club setting with his own eyes. Some of the females who spotted him standing there with his arms folded trying to act tough came over to dance with him and show the kid his first good time. All 3 of them had obviously had something to drink; he'd seen someone drunk enough times to know they were under the influence.

“Aren't you a little young to be in here?” one of them asked.

”I'm the bouncer for tonight.”

“You?” the girls laughed, and Hidoi grinned. “But you're just a little kid!”

”Perfect disguise, huh?”

The girls started asking him other questions, like how old he was, and if he were still a virgin. He didn't really mind answering the questions of the drunk older girls, before noticing some of the thugs that he'd beat up in the alley trying to rob that citizen enter the establisment. 3 in number, they too looked drunk, and began stumbling around the dance floor groping random women. One o the women slapped one of the men, and in response he grabbed her, but soon after he felt a sudden gust of wind and found his hand swatted by the end of Hidoi's Mind Stick. The 3 men looked around, but saw no one. Systematically the 3 men began being pummeled by someone unseen; the sound of a stick popping upside head was loud even over the music. Hidoi, moving too fast through the darkness and the flashing lights of the club to be seen by ordinary eyes, to special care not to make a mess and hit any innocent mystanders. It was a hard gust of wind that carried the 3 idiots out of the front door, to place them in a pile out in the street. Many standing around watched and laughed.

The rest of the night went by easily with no trouble. Hidoi sped home after saying bye to Carla, and listening to her tell him to come back sometime to see if it were available for him to work again.