Life After Undeath
Kemper

We’d been training for at least a few more hours when Juno and Griff (who were still watching us train with interest) were suddenly joined by Whoosh! and Zelly.

Osiris and I immediately wanted to put our training on pause, but we weren’t sure what to do with the ball!

“Ummmm… We want to join y’all and talk, but what should we do with this ball?” I yelled over to Griff and Juno, who were already chatting pleasantly with Zelly and Whoosh!.

Before they were able to respond, the ball said, “No need to worry about me! I’m just as capable of switching out of training mode and into socializing mode as you are!”

“Well, very good then!” Osiris said, and him and I stopped passing the ball back and forth, and the ball then raced! ahead of us to where Whoosh! and Zelly were chatting with Griff and Juno.

“Hi!” the ball greeted the sorcerers, “My name’s Kemper! Those two weaklings over there clearly wanted to take any excuse that they could to take a break from being DOMINATED by me! I can’t say that I blame them, of course. If I’d been in their shoes, I’da taken any excuse to stop embarrassing myself in front of Juno and Griff too!”

“Hey!” I said combatively back to Kemper, “We were getting’ close to making a basket. I just know it! YOU’RE the one who’s lucky that Osiris and I had to take a break to catch up with Whoosh! and Zelly!”

“Yeah!” Osiris agreed, “You can’t avoid that hoop forever!”

“Ha!” Kemper scoffed dismissively, “Lots of talk, but not much to back it up with! We’ll see what happens when we hit the court again. IF you’re even brave enough to hit the court again, that is!”

Osiris and I chuckled good-naturedly at Kemper’s boastful words, and then we asked Zelly and Whoosh! how things had been going on Earth.

“Zelly managed to mix all of the antidotes together, and then we dispersed them into the air so that everyone would consume them.” Whoosh! explained, and Zelly added that, “They’re all in lights-on mode now!, which means that our job is done.”

“They gonna be monitored or anything like that?” Osiris asked, and Whoosh! responded that, “The League will be checking in on them, you can be sure of that, but it’s doubtful that anyone will be intervening in Earth’s affairs for quite a long time.”

“No intervening,” Zelly caveated, “but any attempts by them to leave Earth’s solar system will definitely be unsuccessful. They still don’t get to try n’ conquer another planet like they did before!”

“Anyway!,” Whoosh! said, “the offer to travel the galaxy with us still stands, if you’re interested; although we can also return you to Earth if you’d like.”

“Where are you headed next?” I asked, to which Zelly replied that they were on their way to the planet of Tock in order to try n’ help some detectives who were there determine who’d tried to prevent the tocktians from enabling a bunch of pumpkins to safely settle on a planet called Pretskin.

“Wait…” Osiris said suspiciously, “So that was what where all of our pumpkins went???”

“Yup!” Whoosh! answered, “The environment was much better for them there than it was for them on Earth.”

“So y’all just stole all of our pumpkins then?” I asked dubiously, to which Zelly replied, “They wanted to leave! Nobody stole anything!”

I decided to just let the matter go, and Osiris and I quickly talked with each other about what to do.

We decided that we liked it on the homeworld of the ettins, and so we asked Juno and Griff if they were absolutely sure that it was cool for us to stay.

“Definitely!” Griff assured us, and Juno added, “Though you can leave at any time, of course. Many ettins are curious about you two though!, and would be happy to have you stay.”

“We wish you all of the best in assisting the detectives then,” I told Whoosh! and Zelly, “but Osiris and I are interested in staying here for now.”

“It was great to see you though!” Osiris added, and Zelly and Whoosh! both said that it’d been good to see us as well, and then they both poofed! away to the planet of Tock!

Now that it was just the 5 of us again, Osiris eyed Kemper and declared, “Time for us to make that basket now!” and Kemper whooped! in delight and began bouncing away from us!

“Oh no you don’t!” I laughed, as Osiris and I both ran after Kemper and went right back to continuing our training session!

We continued training for quite a while, but still never managed to get Kemper into the hoop!, despite us managing to get into enhanced-abilities mode several more times!

After we finally decided to take a break (and were again, of course!, made fun of by Kemper for it), Osiris and I asked Juno and Griff why the styx it was so difficult to make a basket!

“Oh, nobody has ever made a basket before.” Griff explained, to which Kemper added, “That’s right! You’re all losers!, except for me!”

“So the ettins intentionally design and play unwinnable games?” Osiris asked skeptically, and Juno respond that, “We do indeed. We don’t believe in trying to boost our own egos when we play games. We want games that humble us. Handsball is very good at doing that.”

“Sure doesn’t end up making Kemper over here very humble…” I exasperatedly joked, to which Kemper bounced around and roared with delightful laughter!

Juno and Griff agreed that Kemper wasn’t exactly known for their humility, and then they asked if Osiris and I wanted to try n’ make a basket with them teaming up with us.

“With all of us trying to get Kemper into the basket, perhaps we’ll teach them some humility yet!” Griff said cheerfully; and Osiris and I agreed to give it a try, and went right back to trying to get our cocky bouncing friend into that hoop!…

As the days turned into weeks; and we continued playing lots of handsball with Kemper, Juno, and Griff; Orisis and I began to get a better handle on how to control when we went into enhanced-abilities mode, and we weren’t having any accidental enhanced-abilities mode mishaps anymore. We’d even made love a few times without breaking the bed or the floors!

It’s kind of complicated to explain the enhanced-abilities mode control that we now had, but let’s just compare it to riding a bike. At first, we kept on losing our balance and not doing it right, but being able to control how and when it happened became second nature to us after a while.

Griff, Juno, Osiris, and I still hadn’t managed to get Kemper into the hoop; but our lack of being able to win wasn’t preventing us from enjoying the games that we played. I still had some hope that we’d beat the system and make a basket eventually, though!

One day, after playing some handball; Griff mentioned that he and I had told stories back on the River Styx, but that Osiris and Juno still hadn’t told any.

“Wait!” Kemper said, “Ya gotta catch me up before you tell any new ones!”

“I can’t even remember exactly how mine went though.” I said, apologetically, “Something about a tree that is really tall and a baby who’s conceived on the tree, but I couldn’t tell the whole thing the way that I did before.”

“Luckily,” Juno said, “I committed your tale to memory. We ettins do have quite good memories. Would you like for me to tell it?”

I agreed that she could tell it for me, and so Juno told Kemper the tale of The Mysterious Tree, and then Griff told them his Zombies and Elves story.

“Those stories are awesome!” Kemper said excitedly, “Can I go next? Can I?, can I?”

We laughed, and told Kemper they they could indeed go next, and they began to tell us a tale.

“Once upon a time, way back a long time ago, there were no ettins on this world yet!

Then, one day, a spaceship arrived with an ettin and a ball named Kemper!

The ball bounced off of the ship and declared that this world should be the ettin’s homeworld!

The ettin laughed, and asked why the ettins needed a homeworld. Didn’t they have plenty of worlds that were great for living on without specifically having a homeworld?

Kemper explained to the ettin that having a homeworld would improve the status of the ettins in the universe, and also cited the fact that many other beings also had homeworlds and so why shouldn’t he ettins?

The ettin agreed, and so a bunch of ettins all moved to this world and called it the homeworld of the ettins.

But then Kemper made them a deal, and said that they’d have to let Kemper rule over them unless they could beat Kemper at handsball.

The ettins figured that they’d beat Kemper eventually, and so they agreed!

They never beat Kemper, though, and so Kemper rules over them with an iron fist! Muahahahahahahaha!

There is a prophesy, however, that says that someday Kemper will lose at handsball and no longer be the ruler of the ettins.

That prophesy is a bunch of bull$#!+, though, and Kemper will continue ruling over the ettins for forever! Muahahahahahahahahaha!…”