The worst part of being a stripper is that you get glitter in the most uncomfortable of places. So there he was, pants down in the bathroom of the 7-11, with one foot up on the sink as he washed his undercarriage to wash away the glitter before they crept into no-man’s-land, when BANG! The gunfire startled Ricky and he fell backwards, tripping over his boxers and knocking over a trash can with a loud crash.

“Did you hear that?” said a voice. “Yo, I think someone else is here in the shitter. Go check it out.”

“No, ******** you man, you go check it out,” said a second ********, fine.”

Well, this was no good. This store was in the middle of an apparently violent armed robbery, and here Ricky was, defenseless with his naked a** on a dirty ground with his junk covered in glitter. It may make sense that he’d die in a 7-11, but he had hoped it wouldn’t be like this.

Haley would be so disappointed. After the deaths of their close friends Michael and Desiree, Haley was adamant about maintaining some distance from the dangers of the city. And as a close friend, Ricky traveled with her. Together, they bought a trailer resting not far outside of the city, in the middle of the woods, where they lived a pretty secluded life.

Ricky would travel into the city for his gigs at night and bring home a substantial amount of tips, and Haley would even get some visitors to pick up some drugs she’d grow on the land. They were getting along like best friends, but they weren’t in a relationship, as Haley often would remind him. Sure, they’d have sex every night, and usually there was some post-breakfast and post-lunch coitus as well, but that was just what best friends who weren’t bound by the heternormaitve monogamous patriarchy would interact, she would tell him.

It was all bullshit. When he was in the city, he’d refer to her as his girlfriend, but if that word ever got back to her, there’d be hell to pay.

And he didn’t want someone telling her that her boyfriend was found dead with glittery balls in a gas station bathroom.

Because she’d be really upset about him being called her boyfriend.

Under Haley’s request, he had not powered up within the city limits in several months, but he wasn’t about to die here. Focusing, he recalled the process to transform into Troy Squire of Chronos, no longer pantsless with a glimmering nutsac, and no longer defenseless.

As the armed robber opened the door, Troy quickly grabbed his arm and twisted it, disarming the thief before slamming his head into the wall to render him unconscious.

“Oh, ********!” screamed the accomplice who started to storm out of the store. But Troy wasn’t going to let him get away. He grabbed a can of Campbell’s Tomato Soup and pegged it as hard as he could at the criminal’s back, the soup exploding into a burst of tomato sauce all over the shop as the criminal withered in pain.

The store clerk peered up from behind the counter in fright as he rang the silent alarm. Troy didn’t have much time before the police would show up, and that was not something he wanted to deal with. He stormed out of the store and leapt onto a neighboring city roof.

There was another presence nearby – a peaceful, familiar one at that – but he couldn’t stay. He had already risked himself of being exposed to danger by powering up in the city limits, and had to hurry home. He quickly leapt from rooftop to rooftop, rushing back to his trailer in the woods with his not-girlfriend.

He depowered before entering – it wasn’t a story he would share, just a little secret that surely nobody will ever know about.