Vinny sighed, thinking about it.
It wasn't like he WANTED to be so pessimistic. But all this was a lot to process and Vinny couldn't help but think that a concept as broad as 'every single comic book superpower and maybe some other stuff' was without a downside.
But Jon seemed all for it. And, considering how Jon had been with him from the beginning, way back... Vin figured he owed him to stick this out to the end.
"Okay," he nodded, "Yeah...sure. Let's do it."
"Finished debating the pros and cons of living forever?" Tyler asked them as they turned back to him and the other four.
"We're ready," said Jon, "Just...lay it on us."
"Okay," said Tyler, stretching his shoulders, "Brace yourselves."
Vinny nodded, feeling his heart racing, blood ringing in his ears. He felt a quick brush of contact against his hand, quickly withdrawn.
Jon, it seemed, had reached out to take his hand, only to think better of it.
Fuck that. Jon wanted Vinny to do this with him, he sure as hell was going to have his hand held.
Vinny reached out and clasped his friend's hand in his own, locking eyes with him and nodding with a little smile.
"Ready boys?" Tyler asked the others.
"Roger Wilko," said Mike, inspiring a questioning look from Carl.
"You have an encyclopedia of everything in your head now," Mike deadpanned, "Look it up."
"Are we READY?" Tyler asked again, louder.
"We're waiting on anything?" asked Carl, prompting a heavenward groan of frustration from Tyler.
"We get it, can we just..." Brett indicated Jon and Vinny.
"Right." Tyler squared his shoulders, spread his feet out. The others ranked to either side of him. Vinny could feel Jon's hand in his.
The air seemed to crackle and spark with some invisible force. Vinny could feel his hair standing on end, a type of tension in his muscles.
"Oh...oh man..." he heard Jon breathe through clenched teeth.
Vinny would have asked what was wrong, but then he felt it too. A bolt of energy shooting through him, from his toes up to his head, rocking his entire body.
"God!" he cried out, reeling on his feet, smelling smoke in his nostrils.
"W-why..." he heard Jon choke out beside him, "Why...does it...HURT...so much?"
"Don't fight it," Tyler's voice, seeming to come from miles away, "Just let it in, guys. Let it happen."
'I knew it,' Vinny found himself thinking frantically, 'I knew something was wrong, it was too good to be true...'
"Stop it..." he found himself begging, his voice not even sounding like him, "Stop, stop...MAKE IT STOP!"
"Maybe we shouldn't've," said Mike, observing this all from the sidelines, "I mean...we were never told we could give other people POWERS too. Maybe we're pushing it?"
"How many times do we have to go over this?" Tyler replied coolly, "There's NOTHING we can't do."
Vinny had never wanted to hit someone more, as he and Jon were brought to their knees, their body temperatures rising, a vicious energy bubbling up within the pit of his stomach.
"Fight it..." he heard himself tell Jon, "Jon, resist it. It's bad, it's wrong, it's...it's killing us, man."
Jon nodded, veins bulging in his neck, in his forehead, marring his childlike face.
"Must...fight...must hold on..." Jon choked up, "Got to...keep c-cont..."
Another surge ran up and down Vinny's arms, forcing him to drop Jon's hand. Jon clearly had a similar problem, letting out a guttural wail as he threw his released hand down into the tiles with such force they cracked, "So...so...STRONG!"
Jon stared at the spiderweb cracks he'd made in the floor, his eyes wide and disbelieving. The hand he'd punched the tile with was unmarred, unhurt. He flexed his fingers, looking for a moment to be in a trance.