Joey Z. was enjoying a rather nice day for this time of year. He was kicking back in a lawn chair on a section of beach along an icy river in nothing but his bermuda shorts and a pair of sunglasses. Oddly enough, the ground around him was not frozen like the rest. In fact it wasn't Joey's appearance that got the passerby's attention. It was the fact that, on this cloudy day, a single ray of concentrated sunshine seemed to pierce the clouds and land directly on this curious little man.

"Excuse me, Mister?" a little boy ventured to ask after having watched this little man eat his third Triglupian Shlaffel* that seemed to appear from nowhere. "Are you a Leprechaun?"

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A Triglupian Shlaffel is a greenish pastry that can only be made on the the planet Shnarfax. Because of its unique gravity, this pastry rises to nearly five inches and is lighter than it looks. It was created in the Triglupian province of that planet by a man (for lack of a better term as they often don't claim a gender on that planet, but rather a phoneme... again that is another story) by the name of Smith who had heard about waffles on the planet Earth and tried to recreate them in his restaurant. It was a mix up of some ingredients and some substituting of others that led to the popularity of this now intergalactic delicacy that made both this obscure creation and planet what they are today... but back to our story, shall we?
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Joey looked at the boy, a smile playing across his lips. "Yeah, Kid, something like that."

"Wow, Mister! What are you doing in a dump like this?"

"I'm scouting." Joey hadn't had this much contact with people in a while and he was trying his best to behave.

"Scouting?" The boy asked with a definite look of puzzlement on his face. "Gee, what would a Leprechaun need to scout for?"

Joey's smile became wider and a little malicious. "Why, for recruits! What else?" He sat up straight in his lawn chair. "you mean to tell me your parents haven't told you yet?"

The boy began to step back a little. "T-Tell me what?" he asked, a little unnerved.

"Leprechaun Camp! Every year we choose little boys to be candidates for becoming Leprechauns and bring them to camp. If they pass, they and their families become wealthy and live happily ever after. But if they don't pass," Joey's smile got bigger than it seemed his face would allow and the child backed up a little more, "they get turned into a pile of gold coins to add to our collection!"

"G-g-g-gold coins?"

"How else do you think we keep ourselves rich? Dig it up?" Joey ended with a laugh that sent the boy running. A huge shadow suddenly loomed over Joey and he looked up. "Hey! That's my sunlight if you don't mind!"

"Wow, Joey, you sure know how to make friends." The shadow moved and Joey saw that it was one of the Men Team, Burly Man, who had been robbing him of his warmth. The massive man with tools all over his body and the ability to control anything that was a tool had a reputation for being the goody-two-shoes of his bunch... low on brains, but big on punch.

"Hey, Burly. Whatcha doing in this part of town?"

"Well, I heard that the Lair Legion was out of town, so me and the rest of the Men Team decided to make extra rounds." As if on cue, the rest of the Men Team showed up: Girly Man, Multiple Personality Man, and their new recruit (who recently changed his name in order to join their team) Spaztic Man.

"Got here as fast as we could BM!" Girly Man shouted.

"I told you not to call me that!!!" yelled Burly Man as he duck taped Girly Man's mouth shut.

"Great. The Lair Legion leaves for their first company vacation in years and the city is left to these bozos to defend it! What else could go wrong?"

As if on command, Joey's beam of sunlight went out leaving them all in darkness. A little too much darkness.

"Would you cut it out!" MP Man yelled at Joey. "This is not a game!"

"I didn't do that." he responded and looked up to the sky slowly. Above them loomed a Mark MMMMCMLVI Naicluvian Battle Cruiser armed to the teeth. Suddenly a spotlight from the ship landed right on Joey Z.

"Hey, look!" Spaztic Man pointed out. "Joey was using a spaceship to give him that light!"

---To be continued---