Defence Mechanism

It had not been a happy childhood for Peter. He could hardly remember his mother; she'd passed away when he was six years old. His father – already a heavy drinker – sank deeper and deeper into the bottle in his grief. Peter learned to take care of himself early on – a necessity.

His home life became desperately lonely. His father expected him to complete all household chores, and barely spoke a word unless he was barking orders. Embarassed of his home life, Peter never brought friends to the house, and rarely spent time anywhere else, apart from school.

As he got older, Peter developed a greater understanding of the world. At the age of eleven, he told a close friend of his home life, confiding his secrets. The friend had told him that there were people who could take his father away. He'd meant it as a suggestion – a way for Peter to get out of the situation. Instead, Peter became fiercely protective of his father, and never again admitted that there was anything wrong.

At the age of fourteen, his father took him to a pub for the first time. He pulled some strings with the landlord, and Peter was allowed into the back room, where they kept the darts board and pool table. Something to keep him quiet while his father had a few pints.

Even on that first night, Peter had to drag his father home. And, that night, his father hit him for the first time.

A few years later, Peter developed a surprising aptitude for sports – particularly the long jump. He joined the school's athletics team, and for the first time, he had a coping mechanism.

Years later, he studied psychology, and learned of three major coping strategies, or ego defences as they were known. Firstly, regression – channeling an earlier stage of development. Peter had never dared to throw a tantrum. Secondly, rationalisation, and Peter acknowledged that he'd probably been doing this for years. Reasoning that his situation wasn't too bad. Now, he took to the third ego defence – passive aggression. All his frustration, all his retained energy, he used to practice. Later, he learned that many people at this time developed unusual skills overnight, but few of them nursed these skills, and trained further.

Later still, he realised that these examples of ego defences were greatly simplified, and that he'd also made use of compensation, denial, intellectualisation, dissociation and even introjection. It was at this stage that Peter decided that psychology was too frightening for his tastes.

Then, at the age of seventeen, as Peter was getting changed, his coach saw the bruises. There had been a conversation, and Peter hadn't liked it. The coach had done his best, tried reasoning and suggesting things, but Peter didn't want to do a thing.

And so, things continued as they were. He preferred to keep quiet, not wanting to draw attention to himself.

He chose not to attend university, instead taking a small office job in the neighbourhood. He stopped attending his father's weekly visits to the pub, but didn't move out of the house.

One night, at the age of nineteen, Peter returned home from work to find that his father had died of liver failure. Shortly afterwards, Peter became the superhero known as Lunar Mist.

Even then, he never spoke about his father.

-10001-

The new alien suddenly ran for the empty space in the middle of the group. Garnoff, the alien interpretor, ran for him as the alien guards shouted and readied their weapons. The girl accompanying the alien seemed doubtful, and ran after him. A struggle followed, and the girl, Garnoff and the alien prince all clambered into the ship.

The ship suddenly took off, and the guards ran away, presumably headed for their own ships.

This left Zoe with her sister, Ffion, and the rest of the kids – Liz, Dylan and Karen.

"What do we do?" asked Karen softly.

"I think our involvement with the aliens is over," predicted Liz. "I mean, they're in the ships now. We must be safe."

Karen was nodding furiously. "Yes. You're right."

"We'll need to talk to someone," said Zoe decisively. "Between you, you've probably witnessed a tonne of important stuff. We'll have to talk to police officers or something." She looked at their faces, and smiled. "You all alright?"

There were sighs of relief all round.

"Tell you what," said Zoe. "Let's find someone now, soon as we can, and then we'll all go for ice cream.

-10001-

Lunar Mist jumped from building to building, his mobile phone in his hand. He'd received a text from a friend, and had to hurry.

He jumped onto a factory wall, and suddenly saw the problem – an enormous reptilian creature, near the University. Or at least, what was left of it.

And underneath was a figure in the remains of an orange costume, being struck by the creature.

Lunar Mist jumped at the creature.

"Leave her alone!" he shouted.

He landed on the creture, and spotted that it had been partially tied up. He grabbed the loose end of the rope, and jumped as far as he could. The momentum pulled at the creature's neck, and Lunar Mist jumped to the ground. With the beast disorientated, he was able to jump underneath it, trying to weave the rope between its legs.

Suddenly, the rope snapped at the top, and Lunar Mist was left holding the other end as the creature dashed forwards. Lunar Mist jumped towards it, hoping to think of some way of stopping the monster now that it was free from the-

And then there was no monster at all.

No sign of it remained. Lunar Mist looked in all directions, but only the damage remained as evidence that it had ever been there at all. Even Sunset had vanished.

-10001-

Peter entered the ice cream parlour, and heard a familiar voice.

"Hey, Pete!"

It was Zoe, who worked in his office, with a group of kids. He waved, and Zoe called him over.

"Meeting someone?" she asked.

"No," said Peter. "Just needed to cool down."

"Come sit with us, then!" she said. Under her breath, she added, "Otherwise I'm the uncool grown-up babysitting the cool kids."

Peter sat down.

"I was at the school," said Zoe. "With the aliens! We got to see them close up and everything!"

"Wow," said Peter.

"And then they left, and we got to see the prince's spaceship. Did you know about the prince? He's a fugitive here on Earth. It was incredible."

"Sounds amazing."

"Anyway, after they left, we were just there, hanging around," said Zoe. "Felt a bit pointless, really, like we were all geared up for this ... and then they vanished."

"Know the feeling," said Peter, smiling. He saw the kids talking excitedly. "So, were they all involved in this alien thing?"

"They were," said Zoe. "Had to get their parents in to talk to the police and everything, but they agreed to let them come for an ice cream. I convinced them that, whatever happens, these kids made history, so we should make it the best day ever."

-10001-

Afterwards, Karen and Liz returned home, but Dylan and Peter walked back to Zoe's house with her and Ffion.

"I need to phone my parents," said Dylan. "Beg a lift."

Ffion led him into the living room, while Peter and Zoe went to the kitchen.

"Cup of tea?" asked Zoe, putting the kettle on.

"Please," smiled Peter.

"What a bonkers day," said Zoe. "Wow, I'm buzzing with energy."

"So I see," said Peter.

"Maybe caffeine's not the wisest idea," she said thoughtfully. "But I'll think about that once I've had my tea."

"I enjoyed today," said Peter clumsily.

"So did I," said Zoe with a grin. "We should get ice cream more often."

"Maybe after work sometimes." Peter was avoiding eye contact.

"Yeah," said Zoe. "Or on our lunch breaks or something."

"What do you like for lunch?" asked Peter, trying to sound breezy.

"Oh, I'll eat anything," said Zoe. "Y'know. Except fast food."

"Me too!"

"We should make that a thing," said Zoe. "Try different places every day and stuff."

"That'd be cool."

Peter smiled to himself. The kettle began to whistle.

"So," said Peter as Zoe made the tea. "Is it just you and Ffion living here?"

"That's right," said Zoe. "My dad got a job out of town, so he and my mum moved there. Ffion spends weekends with them, but lives here with me during the week, so she wouldn't have to move schools."

"That's nice," said Peter. "The variety, I mean."

"How about you?" asked Zoe. "Living with parents? On your own?"

"On my own, yes," said Peter. "My parents died."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," said Zoe. "Do you want to not talk about it?"

"Maybe I would," said Peter. "When we have lunch or something." He smiled. "Milk and half a sugar, please."

-10001-

What am I doing? I'm putting the phone down first. It's weird, holding a phone when there's nobody on the other end. Good God, I've been holding it too long, and now it's weird.

Right, it's down. I should be talking. Because now we're both here, not talking. That's not normal.

Look at her. She giggled! Is that a good giggle? Probably. There was no snort. No snort's a good thing. Say something.

"Wow. Aliens, eh?"

Deep, Dylan. We're onto a winner here.

"I know!"

Well. Good thing she's easily pleased. Actually, she's probably too nice to be honest with you. Come on, say something else, you've gone quiet again.

"Never thought I'd see real aliens."

As opposed to all those fake aliens? You retard.

"I loved their suits. They were really exciting!"

Quickly, answer, don't stop – get a conversation going.

"I liked their guns."

What the crap? Think things through! You just told the girl of your dreams that you liked alien implements of death.

"They scared me."

See? You've scared her. Say something gentle.

"I liked the translator one. I liked his accent."

That's ... something, certainly. Better than saying you like guns.

"It's so strange, isn't it? Never thought we'd get to hear aliens speaking English."

"Or Dutch!"

Was that meant to be funny? Did you seriously think- She laughed! She laughed at your joke! Come on, now. Smile. Not that much! There we go. Don't show too much gum.

"I enjoyed today."

Well, now! That's not too bad. Or is it? Is that a cliché? That must have come from a film. Or maybe it comes from ALL the films!

"Me too."

She's still smiling. Do something romantic. NO! STOP! Do NOT touch her arm! Not under any circumstances. She'll stare at it until you move it and then kick you out of her house, and then when your mum comes, you'll have to explain to her why you're sitting on the pavement. Be sweet. Be ... self-mocking. Is that a word? Good God, don't start thinking about vocabulary.

"Ffion."

"Yes?"

"You don't want to go out with me, do you?"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

"Um!"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!

"Sorry, don't answer that."

You idiot you idiot you idiot you idiot you idiot you idiot you idiot you idiot ...

"Was that a joke?"

Why is her voice so quiet? Is she threatening you? No, surely not, that'd be weird. She's giving you a way out, though – you can tell her it's a joke.

"Erm ..."

No wait! Don't tell her it's a joke, she'll think you were making fun of her.

"Dylan, I'd love to go out with you."

What.

"I really like you, actually."

What!

"I mean, I think you're really cool, and I sort-of, wait, sorry, ignore me. I'll shut up. Sorry. Yes. Please. Yes, I want to go out with you. If you still want to, what with me babbling and all. I'll stop."

WHAT!