Powerhouse: Legend of the Archwave

Chapter 15 (Act II): Refuge For The Abandoned

We last read Chapter 14, in which James Markovsky a.k.a. Powerhouse and his new companion Isabela Acosta a.k.a. Archwave are given a thorough tour of most of the Spraywatch Hub's outer courtyard courtesy of two of its vandals: Valentina Valdez and her best friend Tyrone Hoover. After another random Spraywatch vandal attempts to present them with a plate of cupcakes—only succeeding in getting Powerhouse to take one—Valentina and Tyrone first take them to the makeshift "gym" in the lower left quadrant of the courtyard, relative to the perspective of someone entering the Hub from the outside. There, the two heroes have completely different experiences; while Powerhouse is immediately enamored due to his love of working out and exercising—prior to becoming a superhero and an occasional employee at Lockdown, Inc.—Archwave is instead accosted by a sleazy Spanish-speaking bodybuilder who makes rather disgusting remarks as he attempts to ask her out. Eventually, despite her patience, he officially crosses the line when he places his right hand on her left shoulder without her consent, earning him a swift arrow to his left foot and an entire barbell weight on his stomach for his troubles.

The next stop is the "playground"......which is actually a highly complex paintball gun fighting ground—complete with walls and paintable surfaces for makeshift cover—where matches are often held to improve the vandals' prowess; it's also at this location where Powerhouse and Archwave are officially introduced to the Spraywatch gang's paintball guns and rifles for the first time, with Valentina and Tyrone assuring them of the weapons' destructive capabilities. Here, Tyrone attempts to draw rough parallels between the purpose of the "playground" and combat drills often carried out in military training, in an attempt to appeal to Powerhouse's initial wish to serve as an aspiring military serviceman before fate ultimately waylaid him. Powerhouse, however, counters with the fact that Spraywatch targets public property while the military's entire mission is to help others. Valentina is quick to break the awkward silence, though, and quickly moves the group on to the next stop, which is the target range.

Enroute to the target range, Valentina apologizes to Archwave about the behavior of the Spanish-speaking bodybuilder at the makeshift "gym", swearing that he does not represent the entirety of the Spraywatch gang or its ideals at all; Archwave accepts Valentina's apology, and, to show off when the crew arrives at the target range, nocks three arrows on her bow at once and nails all three target papers on the left wall with bullseyes. However, she faces momentary disdain from everyone else present since she ruined the target papers by skewering her arrows through them, whereas the paintballs that are often splattered onto them can simply be washed off. Valentina, though, turns the situation into a positive by stating that Archwave has given them a firsthand display of her aiming prowess—while also saying that the target papers were starting to yellow anyway—then resolves to take them to the "final stop" of the courtyard tour.....the mural.

This time, Valentina and Tyrone bring Powerhouse and Archwave to the Spraywatch gang's mural—painted all along the right wall of the courtyard—and reveal the true extent of the gang's struggles to the heroic duo.....

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Valentina Valdez led both James Markovsky a.k.a. Powerhouse and the archer Isabela Acosta a.k.a. Archwave to the Spraywatch gang's giant widespread mural that spanned the entire length of the outer courtyard's right wall. Following closely behind them was Valentina's best friend and fellow vandal Tyrone Hoover, still keeping a close eye on both Powerhouse and Archwave the entire time.

The mural coated the entirety of the outer courtyard's right wall, to the point where there were no more visible remnants of the wall's original color, which had been yellow. Instead, it had been replaced with disorganized—yet somehow vibrant—splotches and streaks of spray-painted color, as well as random letters, numbers, symbols, and words here and there that were nonetheless properly shaded and outlined as though it were genuinely trying to be an art piece. In the top center of the entire mural was the name "Spraywatch" in all caps, spray-painted in orange and outlined with purple......and below it—amongst all of the other indiscernible characters—were vibrant paintings of both Spraywatch vandals and normal Seattle citizens hanging out with each other without a care in the world. There wasn't a frown on anyone's face, and the vandals were cheerfully presenting their paintings to onlooking admirers.