Joel was a hero, he hadn't planned on becoming a hero. He'd been a vigilante at first, but he'd quickly approached a hero agency once he realized he wasn't going to stop running into situations to save people.
He could probably trace back his bad heroic desicions to all the way back in middle school when he tried to impress Jimmy by saving a cat from a tree. It had ended with the cat having not been trapped the whole time and had in fact been taunting him for attention.
If only he had learned his lesson and not continued with the heroics.
And now here he was, all these years later, heavily injured, shrunk, and falling from a great height.
The new villains that had emerged in the last week had been destroying the city, killing heroes even, something most villains never stooped so low as to do.
As Joel tried to get his powers under control to maybe catch himself he spotted her.
Lizzie's eyes locked onto him.
Lizzie was a villain, but these new villains from out of town had started killing other villains once the local villains started standing up to them and even sometimes protecting heroes, fighting side by side.
Lizzie and Joel had long since come to an agreement, what with both of them knowing the other's identity, they escentially were at a stalemate. And that stalemate allowed them to get closer. And Joel would admit it, he was entirely in love.
Joel knew he could trust her, so he did his best to twist in the air.
"Lizzie! Run!" he shouted, trusting that at his size only Lizzie with her enhanced senses would be able to hear him.
Instead of running from the danger, she leapt and snatched him out of the air.
"You're going to be okay." Lizzie promised, tucking Joel against her chest and sprinting away from the explosions.
Quickly Lizzie reached the harbor, but it was clear that someone had spotted her, Joel could hear the sounds of fire chasing after them. Lizzie's plan was easy to guess, once she was in the water no one would be able to attack her without losing badly, and she would be able to get away easily, the ocean was her domain after all.
The problem was that Joel couldn't breathe underwater like she could.
If the fighting wasn't so close and he wasn't so injured, he'd say that at his current size he could easily hide somewhere until he could return to normal height, but he was injured and the fight was painfully close.
Lizzie was always a thousand steps ahead of him however, because she opened her mouth, dropped Joel inside, closed it with a click, and jumped into the water.
Joel tried not to jostle his arm as Lizzie gulped around him.
He went limp with relief once he felt her start swimming as he dropped into a soft warm pocket of flesh. Joel closed his eyes, pure relief flowing through him at finally being safe, in the belly of a villain.
