Max takes a full step back. He remembers what it felt like, the last
time; after his soul was stretched out until it threatened to snap, he
felt himself become numb. It was months before he could even get out of
bed. He wishes Cal were here, all of a sudden; he could say something to
stop her, she wouldn't make a move around him. That's *Cal's*
super-power. "My point is, I was handling it."
"Good," Gerund Girl says. "Because this isn't about bonding orIt must be *flaming* fire. 8{D>
becoming friends or whatever. This is about me keeping my eye on
you." Each i-n-g hums as she says it, flaming swirling around her
face, flames seem to peel back her skin.
"I mean, of course you can light your head on fire for dramatic
effect on top of everything else. This isn't fair."
***
AUTHOR NOTES
Amid a very busy time at work when I'm also in between writing
projects, I decided to throw together another instalment of the
adventures of Gerund Girl, Never Lad and Lone Boy. Will I do another one soon? Hopefully, it was fun to just churn something out in an hour.
For the record, I blame Posture Prince on the LNHQ's habit ofOh, at first I thought you were blaming the LNHQ's habit on him. 8{D>
spontaneously generating new Legionnaires any time you think of a
name at random.
LONE BOY TEAM-UP #1
"Bonding"
By Ben Rawluk
***
The problem with being Lone Boy is the team-ups. You wouldn't think so, right?
And then there's, well, the entire Legion, but that's a proximity thing. Even with Max's quarters in the third sub-basement, you can't go twenty minutes without getting embroiled in some kind of team-up. Captain Basement told him he
was the kind of gritty special guest star they bring in all the time to boost sales.
(And the issue of Posture Prince's crush on Cal, which, well.)
Boss Emoji, whose current crop of underlings are the ones surrounding them, the ones with the yellow pie-plate masks and the purple jumpsuits, brandishing
the mood rings. Probably thirty seconds away from driving them both mad with them.
The Big Moods.
That one's wearing his old mask, actually.
Gerund Girl rolls her eyes. "They had you upside down in that dumpster five minutes ago." She has to shout over the sound of her flaming chainsaw, which she's waving back and forth between them and the underlings.
Whatever, Sad Face is a dick. Being an underling always felt like living with four roommates in some dingy dormitory hoping for your five minutes of publicly
menacing Kid Kirby or somebody someone's heard of; you kind of have to be a bit
of a dick to survive that.
He glares across at the new Angry Face and ends up saying, "I hope you sanitized that mask."
"Oh good," says Angry Face. "You remembered that we're here."
"Oh my god, this again," Gerund Girl says, surging forward, swinging the chainsaw in an arc around them - none of the Big Moods get out of the way in time, scream as the flames pass through them before collapsing onto the pavement, moaning. Laughter Face is shrieking, Happy Face weeping, Angry Face laughing and Sleepy Face wriggling around like a worm. Only Sad Face is still,
motionless and silent. The Kiss of the Logodemon. "This isn't a sitcom," she says eventually, the chainsaw dissolving into fading embers.
"You've seen my file?" He rounds on her, knows that the fangs and claws and burning red eyes around out now.
He wasn't even going to go out on patrol tonight; he's supposed to be seeing a movie on the other side of town with Cal and Stature Queen and, of course, Posture Prince because that guy invites himself along to anything if Cal's going to be there. Except it's raining, and brooding in the rain is one of his
*other* super-powers, and then he spotted these knuckleheads. It was inevitable
after that.
"If you say the words redemption arc, I'm breaking out the chainsaw again."
Max takes a full step back. He remembers what it felt like, the last time; after his soul was stretched out until it threatened to snap, he felt himself become numb. It was months before he could even get out of bed.
"Good," Gerund Girl says. "Because this isn't about bonding or becoming friends or whatever. This is about me keeping my eye on you." Each i-n-g hums as she says it, flaming swirling around her face, flames seem to peel back her
skin.
"I mean, of course you can light your head on fire for dramatic effect on top of everything else. This isn't fair."
Posture Prince was an offhand remark by Drew Perron
Amid a very busy time at work when I'm also in between writing projects, I decided to throw
together another instalment of the adventures of Gerund Girl, Never Lad and Lone Boy. Will I do
another one soon? Hopefully, it was fun to just churn something out in an hour.
I've been fiddling with the idea for this for a while now, but it took me a while to come to the
right voice for Max. I have a whole little clique and social dynamic for Cal and Max that I have
forming in my head; any excuse to resurrect Captain Basement from an old issue of Dashing Tales.
For the record, I blame Posture Prince on the LNHQ's habit of spontaneously generating new
Legionnaires any time you think of a name at random.
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