Alex: I have a plan for Halloween
Alex: Kiln, you’re Luke Skywalker, dashing sword-master with mystic powers
Alex: Mette, you’re Princess Leia, the beautiful and intelligent woman on a vital mission
Alex: Roddy, you’re Han Solo, the scoundrel with a heart of gold
Alex: Joey is going to be Chewbacca, and carry me around like C3P0 on Bespin
Joey: I hate one part of this idea already
Alex: but it’s perfect, because in that scene–
Joey: Roddy should be R2D2
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Later …
Alex: Joey, stop shooting Roddy with that EMP rifle. Even out of costume he’s getting kind of twitchy.
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Roddy: Okay, forget about Star Wars. New Halloween plan. We’re going to go as the comic book team “Justice League of America.”
Alex: Everyone knows they’re just the HHL with the serial numbers filed off.
Roddy: Shush! Now, Mette, of course, you are the “Wonder Woman” – peace-loving warrior from a far-off realm with the Power of Truth and the favor of the Gods.
Mette: In my era, religion is considered a mental –
Roddy: Great, Princess! You probably have mutant riding kangaroos aboard your ship, so it’s an even better fit.
Mette: How did you know that?
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Joey: I’m really not into the comics.
Roddy: Joey, you’re –
Joey: “Gorilla Grodd.” Of course.
Roddy: Huh? No, Grodd is a bad guy.
Joey: So I’m a bad guy now? Wonderful.
Roddy: No, no, no! You’re the “Superman”.
Joey: I’m – who?
Roddy: Strange visitor, alien but oh-so-human, a heart of gold but always apart from his fellows, powerful beyond words, his secret identity walking among us unseen and unappreciated: a true hero.
Joey: That’s … strangely moving.
Roddy: And you always look like you’re wearing your underwear on the outside.
Joey: There it is.
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Roddy: Kiln, of course, is the “Aquaman.”
Kiln: This is a good thing?
Roddy: Of course. Strong, heroic, with an oddly mystical and mythical origin, a stranger to our world yet still familiar with it.
Kiln: That is a fine heritage.
Alex: And you talk to fish.
Kiln: What? No!
Roddy: What’s wrong with --?
Kiln: It is a blasphemy against the Piscene Priests of the Neap Tide.
Roddy: Don’t worry, we’ll retcon all that fish stuff, and reset your issue numbering. That kind of thing happens to Aquaman all the time.
Kiln: Oookay?
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Roddy: Now, Alex, you’re –
Alex: The “Batman,” of course, master strategist, wielder of advanced anti-crime tech, and keeper of dossiers about all his friends’ weaknesses.
Joey: Wait, what?
Roddy: No, of course not. You’re –
Alex: Then “Cyborg.” For obvious –
Roddy: Obviously not. You’re Martian Manhunter: the kinda-creepy, protean, usual-leader of the team.
Alex: Oh. Okay. Well, I guess that works.
Roddy: Also, if I wave fire in your face, you flinch.
Alex: You’re not wrong.
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Alex: Wait, who does that make you?
Roddy: I AM VENGEANCE.
Mette: Are you well? Your voice is very hoarse.
Kiln: The Grey Sisters of Echoes gave me a fine recipe for sore throats –
Roddy: I AM THE NIGHT.
Joey: Wait, the “Knight”? Is that one of “The Justice League”?
Alex: No, he said, the “Night”.
Joey: I don’t remember that character, either.
Roddy: I AM BATMAN!
Alex: Wait, what?
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Joey: Isn’t he like the smartest of the “Justice League”?
Alex: Yyyyeah?
Roddy: I AM BATMAN!
Mette: Bats are a vital part of the ecosystem. Deck 12 had a special bat breeding chamber.
Kiln: The flying mice of the night feature in many of the lighter comedies of the theater in my era.
Roddy: I AM BATMAN!!
Mette: So you eat bugs and provide valuable fertilizer?
Kiln: You sing the chorus at the end of the third act of “Laughter in the Night”?
Roddy: I AM BATMAN!!!
Joey: Wait, that’s why Alex couldn’t be the “Batman”? Because you wanted to be?
Alex: The giant penny drops.
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Roddy: FINE, goddammit. I’ll be Powertronic this year. Again.
Joey: Ha!
Roddy: Which is actually cool, because, hey, Powertronic!
Joey: I was hoping for a bigger moral victory here.
Alex: Just be glad he didn’t go for a “Super Friends” motif.
Roddy: Perfect! Mette is Wendy, and Kiln is Marvin, and Joey is Wonder Dog, and …
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Alex: When was your last conversation with someone?
Tahi’s last “conversation”
Tahi: Hello, Human. What are you-
Tourist: AHHHHHHHHH
Tahi: What?
Tourist: AHHHHHHHHHHHH OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD MONSTER DON’T EAT AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Tahi: 10 years ago. Kind of.
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Tahi: You are all very complicated. My life before was simpler.
35 Years Before:
Treasure Hunter: This is amazing! Crikey! I can strip this place down and make a bloody for–
Tahi: (Zaps treasure hunter, leaving only a greasy pile of ash. And a hat.)
Today again:
Tahi: Much simpler.
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High School Kid: All right! Told you it was an easy swim to the island.
High School Kid: Yeah. Now we just need to break in, steal the Kirby Cup trophy, and we’ll be heroes to Gardner!
Tahi: (Eye spotlights splitting the darkness) YOU ARE TRESPASSING ON PHOENIX ACADEMY PROPERTY. THIS GROUNDSKEEPING UNIT IS EMPOWERED TO DEAL WITH THIS PROBLEM. DROP YOUR BACKPACKS. YOU HAVE THIRTY SECONDS TO COMPLY.
High School Kid: Is that … the janitor?
Tahi: (Eye spotlights are getting disturbingly brighter and warmer.) YOU HAVE TWENTY SECONDS TO COMPLY.
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Evan: Well hello, fair lady. You look as though you were carved from marble by the High Deity herself
Tahi: I was crafted my the elders millennia before your people were even a twinkle in your High Deity’s eye.
Evan: I’ll take that as a hard maybe
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Joey, throwing up the coongee:
Chris: I told you you were using too much nether salt.
Kiln: All right all right. But it would have been fine if you had added the extra filithar egg like I told you to.
Chris: And I told you they no longer exist!
Kiln: Chicken eggs are not an acceptable substitute!
1 Like
Tiffani: Did you hear that Chris and Kiln are dating?
Nono, writing frantically in her notebook: Yesssss! All my ships are coming together! Oh the canon!
Tiffani: Is… is she ok?
Emma: She does that.
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Hailey: Pssst.
Chris: Whuh?
Hailey: (whispering) If you’re in trouble, if they are exerting any sort of pressure or force to shanghai you into a relationship, let me know. Blink three times if you’re under surveillance.
Chris: No, no, it’s nothing like that. There’s no coercion going on.
Hailey: You’re truly involved with them?
Chris: Actually … well, it’s complicated. But it starts with a cup of rhubarb, finely minced.
Hailey: TMI, girl.
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Hunter: I can’t believe it. Now that Kiln creep has stolen Chris from me!
Evan: What? Thistle and thorn, no! That’s who I was planning on inviting to the Winter Dance!
Hunter: Well, good luck. Far as I can tell, Chris is off the market.
Evan: Who cares about her?
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Anna: So, Kiln and Chris. Interesting pair-up.
Joey: Wait, what?
Anna: Her with her literal Blade from Hell, them with all that mystic mumbo-jumbo combat mage vibe. It’s a match made … someplace awfully attractive.
Joey: Wait, what?
Anna: Oh, don’t play coy. Answer me honestly: is it true they bonded over some creepy love potion home ec project that nobody else would eat?
Joey: Wait, WHAT?
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Aliud: So, Chris and Kiln are mating. An interesting genomic combination.
Joey: Well, I knew they’d been partners in Home Ec, but I never knew –
Aliud: And this gives you an opportunity to engage in a time-honored cultural ritual.
Joey: Sit in my dorm room and exhaust my allowance on pencils and paper trying to find a way to tell a person I care for that I can never be with them?
Aliud: To double-date Chris+Kiln along with Mette. I have, you see, been keeping thorough notations of your expressed behavior. I’ve seen the emotional, cognitive, and libidinal attraction between the two of you.
Joey: Wait, what?
Aliud: But your ritual also sounds very interesting. Can I observe?
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Haley: All right, I have just one thing to say.
Kiln: Hello?
Haley: If you hurt her, if you make her cry, if you bring Chris to harm in any way, there is no place on this planet or off it where you can hide from me.
Kiln: Um …
Haley: She is a fine person. She is my friend. If I discover this is some flighty pretence at romance on your part, I will end you. Painfully. Using techniques that violate several interstellar compacts, and will likely mean the demise of this planet.
Kiln: This was a terrible idea.
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