98 Insert Title Here 2 Electric Boogaloo

I feel like so many of you don't read my notes at the end of every chapter :C

I'm not even going to put a line break in so that you don't just skip past it 𝘩𝘮𝘱𝘩 how do you like that? Now you have to read all of this to find where the chapter starts >:)

Anyway, story time.

It takes me a little while to reach Shatterbird, mostly on account of the little spider robot being a lot slower than me, but eventually it leads me to a warehouse, dips it's head twice and then heads back to it's master.

I'd check my watch to know what the time is, but I don't have one and my phone is still in transit, but it's probably somewhere around midnight by now.

With a shrug of my shoulders, I make my way inside to be greeted by a storm of glass twisting around a woman who has a few ethereal tentacles coming out of her chest and is desperately using them to stave off the storm.

She's doing a pretty good job of it as well. The tentacles are moving fast enough that they're a blur even to my eyes, and the repeated sonic booms tells me that they are supersonic at least.

Looking at the rest of the room though, I notice that it is one of those warehouses that has the a walkway above the floor, going around and cutting through the room.

Presumably so that the foreman can walk around menacingly and judge everyone from a point of superiority.

Case in point, Shatterbird is standing on the walkway, looking down on Black Queen with all the poise of a god watching a pathetic mortal complete their 'trials'.

At least that's how I imagine she views this whole thing.

"Yo! Shatter!" I call out, even though I'm fairly certain she already knew I was here.

She just gestures for me to get close so she doesn't have to shout, which is fair enough really.

One hop later and I am on the walkway with her, landing with a clang even though I could have done so silently just because I like the dramatics of it.

Everyone knows that when a Bad Guy lands on a metal bridge-path like this that there is always that same reverberating clang sound.

Shatter just looks at me like I'm an idiot after seeing my dumb smile though.

"So! You havin' fun?~ Nearly done yet? I want a turn already.~" My rapid fire words cause her eyebrows to twitch, but I can tell that her annoyance at me is purely affectionate.

Ok, maybe not purely, but at least I know she doesn't just hate me. If that was the case then there'd probably be glass entering every one of my orifices by now.

Which, by the way, is not my idea of a good time. I'm not 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 kinky.

"She's got potential. We'll see how she holds up with the rest, and no, I'm not done." Her answers are as brisk as always, at least until she takes in my face, "why did you stitch on a smile and use makeup for the rest?"

I give her a shrug and grin in response.

"No reason,~ just trying new things~" I answer and she looks at me like I'm an idiot for a moment before turning back to what she was doing and presumably ignoring me.

How rude.

Ah well, it's not like there's really anything else to do, so I guess I'll just sit around here until her test is over so I can be the one to test her next.

I've got to admit though, she's doing better than I thought she would.

Her power isn't too strong after all. It's decent, but nothing near the level of most of us, yet down below her tentacles are moving so fast around her that it's like there is a solid barrier surrounding her, protecting her from the glass trying to cut her up.

However, every now and then a shard or two will make it past her defence, scoring a thin cut and adding another line of blood to her body, though her cloak makes it hard to see the exact condition of her body.

I can tell that Shatter is still playing with her food, so I imagine we'll be here a while.

At some point after having that thought, I must have fallen asleep as the next thing I know I'm falling.

𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘥.

Ow.

Rolling to my back, I look up to see Shatter looking down on me, no doubt having just kicked me off the walkway to wake me up.

"you're bedside manners could use some work." I dryly call up to her, but she just shrugs in response and makes a bunch of glass float in front of me and make an arrow pointing to my left.

...She could have just like, pointed.. with her hand.

Lazy woman.

Turning my head as indicated, I spy a little black woman who is 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 lying on the ground, except she is lying in a puddle of blood.

So that's what she looks like under the cloak then.

Eh, I don't know what I expected, but I'm disappointed regardless.

She just seems so.. normal.

Ah well, she should be fun at least.

I mean, she started a gang in response to the Northside Boys being born and she called the gang the Southside Men. That's a pretty funny thing to do.

Then to top it all off, every cape in the Southside gang has picked a cape name that directly mocks the capes of the Northside.

Like Black Queen herself, names to mirror White King, the leader of Northside.

My favourite is Siberian's candidate though. He's called Thotslayer and he, like all the other Northside capes, seem to take this whole game way too seriously whilst also thinking far too highly of themselves.

I mean, the dude apparently uses a fucking katana, despite being just some white dude dressed in a black trench coat and black army boots.

I doubt he'll survive Siberian, since she only picked him because of his power being some kind of partial wolf transformation thing, but the funny part is the Southside cape who just straight up called themselves Thot in response to Thotslayer.

Point is, they're fun, so she should have no trouble passing my test.

With that, I jump to my feet and make my way over to her.

"Hey there!~" I greet, only to receive a few supersonic tentacles in response.

But despite their speed, they are severely lacking in strength, so they barely even tickle really.

They're probably only about strong enough to break a normal human's arm, so even if she does make it into the Nine, she sure as hell won't survive long.

Man, now I'm starting to root for Carrot. Unless Crawler kills her, then I might actually like Magne as a candidate.

"I'll let that go on account of it not hurting even the slightest bit.~ But it's time for your next test!~ Aren't you excited?~" In response to my enthusiasm, she just levels me with a deadpan glare and spits up at me.

Oooh, feisty.~

"Cool, well, I'll take that as a yes, mostly 'cuz I'm pretty sure you understand that the alternative is death or worse.~" Despite my playful tone, the threat isn't exactly subtle so she quickly shambles to her feet, even though she looks absolutely exhausted.

How long have I been asleep?

There's some sunlight coming in from outside so I assume it's been about half a day at least.

Whatever, I don't really care.

"So! My test is a simple one and should be pretty easy for you.~ All you have to do is make me laugh,~ in the meantime, I will give you a command every thirty minutes. Failure to follow any of my commands before I give the next time will result in me taking a bite out of you, failure to make me laugh withing 24 hours will result in death. Ready set go!~"

She doesn't share my enthusiasm and spends a couple of minutes just sitting back down and holding her head in her hands, using the time to rest and maybe think up something funny to do.

Soon enough though, she responds as if it hasn't been minutes since I last spoke, all the while I've just been standing still and staring at her.

"I just have to make you laugh and I pass?" She asks, and I just nod at the redundant question.

"Right... What's the difference between a police officer and a bullet? When a bullet kills someone else, you know it's been fired."

God dayum!

Even though her voice lacked any inflection, I still very nearly let out a startled laugh, not expecting her to be going straight for the throat like that.

To be honest, part of me was expecting a knock knock joke.

"That was a good one, but you'll have to try harder.~" I say with just a wide smile to show how much I enjoyed the joke.

"What does a pizza delivery guy and a Gynaecologist have have in common? They can both smell it but not eat it." She still just sounds tired, which is effecting delivery for sure, but damn, I'm liking the jokes.

Seeing that I'm only smiling and not actually laughing, she sighs and seems to resign herself to doing what is probably the most high stakes stand up set ever.

"People like to say they're 'born cool', but nobody is born cool. Except of course, dead babies."

That was definitely funnier than the last one, but mere jokes aren't enough to force me to laugh. Because jokes are great and all, but I want to see new and interesting things, funny things.

Ah well, I'm sure she'll figure something out. Or maybe her jokes will just get me, they've been funny so far.

And that's how the next half hour or so went, I'm guesstimating the time, until I raise a hand to stop her.

"Time's up!~ For your first command, I'll give you something simple, and keep in mind each half hour the commands are going to grow more and more difficult to do. I command you to find someone, and decapitate them!~"

Nice and simple while also getting the point across that the commands won't be easy, without yet hurting her.

I'd say I'll wait till the two or three hour mark before the commands start being truly detrimental to her health.

Seeing as she doesn't immediately start moving, I decide to try and motivate her.

"C'mon~ you only have half an hour to do it if you don't want me taking a bite out of you,~ so I'd suggest you hop to!~" My exclamation finally brings about movement from her as she starts dragging her exhausted body out in search of some poor folk experiencing a severe case of 'wrong place, wrong time'.

It takes her probably about twenty minutes to find someone, during which she seems to have forgotten that she's supposed to be making me laugh.

Seeing as it seems to be around midday, the people she comes across look like they were just heading out, looking for food or something so they can go back to hiding inside.

Sucks to suck.

There are four of them, which won't give her extra points or anything if she decapitates them all and they immediately scatter upon seeing a pair of capes.

Well, three of them do. The other poor soul seems to know Queenie as he actually stops and 𝘸𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘴.

I think I'm going to need to try hard to avoid laughing here.

"Hey Queen. What're you doing out here, and who's your friend? I don't recognise them, but times are kinda crazy right now, so I hope y'all is at least keeping safe?" He sounds so nice and genuine, such a shame.

Not.

Queenie doesn't respond until she is standing right in front of him and though I can't see her face, just going by how cold her voice is, I assume that her face is carved from stone as she speaks just two words.

"Sorry Dean."

Before he can even properly process her words, her ethereal tentacles burst out of her chest, from where her heat is, and wrap around his throat, pulling in both directions.

But as I've said, her power isn't really all that strong, so it's not an instant, painless experience. Instead it takes a solid few seconds for his neck to rip and his head to be separated, splashing blood on Queenie's masked face.

After which, she just turns back to me, as if expecting something.

"..What? The test is to make me laugh, doing the commands just means your not succeeding fast enough."

Despite her clearly being funny, I think this might be a long day.

Ah well, I'm sure it will be long in the fun kind of way.

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

Couldn't think of a fitting title so I went through old titles and found an opportunity for an electric boogaloo in chap 77 of my other fic :)

You know, I've just come to a realisation of sorts that Lusia has actually experienced a lot more character growth than I realised. Like, she started out pretty bland, not having much of a care for anything, nor any real idea of what she was going to be doing with her time, but now she is completely different with the way she luxuriates in emotions and how far in the future she is planning for. I'm honestly kind of proud of her, like a parent seeing their kid win a trophy for something and having that realisation that your child is an adult now... it's pretty cool.

(5+)Advanced chapters with the links below!

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