Chapter 23 - Bubble Gum

Eventually, Lucas manages to compose himself. Before exiting the alley, however, he turns to face Jonathan with a grin.

"Hey, wanna find out if you're faster than an explosion?" As he says this, Lucas shakes the two cans of spray paint in front of Jonathan.

Initially, Jonathan's expression is faintly confused. Before long though, he ends up with an even larger grin.

"Oh! Oh! What do you have in mind?" As he asks this, Jonathan initiates overly-energetic mode, his desire for mischief self-evident. He's nearly prancing in place, distinctly reminiscent of a dog that just got asked if it wants to go out for a walk.

Stifling a laugh at Jonathan's enthusiasm, Lucas goes back into the alley and holds both spray cans out in front of himself, as far out as he can reach with them lowered to about his waist level. He keeps them pressed together, holding the tops of both with one hand and their bottoms with the other, each thumb bracing a can from the side facing him. Applying enough force to keep them securely in place, he isn't very far off from starting to crush them.

"Go on, slash at them as you run past as fast as you can. I gotta see this. Not like we need to worry about whatever mess it makes, hah." With this instruction, Lucas crouches a bit, bracing himself for the oncoming forces.

[And here I thought he was already as happy as could be. Goodness.]

'I bet he was jealous that I got to play with exploding cans and he didn't.'

[…I am not willing to take you up on that bet.]

'Hah!'

Jonathan crouches down, his body set as if he were at the starting block of a race. Pulling the switchblade out with his right hand, he flicks the blade out and rotates his wrist a few times. He shifts his hold on the blade into a backhand grip and scoots his butt back a bit as he is ready to charge. He has the most villainous look he's ever managed in his entire life as he focuses his attention on the doomed aerosol cans.

Going along with the mood, Lucas can't help himself.

"Ready... Set... GO!" As he shouts out the countdown, there is a sudden change in pressure before him. Barely a moment after his shout, the loose edges of his clothes are blown back as a blurry streak passes in front of him.

The cans rupture nearly in unison, the force of the explosion directed at the wall opposite Lucas. His elbows bend a bit from pressure, but he largely remains unmoved from his original position.

The abused wall has now become artistically enhanced. The two mostly overlapping splotches of paint don't quite form circles, instead, they were distorted into a slightly skewed oblong shape from Jonathan's momentum.

At a bit of a distance past Lucas, Jonathan is now crouching with the switchblade still held out in a backhand grip. He's turned so as to be facing Lucas, one foot braced behind him, which he had used to spin in place when he stopped.

Jonathan himself received a little bit of red and black paint on his side and back, but not very much. As the cans didn't have the chance to move around, the entirety of the blast went forwards, sparing Lucas from any additional coloring.

There is a brief moment of silence as Lucas and Jonathan make eye contact, both of them then shifting their gaze to his shirt. Seeing how he's still mostly clean, they both break out with huge smiles before heartily laughing.

[Of all the possible applications for your powers, the two of you seem inclined to focus on nonsense like this. The worst part is; I'm starting to enjoy it too.]

'You could just admit how awesome that was, I won't judge.'

[…]

'Tch, forget you. Jon knows what's up.'

Lucas crumples up the now empty cans and tosses them back over his shoulder. They bounce off of the wall and land in some other miscellaneous abandoned garbage, immediately forgotten.

Having settled back into simply grinning like an idiot, Lucas holds a hand out for another high five while otherwise staying in place. Jonathan flips his switchblade closed and pockets it, running at a speed somewhere in-between an enhanced speed and normal sprint to then jump up and aggressively hit the high five. Which just hurts his own hand, ouch, that was like smacking a brick wall. They're both in too high of spirits to particularly care about this detail though.

"Hehe, it's way more fun being the one doing it than just watching. I was almost fast enough!" Shaking his stinging hand a few times, Jonathan says this as he turns to observe the splatter on the wall. A satisfactory beginning to his career as a modern art artist.

"Mmm, pretty good. Honestly, I didn't think you'd avoid as much of it as you did. Eh, enough fun for now, we have a busy day ahead of us still." Disrupting the celebrations, Lucas elbows Jonathan, nearly knocking him over, and finally leaves the alley to continue towards their initial destination.

Flailing a bit as he steadies himself, it isn't long before Jonathan follows in Lucas's wake.

Apart from one small incident, the duo finally reaches MF Fashion Boutique without too much fuss.

The incident had been that a young man bumped into Lucas and gave an exaggerated apology, attempting to pick his empty pockets in the process. Instead, Jonathan empties the would-be thief's pockets while the man had distracted himself.

This resulted in the piece of gum that Jonathan is now chewing. He had tossed the empty crumpled foil wrapper at the back of the man's head when they passed each other on the way towards their destination.

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Lucas kills this chapter: 0

Lucas total kills: 6

Lucas deaths this chapter: 0

Lucas total deaths: 6

Lucas current GDV: 4.39

Jonathan current GDV: .69 (nice) (-.01 net change)

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Little character theater:

Jonathan is off to the side blowing bubbles with his recently acquired gum.

Lucas, very confused: Wait, where did he get gum from? More importantly, why didn't I get any?

427, exasperated: [Please teach your sidekick that stealing is wrong, even if it is only something small, done out of vengeful spite.]

Author, struggling to hold back their laughter: Oh no, bad puppy! No more exploding paint cans for you! ....That's a normal punishment for stealing someone's gum, right?