Chapter 90 - Doot Dooty Doo

Spurred on by the pending arrival of a known troll, both Lucas and Jonathan have set about their work with far greater focus than they otherwise would have ever considered.

Maintaining an impressive pace, they've both made pretty solid progress by the time one of the employee-only doors slowly opens, creaking loudly. There's a low hiss of dissatisfaction, a sourceless grumble, and then the door continues opening a few inches more before shutting faster than it had opened.

"Ha! The door busted your entrance, Chi!" Feeling the need to be a spoilsport, Lucas can't resist taunting her while facing vaguely in the direction she's probably standing. Which she is, she hasn't exactly had much time to move all that far.

Jonathan chuckles alongside Lucas, though Miss Masher is completely deadpan.

"Tch, I'm gonna have to go around and grease all of the hinges in the damn building if I wanna have any fun sneaking around. No fair. Hi guys, did you get stuff started yet, Mash?" Still remaining invisible, Miss Chievous casually starts talking as if, well, she weren't purposely staying invisible.

Without bothering to look up from her phone, Miss Masher shakes her head from side to side. She's confident that she wouldn't be able to find her sister anyway, so there's not much point in trying to attempt social etiquette with her.

Mikah remained standing by the service bot counter while chipping away at his document-related duties, leaning against the nearby wall. He has a slight smile on his face while trying his best to not give any other outward reactions to Miss Chievous's arrival.

Abruptly shutting the form he was just writing on inside of his overtaxed folder, Mikah's smile grows into a huge grin.

"While I do appreciate the compliment, I'm not going to let you spoil my boss's big reveal later today. Hmm, though that was assuming you even realize who I am. Ah, seems you don't." Mikah turns so as to be facing the open space to his right side, maintaining his huge grin. Once he's finished speaking, he laughs a few times before adding a few extra words. "No, I can't see you, Miss Chievous."

Making a startled gasp from her location exactly where he's looking, Miss Chievous drops her invisibility. She's leaning towards him, staring at him wide-eyed. She was clearly going to attempt reading what he was working on, and was most likely planning on startling him after her curiosity was satisfied.

The trio of people on the nearby benches had looked up when Mikah started addressing her, so all of them got to witness her shocked expression of disbelief. Enjoying the spectacle, all three of them make varying degrees of laughter at her expense.

"Hehe, Chi, meet Mikah. He was the other guy on the phone call. And, as I'm sure you're now aware, he's a mind reader. Oh, come here, I've got a secret to tell you." Deciding to make some half-assed late introductions, Lucas immediately gains Miss Chievous's undivided attention with the mentioning of the word 'secret'.

She rushes over towards him, immediately sitting down next to him obediently as soon as she's there. As there was only a small gap between Lucas and Jonathan, she's half-sitting on Jonathan's lap, causing him to flee the area in awkward terror. Well, scooted away a few inches more so than fleeing, but it still had that level of urgency.

Taking a moment to laugh first, Lucas leans over to whisper into Miss Chievous's ear.

"We're totally being recorded by the way. Dunno how big the audience is, but I'm pretty sure that chick over there is streaming us. She's one of my employees, by the way, so try not to antagonize her too much." Deciding to tell her right away, Lucas is further amused by Miss Chievous's look of realization regarding the fact that her entrance being flubbed twice in a row was being broadcast to additional viewers.

Frowning for a few seconds, she snorts then stands back up, heading in the direction of the service bot next to Mikah once again, now in order to fetch her own busy work.

"Hmph, lame secret." Mildly venting her frustration while walking away, she does covertly give Lucas a wink, a smile, and a small nod to show her appreciation for being informed.

While waiting for said service bot to prepare the clipboard full of chores after making her request, Miss Chievous has a thoughtful expression for a few moments before turning towards Mikah and grinning. Looking back up from his own dutiful dull documents, he has a slightly confused look for a few moments while looking back at her.

After maintaining eye contact for a couple of seconds, he just shrugs and goes back to writing. As she's walking over towards the benches once again, now wielding a clipboard of her very own, he starts tapping the toes of one of his feet rhythmically.

Standing in front of the gap between the two benches that her companions are seated on, Miss Chievous looks down at the comfortable-looking Willy and decides she couldn't possibly disturb him. Thus, she goes with the only logical remaining course of action; disturbing Jonathan instead.

Were the empty bench to Jonathan's other side sentient, it would wonder what it did wrong to be neglected like this.

While there was more of a gap this time before she sat down, Miss Chievous still makes a point of leaning more towards Jonathan's side so as to low-effort terrorize him once again.

Lucas just chuckles and shifts his position over a bit, giving her a little more space. He knows that no matter how much he moves she's still going to make a point of elbowing him while she writes, so he is a bit half-hearted about yielding all that much space to her.

Understanding that getting mad won't do him any good, Jonathan decides to try to get even.

"H-hey Chi, could you, um, lean forward for a mi-minute?" Making a polite request, Jonathan actually gets compliance on Miss Chievous's part. Raising one brow, she leans forward nearly 45 degrees, only to have Jonathan put the rental agreement on her back, aimed towards Lucas.

"I r-read over all of it. It, um, looks g-good. Just need you to sign it since I, um, I can't. Yet." Pointing at one of the signature lines resting against Miss Chievous's back, Lucas smirks and brings over his pen, the dangling chain gently smacking into Miss Chievous multiple times over the course of a single signature.

At first, Miss Chievous is also amused by Jonathan's brazen use of her as a writing surface, but it starts getting old fast by the tenth signature. Which isn't even halfway through the rental agreement yet. The dumb little chain was also funny initially, but now it is purely annoying.

Deciding that it couldn't possibly go on too much longer, Miss Chievous doesn't bother raising a fuss, letting them finish going through the document. In order to alleviate her own frustration, however, she turns up the volume, so to speak, on her assault on Mikah.

He briefly looks up from his work to give her a questioning look, but seeing the situation she's in makes him snort out a laugh before resuming what he was doing.

By the time Lucas has finished signing everything for the rental forms, Mikah has begun softly humming a short repetitive melody that matches up with the rhythm he's been tapping his foot to, as well as bobbing his head along too. While Jonathan is walking over to hand him the filled-out paperwork to top off with his own finishing signatures, Mikah takes a moment to sigh and then glare at Miss Chievous.

"You really are evil. Damn earworm." Shaking his head while scolding Miss Chievous, Mikah sighs again and forces himself to stop humming, as well as stay still. His foot starts tapping again before long though.

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Lucas kills this chapter: 0

Lucas total kills: 7

Lucas deaths this chapter: 0

Lucas total deaths: 10

Lucas current GDV: 9.09 (+.01, +.01 = +.02 net change)

Lucas's fame level: 3* (Predominantly local)

Lucas's hero suspicion level: 1.5* (Only highly paranoid people)

Jonathan kills this chapter: 0

Jonathan total kills: 5

Jonathan deaths this chapter: 0

Jonathan total deaths: 2

Jonathan current GDV: 2.05 (+.01 = +.01 net change)

Jonathan's fame level: 2* (Just local)

Jonathan's hero suspicion level: 1* (Only highly paranoid people)

Supervillain social circle size: 11

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Little character theater:

Jonathan, satisfied with his minor victory in trolling Miss Chievous: Hehe.

Willy, using Miss Masher's lap as a pillow: Zzz...

Lucas, equally amused as Jonathan with the trolling, promptly losing all traces of amusement the moment he goes back to filling out the organization creation forms: I know I need to work on this asap so she doesn't interrupt but uuuggghhhh...

427, incredibly thankful that Lucas hasn't also used Miss Chievous's current method of trolling: 'Thank goodness, at least...'

Author, looking directly at the audience: This was when I originally introduced an expanded form of the metrics, but by the time you are reading this it has already been retroactively edited in to prior chapters, as well as honed beyond its initial state in this chapter as well.

Mr. Quacks, wondering why none of the new metrics involve him: Quack...?