Disclaimer: Taralei, Tam, Petro and Weisha are of my own creation, however the Legion of Superheroes and anything related to it are not.
Querl rubbed his temples and for the sixth time that morning, cursed himself for choosing this particular apartment building to move into. There were hundreds in this part of the city alone, why on earth had he picked this one? Maybe it was the universe's way of punishing him for what he'd done only a few weeks ago. Yes, that had to be it; it was the only way he could possibly deserve the mess sitting in his living room.
See, Tam had broken into Querl's apartment (again) at six-thirty that morning ("I thought I'd let you sleep in after yesterday!"), ranting about his pet plant. It had taken Querl twenty minutes to calm Tam down enough to learn that Frenzy was missing and had probably been left at the mall the day before. Querl liked the little flower a whole lot more than its owner, but not enough for him to care that early in the morning, so he'd tried to kick Tam out of his apartment. The green-haired boy had simply ignored Querl, planted himself on Querl's couch and then proceeded to spend the next few hours sobbing over a framed picture of Frenzy that he had pulled out of nowhere.
It was now nine am and Querl had had more than enough. He had planned to spend the day feeling sorry for himself and breathing sighs of relief that they'd left before Shrinking Violet had spotted him yesterday, not searching for a rather unintelligent plant with its even less intelligent owner. Wait, he knew Tam wasn't very bright, but why wasn't he out searching for the plant on his own?
When Querl asked him this, the boy stopped sobbing, looked up and said completely normally, "Oh, Pet broke our door again so I'm stuck watching the apartment."
Querl blinked, "Then what are you doing here?" He demanded, waving his arms around like a lunatic.
Tam was silent for a moment before he burst into (overly dramatic) tears, "I miss Frenzy!"
Querl had to hold himself back from strangling Tam; he was so irritating! He took a deep breath, then grabbed Tam's sneakers off the coffee table (When had they gotten there anyway?), and threw them at him, "Hurry up and find someone to watch your," He glanced at the door Tam had broken on the way in, "Our apartments, so we can go look for the stupid plant."
Tam's face brightened, he grinned and bolted out the door. Querl sighed; he was going to regret agreeing to help Tam.
An hour later found Tam and Querl hiding behind a hover car in the mall's parking lot, and Querl regretting agreeing to help Tam. Not only had the idiot gotten a crazy, two-headed, metal-eating woman to watch their apartments, he'd also neglected to mention that the mall was crawling with science police until they'd already gotten there. Apparently the criminals from the day before were claiming to have left three bombs hidden in the mall and only two had been found.
"It was all over the news this morning," Tam said cheerfully, ducking under the hover car as a police officer walked past.
'Then why didn't you say something before we came down here?" Querl hissed.
Tam shrugged, "I didn't think it had anything to do with us."
Querl once again held himself back from strangling Tam and stuck his head out from under the car to have a look around. Five teenagers had just arrived in the car park and were talking with the police officer in charge. Hoping they weren't who he thought they were, Querl stuck his head out further to get a better look. Sure enough, all five of them were Legionnaires.
Two of them were the Legionnaires he and Tam had run into the day before (Weisha and Lyle if he remembered correctly, he didn't know their code names though), but the other three were people he knew quite well. The one with black hair and a mostly purple costume was Cosmic Boy, the Legion's current leader. He was giving the others orders and arguing with an orange-haired boy in a blue and white costume with lightning bolts on it, Lightning Lad. A tiny girl with black hair and a black and purple costume appeared to be breaking up the fight.
"Hey, that's the girl you ran away from yesterday right?" Tam whispered, "I can't remember her name, but boy did you run fast!"
"Her code name's Shrinking Violet," Brainy replied, "And I did not run away from her, Iā¦remembered I'd left the oven on." He said lamely.
"Whatever you say," Tam said, poking at the underside of the car.
"Stop that," Brainy grabbed Tam's sleeve, "Come on, let's go find Frenzy and get home before we get caught and before Mrs. Gordok eats my favourite spoon."
"You have a favourite spoon?" Tam smirked, as Querl dragged him through the parking lot, avoiding police officers, "That's so lame."
"Would you be quiet?" Querl growled, "We do not want to get caught here."
"Eh, I've been caught in worse places," Tam whispered, pulling his sleeve out of Querl's grasp and following him through the mall's entrance.
"Where- no, I don't want to know," Querl shook his head, "Let's just get in there, get your stupid plant and go home."
Both boys ducked behind a pillar as the Legionnaires flew past. Querl heard Cosmic Boy order his teammates to split up and search before they all vanished out of sight. Not ready to face the Legion yet, Querl went to leave but found two police officers now guarding the entrance. He sighed; he was now stuck inside the building, with the exact people he was trying to avoid searching every inch of it. Just when he thought things couldn't get much worse, Tam pointed out that Querl no longer had a working oven as it was badly damaged during his kitchen fire, and began pestering him about Vi.
"No Tam I am not a crazed stalker, her pastry chef, her costume designer or her father," Querl growled, pulling Tam inside the arcade and behind the pinball machine the plant-wielding idiot had destroyed, "What is wrong with you?"
"You'd be surprised actually," Tam said, picking up a ball off the floor, "But I'll tell you if you tell me how you know her!"
"Just go look for your damn plant."
"This is so boring!" Weisha complained, sprawled out in a chair in a dark movie theatre. She and Lyle had been ordered to search the movie theatre, bowling alley and two arcades on the bottom floor of the mall, and Weisha had been less than impressed. It went the same as it always did, she insulted Cosmic Boy, he ignored her, and Lyle dragged her off to go do what they'd been told. She grinned, if it wasn't for Lyle she probably would have been kicked out of the Legion on her first day due to her attitude.
She changed the grin back to a scowl when Lyle stuck his head out from under a chair a few rows away, "If you'd help, not only would you have something to do, but this would go much faster."
"I did help, I searched my half of the cinema," Weisha replied, leaning back more, "It's not my fault you get stuck under the chairs and I don't. Besides, this whole search is pointless, me and Vi scanned the whole mall yesterday and didn't find-"
"-the so-called third bomb. Yes, we know." Lyle rolled his eyes and grinned, "Now shut up and come get me out, I'm stuck again."
It was Weisha's turn to roll her eyes as she jumped out of her seat and walked over to Lyle, bending down so she could get a good look at him in the dark. She blinked, "How the heck did you manage to get your foot stuck like that?"
"I have no idea, but it's not very comfortable, so stop staring and help!"
Weisha just smirked (he was so never going to live this down) and wrapped a force field around the chair that was trapping her friend. Her eyes and hands glowed as she willed the force field to squeeze the chair. After a few seconds, the chair smashed to pieces from the pressure, "Ta-dah." Weisha deposited the chair's remains a few feet away and pulled Lyle to his feet.
As Lyle stood up, he looked around at the seven other chairs that had met the same fate, "If you finish up here I'll go do the bowling alley by myself," He smiled hopefully.
"Fine," Weisha grumbled, "But you're doing the big arcade's bathrooms!" She called after him, as he was already running out of the theatre.
"Gross!" She heard him call back as she bent down to check under one of the few rows of seats that hadn't been searched yet.
With her small size, Weisha was able to crawl under the rows of chairs easily. Afterwards, she checked under a set of stairs and near the emergency exit. Once she'd deemed the place clear, she left the theatre, intending to search the smaller arcade next.
Upon entering the arcade, Weisha heard voices. Not the crazy kind from inside her head, the suspicious kind, from behind the broken pinball machine. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying but as she drew closer she clearly heard the word 'bomb'.
Suddenly the voices stopped and a head with green hair and a big grin popped up from behind the machine, "Hi."
She recognized him as the idiot from the day before, "What are you doing here again?" She growled, walking around the machine to see what he was up to.
Sitting on the ground and fiddling with what was quite clearly a bomb, was the idiot's friend. 'Busted' Weisha thought.
While searching the arcade for Frenzy, Querl had found the third bomb. The criminals had stashed it inside the smashed up pinball machine sometime after he and Tam had left the arcade yesterday. As he pulled out a few tools to disarm it, he heard footsteps entering the arcade. "Tam, distract whoever it is, while I disarm the bomb," He whispered.
Querl really should have known better. Tam stood up and upon realizing that it was his 'pink-haired angel', did nothing but grin stupidly and say 'hi'. Of course the girl got suspicious, and when she walked around the machine she found Querl fiddling with the bomb. He knew what he must look like; he just hoped she'd listen to reason.
"Move away from the bomb," She demanded, her eyes and hands glowing a faint pink.
"No, you've got to listen; I'm trying to disarm it!" Querl explained, still fiddling with the explosive.
She wrapped a force field around him, effectively cutting him off from his tools and the bomb, "Oh yeah? Give me one good reason why I should trust you." She said, glaring.
Querl was silent as flashbacks of the past few weeks flew through his head. The Legion had no reason to trust him at all, not after he'd almost destroyed them and the rest of the galaxy. He lowered his head, "You shouldn't. Go on, knock me out, I know that's what you're trying to do."
The girl frowned, confused, but that didn't stop her from doing as Querl said and tightening the force field, cutting off his air supply. He felt light-headed for a few seconds, before everything went black. The last thing he remembered before he lost consciousness was a yell and the force field around him vanishing.
I know this chapter took ages to go up, but I promise the next one will be faster, I'm working on it right now. Till next time,
~Saani
