[Morning] [JHM Pizza]
The shop wasn't even open yet, but Harley was already bouncing through the dining area on a pogo stick she had somehow acquired.
"Boing, boing, boing!" she sang, hair flying, boots clacking against the footpads. "Rise and shine, sleepyheads! Breakfast of champions is me on a pogo stick!"
Maureen sat at the counter with a mug of hot cocoa, eyes half-lidded. She looked like someone who had gotten three hours of sleep and regretted every life choice that led her here. Her spoon clinked against the cup as she stirred slowly. "Harley… why?"
"Why not?" Harley shot back, springing higher. Her head nearly smacked the ceiling fan. "Exercise, entertainment, and possible ceiling damage all in one package!"
John walked out of the back kitchen carrying a tray of fresh dough. He stopped dead at the sight, one eyebrow twitching. "No."
Harley grinned down at him mid-bounce. "Yes."
"No pogo sticks in the shop," John said flatly. "Especially not at seven in the morning."
Harley landed, wobbled, and steadied herself with a triumphant pose. "Correction. This pogo stick is my new sidekick. I'm calling her Bouncy McBoom."
"Not happening," John muttered, setting the tray on the prep counter.
Maureen sipped her cocoa. "You know she's not going to stop until she breaks something, right?"
"I heard that!" Harley said as she bounced again, this time clearing a chair. "And I am deeply offended by your lack of faith. I got balance. I got skills. I got—"
Baam! She smacked into the doorframe on her next jump, the pogo stick skidding out from under her. Harley flipped sideways and landed flat on her back with a loud thud.
John pinched the bridge of his nose. Maureen calmly took another sip. "Called it."
Flat on the floor, Harley raised a finger in the air. "Nobody saw that. It was a tactical fall. Very advanced."
John walked over, lifted the pogo stick, and set it against the wall. "This thing is gone by lunch."
Harley groaned dramatically, sprawling like a starfish. "You're killing my vibe, pizza man. First you ban glitter bombs in the oven, now my pogo career. What's next? No acrobatics in the freezer?"
"Yes," John said without hesitation.
Maureen smirked faintly into her cup. "You're impossible, Harley."
"Impossible is my middle name," Harley said, sitting up and brushing herself off. She pointed to the pogo stick. "And mark my words, Bouncy McBoom will rise again."
John gave her a look that said he wasn't buying it. "Not in my shop."
The bell above the door jingled, a customer already wandering in even though the sign still read CLOSED. Harley's grin stretched wide. She leapt to her feet, spreading her arms.
"Welcome to the greatest pizza joint in Dakota! Please ignore the faint thud you might've just heard. That was totally not me testing the durability of the floor!"
The customer blinked, confused. John muttered under his breath, "This is why I need stronger coffee."
..
[Noon]
The lunch rush hadn't hit yet, which meant the shop had that lazy hum of ovens warming and faint music playing from a speaker in the corner. She was sitting behind the counter, spinning a pizza tray on one finger like it was a circus act, while Maureen handled the register with her usual quiet focus. John was in the back as usual.
The bell above the door jingled and two familiar faces stepped in. Virgil Hawkins and Richie Foley. They were regulars.
"Boys!" Harley sang, hopping onto the counter like it was a stage. "Look who's back for another round of the finest cheesy masterpieces in all of Dakota!"
Richie grinned, pushing his glasses up. "We keep coming back because you upsell us with enthusiasm. The pizza's just a bonus."
Virgil smirked but didn't say much. His right arm was tucked in a cast, strapped neatly in a sling.
Harley's eyes went wide. She leaned forward dramatically, her tray wobbling on her finger. "Whoa whoa whoa, timeout. V-Man, what happened to your arm? You get into a slap fight with a vending machine? Lose a thumb war with a car door?"
Virgil laughed awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck with his good hand. "Uh… nah. Nothing exciting. Just… accident last night. Tripped, fell, tried to play hero to a trash can rolling in the street. Street won."
Harley squinted like she didn't buy it, then tapped her chin. "Hmm. That's a mighty suspicious story, Hawkins. You hiding some secret double life? Fighting crime in your spare time, maybe?"
Virgil coughed, his smile stiffening. "Pfft. What? Nah. Who'd wanna do that? Sounds exhausting."
Maureen glanced up from the register, studying him for a second longer than usual, but said nothing.
Richie cut in quickly, waving at the menu board. "We'll take a large pepperoni and garlic knots. And two sodas."
"Coming right up!" Harley said, flipping off the counter with a gymnast's flair. She snagged a notepad, scribbled down the order, then leaned close to Virgil again. "But for real… if anyone did this to you, point me in their direction. I got a pogo stick in the back and no shame in using it."
Virgil chuckled nervously. "Yeah, I'll keep that in mind."
Behind the counter, John slid a pizza into the oven and looked over. His eyes went to Virgil's cast, then back to the dough he was kneading. He said nothing, but his jaw tightened just enough for Harley to notice.
She pointed at John. "See? Even Stoneface over there cares. He's just too proud to say it out loud."
John grunted. "Order'll be ready in ten."
...
[Meanwhile, two blocks away from J&H&M Pizza. Abandoned building]
The windows of the crumbling warehouse shook as metal ground against metal inside. Sparks burst through broken panes. Specs and Trapper sat inside the cockpit of their newest invention, a towering mech patched together with scavenged steel and stolen tech.
On paper, it was perfect. High-caliber plasma cannons mounted on the arms. Reinforced hydraulic legs. A targeting system that could lock on to anything moving within two hundred yards.
In reality, it was not perfect.
"Specs, why is it moving on its own?" Trapper shouted, gripping the seat as the mech lurched violently.
"I don't know!" Specs hammered away at the console, his glasses sliding down his nose. "It's the AI! I told you the code needed more time!"
The mech groaned as its head twisted unnaturally far, glowing eyes flaring red. It stomped forward, each step shaking the ground hard enough to send cracks spiderwebbing across the pavement outside.
From the street, an old man with grocery bags looked up just in time to see a steel fist tear through the wall of the warehouse. He dropped his bags and ran as the mech ripped itself free from its hiding place, rubble crashing around it.
The machine let out a distorted howl, its speakers blaring a screech that rattled glass all along the block.
Inside the cockpit, Specs clutched the armrests. "It's not listening to commands."
Trapper slammed his fist against the control panel. "You said this thing was gonna make us unstoppable, not suicidal!"
The mech pivoted sharply and its arm cannon began to charge. The whine of building energy grew louder and louder until the first blast erupted, slicing through a row of parked cars and sending fire into the sky.
There were a couple of cops patrolling the area. They began to shoot at the mech, but it was useless. Bullets won't do anything to a giant reinforced mech. So, the cops kinda ran after firing the first round.
Two blocks away, the windows of J&H&M rattled from the explosion. Harley froze mid-sentence, blinking. Maureen's mug trembled on the counter. John's head lifted from the oven.
Another boom shook the ground. Smoke started to rise over the rooftops nearby.
Harley dropped her notepad. "Okay, either someone's setting off fireworks early or we've got a kaiju problem."
Virgil's jaw tightened as he turned toward the window. His casted arm ached like a reminder of last night. "Not again…" he muttered.
Maureen pushed off the counter, frowning. "That's close. Too close."
Another explosion rocked the street, louder this time. Pedestrians outside screamed and scattered as a plume of smoke rolled between the buildings. The mech's hulking frame finally came into view, towering above the rooftops, its glowing red eyes scanning the city like a predator searching for prey.
Everyone got out of the building and looked up.
Inside the cockpit, Specs was pale, typing frantically. "If I can just override the subroutines, I can force a hard shutdown!"
Trapper gripped the console with white knuckles as the mech turned its cannons toward the pizza shop's block. "Do it fast, Specs, or we're toast along with the rest of this dump!"
The mech raised its arm. Sparks flared. The whine built again.
Harley's grin stretched wide. "Guess lunch rush is canceled."
Virgil and Richie slipped behind the shop, moving fast. Virgil gritted his teeth as he yanked the sling from his arm and opened his bag and quickly dressed up in his hero costume. The ache was still there, but he couldn't sit this one out. His saucer disk sparked to life, humming under his feet. Richie popped open his Gear harness, metal plates unfolding into the compact jetpack and grappling rig.
"We stop that thing before it turns the block into scrap," Richie said, voice tight.
Virgil nodded. "Yeah. Let's go."
Maureen stood near the front of the shop, her hands flexing, frost already creeping across the pavement. Her eyes locked on the mech as pedestrians ran past her.
Harley cracked her knuckles, eyes shining with reckless excitement. "Oh yeah, giant killer robot? That's my kinda Tuesday." She grabbed her glitter-bomb satchel from the shop doorway and strapped it across her chest like it was armor.
"You do know that the glitter won't do any damage?" Maureen asked.
"Yeah, I know. But, I'm gonna blind it and you turn it into a popsicle," Harley said with a large grin and a thumbs up.
John slipped quietly out the back door. He moved fast, cutting down the alley and away from the group. The chaos and screaming covered his footsteps. He stopped in the shadow of a dumpster, looked at the sky, and muttered low.
"Shazam!"
Crackle! The lightning bolt split the clear air, crashing down onto him with a roar that shook windows. The golden blast of energy surged through his frame and was gone in an instant.
Virgil and Richie had just lifted off when they saw it.
The lightning forked again, this time spearing the mech's head.
Booom! The machine let out a distorted metallic scream before the explosion ripped through its skull. Fire and shrapnel burst into the sky, raining down in molten fragments.
"What the—" Virgil's eyes widened.
Another bolt slammed into the mech's torso before it could topple. The explosion tore it in half. The street glowed orange from the inferno as the giant machine broke apart, collapsing in flaming chunks.
A third lightning strike hammered the remains, blasting them into twisted slag. The mech was gone in seconds, reduced to smoldering debris.
As for those two numbnuts who created them... Before John could break their legs and hand them over to the cops, Ebon's shadow popped up and swallowed them inside.
"Tsk. This annoying bastard and his shadows," John cursed under his breath. "Shazam!"
Crackle! Another lightning bolt struck the ground a few feet from where the mech was.
Virgil and Richie hovered above the rooftops, speechless.
"That wasn't you," Richie said.
"Nope," Virgil answered, still staring at the smoke where the mech used to be. His voice was uneasy. "That… definitely wasn't me."
Below, Harley clapped wildly like she was at a fireworks show. "Oh-ho-ho! Did you see that? Boom! Kaboom! Zzzap! Talk about one-hit wonder!"
Maureen sighed in relief as she called back her cold energy, dissolving the frost around her.
The crowd of civilians whispered nervously. Some pointed at the crater, others scrambled to film with their phones, already chattering about lightning out of nowhere destroying a war machine.
Virgil drifted lower on his saucer, scanning the streets, eyes narrowed. "Someone else is out here. Someone powerful."
Richie frowned. "And they're not exactly subtle."
John slipped back into the shop from the back door.
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