Space princess assassin Lucy Souvante stops by the campus Konami Thunder Dance club.<\/p>\n
She stares in.<\/p>\n
A warm and tender smile spreads across the evil prophet\u2019s face.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy,\u201d she says, to the world at large. \u201cYou\u2019ve actually got something interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
She leans against a wall. She watches as they dance.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s Meredith and Max this time around. They\u2019re going at it pretty hard, and they\u2019re warping reality as they go \u2014 not too <\/i>much, of course, they\u2019ve got the Konami Thunder Dance safeties on, but even so the dance has swallowed up the ceiling in an endless night, bucked up the floor into twin intertwining towers, and is raining bits of apple and fire down from the sky onto her head.<\/p>\n
She goes to pick up an apple slice \u2014 it\u2019s pre-toasted! Mmm<\/i>! \u2014 but Paul, who\u2019s leaning against the wall and watching, shakes his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a bad apple,\u201d he says. He jerks his head up towards Max, who\u2019s dancing to some sort of hard-beat J-Pop. \u201cFrom the song. You don\u2019t want that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
She looks at it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d probably be cursed to eat thistles and farm the ground and bring forth your children in sorrow,\u201d he says. \u201cThen you\u2019d give it to me and I\u2019d do the same! That\u2019s why I don\u2019t think people should dance Bad Apple <\/i>against Human.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d says Lucy.<\/p>\n
She tosses it aside. The apple slice screams as it splashes against the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the evil prophet of space,\u201d she introduces herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaul,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd shh<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n
They watch. They wait. After a bit the song ends and Max and Meredith lean against the arm and headrests of their PlayStations and their towers lower and the world fades back towards its normal state.<\/p>\n
Finally, Max lifts his head. He wipes away his sweat.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, hey, a newbie,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m the evil \u2014\u201d starts Lucy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWant to try it?\u201d<\/p>\n
She considers. Then she smiles. \u201cSure,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
After a while, she says, \u201cThis isn\u2019t very much like rock-scissors-paper.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Max says.<\/p>\n
She chews on her lip.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m Lucy Souvante,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m a space princess assassin evil prophet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Max shakes her hand. He smiles.<\/p>\n
\u201cWelcome to the club.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s speaking welcomingly, so he isn\u2019t implying he and Meredith or Paul, too, are space princess assassin evil prophets. He\u2019s informing her that she\u2019s welcome there:<\/i> welcome to join the Lethal Magnet School for Wayward Youth Konami Thunder Dance club and learn how to dance the thunder dance and then to dance it with and against him, along with other interested students like Meredith, Emily, and Paul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Space princess assassin Lucy Souvante stops by the campus Konami Thunder Dance club. She stares in. A warm and tender smile spreads across the evil prophet\u2019s face. \u201cWhy,\u201d she says, to the world at large. \u201cYou\u2019ve actually got something interesting.\u201d She leans against a wall. She watches as they dance. It\u2019s Meredith and Max this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"series":[47],"class_list":["post-4969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chapter-1","series-the-storm-that-saw-itself"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/KTD3.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4969"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6184,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4969\/revisions\/6184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4969"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=4969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}