LNH: Hungry, Hungry Sabertooths! #30: "Another Weird Tangent"

[Drew Nilium]

HUNGRY, HUNGRY SABERTOOTHS!
#30: "Another Weird Tangent"
A sidebar of silly fun, by Drew Nilium

====

Kid Enthusiastic yaaaaaaaaawned, got out of bed, and streeeeeetched. Boy! What
a nap!

A glass of water, a nice shower, a change of clothes and a slice of breakfast
cheesecake later, he sat down at his desk. Boy, his brain felt really recharged
now! Okay, he'd design a new method of microchip fabrication first, then he'd
check out what had happened with Enthusiasm!

"Hey!!" said a voice. Kid E looked up and there was a wobbly wiggly portal in
the air, showing him Enthusiasm and Simplicity rolling around and slap-fighting
in a weird cosmic space.

"Oh nice! Check that one off the list!"

"Right!!" said Enthusiasm. "So okay, this guy found somebody to wear a ring
that channels his cosmic powers and they're messing around in your general
vicinity, so I've got a ring for you to wear that'll do that kind of thing for
me and you and you can go stop him!!"

"Hmmmmm," hmmmm'd Kid E. "But how do I know you're protagonist-aligned and he's
antagonist-aligned?"

"Oh that's a really good question!! Okay how about this, you take the ring and
go see and decide for yourself!!"

"That's a really good answer!" grinned Kid E. "Question two, like, how do I not
get too much of your power and go all weird and cosmic-y?"

"Hmmmm... OOH!! Okay here you go!!" A ring appeared in the air - specifically,
a plastic ring with a giant hard-candy gem. "To get some of my power, lick it!!"

"Oooooh, self-limiting. Thank you!" Kid E grabbed the ring and waved as the
portal closed up. He got out his brain-analyzing helmet and put it on, then
slid the ring on and took a lick.

It was like all the tucked-away ideas in his head falling out of the closets
he'd put them away in at once, floating in a sea of really great and interesting
possibilities, a wave of tingly sensation rolling down over his body that made
him feel like he'd just finished doing something amazing and was ready for the
next thing!!

He looked down and he was floating a couple inches off the ground. "Coooooool!"
He took a look at the brain-analyzer readout. Okay, certain neurotransmitters
had increased, neural transmission was overall faster... but the bio-energic
matrix powering it was self-contained, not dependent on transmission from
outside, so being controlled by Enthusiasm or another external source was
unlikely.

Kid Enthusiastic knew he'd probably be mind-controlled *someday*, it went with
the genre, but he wasn't gonna just let it happen!!

Anyway. He took off the helmet and took another lick - whew, what a rush! He
floated up in the air, opened the window, and zoomed off, leaving a trail of
sparkly inspirations behind him...

Drew "time for everything to happen so much" Nilium