NOVEL NEXT Chapter 40.5 – Meanwhile, at an important meeting
“We. Have. A dilemma!” the girl in a fox costume yelled, while slapping the table with each word. “Now that I’m a hero, I need to take this seriously and not just flail around like a dumbass!”
“What do you mean? Isn’t that your trademark?” her ex-roommate asked.
She glared at him.
”I finally had a proper costume made for my Princess Fox persona. One that perfectly embodies the essence of what it means to be Princess Fox!” She told the three people assembled in front of her with a serious frown.
Troy coughed into his hand, while turning his eyes away. Miranda and Kelly next to him were fighting a grin.
“And luckily, you three also had your own minion costumes prepared for when you need to hide your identities. But!” She slammed her hands on the table again. “You don’t have any codenames yet! That’s unacceptable!”
“I mean, we don’t even have powers, so just call us something ambiguous, like minion one,” Miranda suggested.
“No!” Again, the poor table met her completely justified wrath. “That would be extremely lame! Imagine Troy here jumping in front of a bullet to protect me, and then what?! Am I gonna shout ‘Noooooo! Minion number threeeeee!’ Is that what you want? Our enemies will laugh at us!”
“Well, I have an easy solution! How about I don’t jump in front of bullets?” Troy suggested.
“What?! You would just let me get shot then?!” Aster shouted, appalled.
“There are like thousands of ways to save you from getting shot other than blocking it with my own body!” Troy shouted back.
“But all of these are lame and not as heroic!”
“I’m totally okay with being less heroic as long as I don’t get to eat a bullet!”
…
A moment of silence followed their heated argument.
“Well, you do have a point. We should come up with some cool names. And who knows? Maybe the placebo effect will give us powers later,” Miranda pondered out loud.
“That’s not how the placebo effect works.” Kelly rolled her eyes.
“What? You know how to get powers?”
“Well, no, but…Well, whatever. What kind of names are we talking then?”
Everyone around the table hummed in thought.
“Meat shield sounds perfect for Troy,” the fox suggested.
“I told you I’m not jumping in front of bullets!”
“It doesn’t need to be bullets! It can be anything! Punches, grenades, planet-disintegrating laser beams…”
Troy groaned in frustration.
Miranda and Kelly lost the fight with their grin. It was never boring with Aster.
