Alphaboy (first draft, work-in-progress)

[BOLDYSPICY!]

...holy shit, that line is actually in there. Connor, do you think people use the word "lolcow" in real life?

That's what I initially thought, too, but I think it's a new word filter.

 

[Lorento]

Main complaint is that there's a little too much dialogue in between the description, just endless amounts of one line sentences. Vary up the length, if anything and be brutal with what needs to be there.

Other than that, not too awful.

 

[Sanae Kochiya]

That's what I initially thought, too, but I think it's a new word filter.

It's a new word filter. I believe it's supposed to replace faggot.

Yep, it replaces the most faggiest of gots.

 

[Coster]

So I stopped drawing some Alphaboy fanart I was working on last night because it occurred to me while trying to work with his description that Sean is pretty much Shinji from Evangelion with bluer eyes.

 

[Bugaboo]

So I stopped drawing some Alphaboy fanart I was working on last night because it occurred to me while trying to work with his description that Sean is pretty much Shinji from Evangelion with bluer eyes.

I didn't read what Connor wrote because I'm a lazy fucktard, but does he have daddy issues and scream a lot

 

[Coster]

I didn't read what Connor wrote because I'm a lazy fucktard, but does he have daddy issues and scream a lot

No, he's a beta and I get Nice Guy vibes from him.

 

[Ruin]

I bet I can make some hilarious erotica out of this.

 

[caffeinated_wench]

I bet I can make some hilarious erotica out of this.

I think Connor already beat you to it.

“No thanks. Blow Pops are my only vice. I don’t need another.”

He pulled a cherry lollipop out of his pocket, unwrapped it, and stuck it in his mouth, putting the wadded up paper in the nearby trashcan. He made his way to class, keeping his chin up.

Hint hint. Nudge nudge. Wink wink.

No, he's a beta and I get Nice Guy vibes from him.

Put a fedora on Shinji and it's basically Sean.

 

[Pikonic]

I've taken some liberties and wrote an intro while I wait for this bartender to notice me. She's new so I won't hold it against her. Mets are loosing too which is shitty but anyhooz, this should make Sean a more relatable character and set a better tone.
I'm drunk so plz be nice with the critisms.

Spoiler

"Sean! Get outta bed! C'mon move yer buns."
Sean Gillespie opened his eyes and stretched his legs on his bed. Do I have to, the first day of school is pointless anyway. He grumbled quietly and slowly got out of bed. He went to the bathroom, showered, and got dressed. He went down the hallway of his apartment to met his mother Elise, who was wearing a pink pair of scrubs.
"Is your backpack all ready to go?"
"Yes," he said annoyed, "I took care of it last night, like you told me to."
Elise didn't feel like starting an argument so she let his attitude slide for now. "Alright then, Mrs. Rossi will be here any minute now to take you two to school."
A few minutes passed and Elise's phone beeped. She looked at it and told Sean, "she's right outside the building, have a good first day."
Sean trotted down the metal stairs to the door leading outside, where a silver Prius was eating for him. He opened the back door and sat in the car as it drove to his new school.
"Good mourning Sean!" Mrs. Rossi greeted him loudly and excitedly, "Are you guys ready for your first day of high school? Isn't it exciting."
"Sure." Sean said quietly.
Her daughter, Victoria was sitting in the front seat, "I'm excited, Clair and Becca are in three of my classes today."
Victoria and her mother continued their clucking as if Sean wasn't there. Ten minutes went by before the Prius pulled into the cafeteria entrance of Lewis High School.
"Have a great day you two!"
"Thanks mom!"
"Yeah."
Sean and Victoria headed to the cafeteria to grab breakfast, Victoria bought two chocolate chip muffins and a breakfast smoothie, and she spent the whole summer crying about how fat she was,Sean got a fruit cup and a milk.
Sean was reading on his phone when it was time to go to homeroom. He checked his schedule and went to the room. Twenty empty desks were aligned in a square, he took the back corner, sat down and stared at the clock as other students filled the remaining desks. Eventually the home room teacher Mr. Landowski introduced himself, talked about some programs after school, what was for lunch, blah blah blah. He then mentioned the Freshmen soccer tryouts, which caught Sean's attention. He always liked soccer, he played for a league when he was a kid and thought he had a shot.
Actually, he knew he could make it. That wasn't the problem, the problem was if he could keep control.

 

[DH 384]

Alright, so I decided to do my own analysis of Betaboy Omegaman Alphaboy. (Please make Omegaman a thing where you go off and fight the Chadbot Masters, I'd read the hell out of that). Since this one's a lot more analytical than the others, I'm going to throw it in spoilers so that it really doesn't get in the way at all of the thread.

Spoiler: Chapter 1

On the morning of his first day of high school, Sean Gillespie awoke in his bedroom to find himself levitating. His face was mere inches away from the blades of the ceiling fan. He sighed, but he was confident that, in time, he could master this ability, just as he did the others over the years.

Now, I'm already seeing 3 things wrong with this paragraph. The first is starting a story with the main protagonist, especially a high schooler, waking up. It's incredibly overused and trite at this point and does absolutely nothing to draw the reader in. The first sentence needs to be a striking one to keep the story going, since first impressions will set the tone for just about anything. I believe that The Knife has talked to you about the elevator pitch: Say that you end up in an elevator with an exec and you only have about a minute to pitch your story to them before they get off and go about their day. You need to be able to make an impression like that with their reader. You need something more striking than waking up.

The second has to do with relatable characters in the story. If I say that there's nothing inherently wrong with the way you've worded it you're going to take it as carte blanche that it's good as it is so screw that. The way that you describe Sean's powers is done in such a way that is removes any ability for the person to jump into his perspective and alienates the audience from the get-go. Suspension of disbelief is a very powerful thing, and to your credit following around a guy with superpowers who really hasn't found out how to control them yet would be a really interesting story. It'd be a fairly interesting approach to a superhero coming of age story. However, in this case you've set yourself in a corner so that Sean has some control over his powers and lack of control with others and loses the reader's agency (in this case growing with the character as they read from start to finish).

The third is that there's some cases of using a passive verb when an active one will do a much better job of pulling in the reader. Compare this to your original paragraph: "Sean Gillespie slowly woke up, having some difficulty getting his bearings. He noticed that the cool wind of his ceiling fan greeted him more powerfully than usual but was too tired to make anything of it. It was only after the ceiling fan blades grazed his hair that he realized his face was less than an inch away."

See, in this one you get to discover everything with Sean as it happens as opposed to being firmly left out and watching from the sides. Which one draws you more to the character and what's going on?

Lowering himself back onto the mattress was going to require some mental effort on his part. He thought about coming down, and he could feel his body slowly descending. Midway, he lost control of his speed and collapsed into the mattress, leaving a boy-sized impression in it.

There's something really weird about boy-sized impression. There's nothing inherently wrong with it and gets the point across, but it just sounds silly.

Fortunately, he did not go down deep enough to break the support boards. That would have been disastrous. The last time this happened, the boards were split in half, and his father had to install a new ceiling fan.

This is a very, very important part of show, don't tell. We don't know jack shit about anyone in this story except for the fact that Sean has trouble with floating in the morning and sees it as a minor inconvenience. Hell, he considers smashing a bedframe to be uninteresting. If you're trying to pass it off as mundane yourself, then you're doing a damn good job of it. But this isn't something that's getting me interested.

What I think the problem here is that you have a complete headcanon for this story that includes the background for the Gillespies. You know more than we do and because of this something like trying to stop floating in the morning is extremely mundane for you because of bigger milestones in your head. It absolutely can't be that way, because if it appears as if even the author doesn't care then there's no reason for us to care either. Worse yet, if you see it as filler then it's going to rub off the audience, who'll jump to literally anything else. Like a better book. Or a superhero movie. Or a game.

The impression quickly leveled itself out. For a few moments, Sean stared at the window. The blinds were down, but Sean’s vision was able to peer through many things, even human flesh.

This is going to be a recurring thing, isn't it? Show, don't tell. What is Sean seeing? We don't have a frame of reference for what he's seeing at all: because the way the narrative unfolds, we're looking at Sean look out the window with no idea what's going on at all. And that's just boring. This is a good potential for some comedy or an insight into him having issues with his powers as you hint to later on.

What does he see in the neighborhood? Does he see a family making breakfast? Does he see somebody overreacting to eating burnt bacon? Do we see kids jumping up and down on their parents' bed while they struggle to wake up? Do we see a couple get into a heated argument before they exit out the door with smiles on their faces, as if nothing happened? Do we see a group of people making weird German dungeon porn? Do we see a 30-something lolcow getting berated by his mother? All these things can be used for character development for Sean. His (and by extension, the audience's) outlook could improve based upon good things happening in his super-vision. Alternatively, it can provide insight to Sean being unhappy or slightly messed up if he has to view depressing or weird things that are filtered by the privacy that Sean breaks through against his will.

The sun was rising over the Janus City suburb that he and his parents resided in. With his peculiar hearing, he could pick up on the birdsong that filled the outside air. He could even listen in on radio frequencies, which sometimes came in handy.

You probably shouldn't be giving out info about Sean's powers from the get-go. Leave a bit of mystery or intrigue. It's a hook to keep the readers going. Make them want to know more about this guy while keeping him relatable.

The quirks, as he called him, were not bothering Sean Gillespie this morning. It was the fact that he would again be in the presence of other kids that instilled some dread and doubt in him. Nevertheless, he looked forward to this day, and suppressed his apprehension. His mother, always the fervent cheerleader, was surely ecstatic.

There's a much better way to word this since it sounds like he doesn't want to go to school because of other kids but wants to go anyways.

His backpack had already contained the necessary textbooks and materials. All he needed to do this morning was get dressed and have a quick breakfast. He rose from his bed, stood up in his t-shirt and sweatpants, and stretched. Walking over to the mirrored closet, he picked out a white shirt and black pants. He didn’t want to dress in such a way as to draw unneeded attention. Something simple would suffice.

With his school clothes on, Sean closed the doors of the closet, and saw his reflection. He stood at about 5’7, and while slender, he was well-built and athletic. His hair was short and dark. Most people who had met him say that he looked like a much younger Bruce Lee. The most distinguishing feature of Sean was his piercing blue eyes. Under certain lighting, they had kind of a shine effect.

Ok. 3 things. 1st off, I'm going to quote The Knife here since you've apparently learned nothing from Redesigning Eva:

Oh shit. Oh shit. Are we really doing this scene?

Folks, there is no really elegant way to drop in a character’s physical description, but the “looking in the bathroom mirror” method is one of the most painful. And double points off for playing the scene as “who is this strange person in the mirror? Surely it must be a stranger, for it cannot be—oh! It is I! How can this be?” like Bella Fucking Swan in her wedding gown.

2nd off. Lose the celebrity resemblance. It's fairly hokey for a character description, takes me right out of the story and it isn't awesomely bad enough for me to care in the slightest despite this. But then again, that's just me and everyone's different. This does beg the question though, is Sean Asian?

3rd off, I was reading this with some friends over Skype when you first posted it and we all came to the conclusion almost immediately that your character is literally Shinji Ikari from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

I know this isn't a coincidence, either, because you've tried to compare yourself to him before and you've used him as an avatar here before.

This was all merely physical. Sean did not fully understand many things about himself, even though many described him as being wise beyond his years.

No. No. No no no no no. This is full-on Gary Stu territory. Wise beyond their years to refer to a teenager is almost always bad news for writers.

He didn’t understand, really, who he truly was, his place in the grand scheme of things a total mystery. At fourteen, he had left childhood behind and was embarking on an awkward path in his development as an individual. He kept his chin up, but there was always doubt, a sort of wondering.

I know I sound like a broken record, but show, don't tell. Don't tell us that he's going through those awkward teenage years. Show throughout the story that this is a coming of age story and let us experience the awkwardness with him. Show this doubt that he has so we as an audience can relate to the main character better.

“This is the first day of the rest of your life,” he said to his reflection. “Let’s make it a good one, shall we?” Sean smirked as he turned around and walked out of his room. At sundown on Saturday, the Janus City Challengers were going to face the Chicago Cubs at Kirby Stadium. He looked forward to it.

I really have no idea what the point of this paragraph is.

Having already dressed for the job and with his forty-fives holstered, Detective Joe Gillespie was stuffing his pack of Marlboros in the pocket of his coat when he noticed that more gray hairs were popping up on his fifty-five year old head. His face was bony, and had two scars, a vertical one on his left eyebrow and horizontal one on the cheek below. He adjusted the wedding ring on his finger, the last section of it having been blown off a long time ago. Joe shook his head to escape the trigger, and it was successful.

This whole paragraph needs a rewrite. You really should replace your passive verbs with active ones since it stands as a mess right now. Also, I can't really get a good frame of reference. Was his wedding ring blown off or was a section of his finger blown off? And...is a mention of a trigger supposed to be him getting triggered Tumblr-style over losing his finger/wedding ring? It's not edgy or thought-provoking, it's just stupid. Change it to him shuddering over his memories of the incident or something and you'll get a better effect.

He looked again at his hair. “I’m too old for this shit,” his said under his breath.

I'm going to imagine that Joe is blackface!Murtaugh from Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Suddenly, he heard his wife Mary, nee Tsubaraya, sniffling. He turned from where he stood in the bathroom, and slowly walked into the connected bedroom. She, too, was dressed; she had the day shift at Janus City Central as an emergency room nurse.

Oh, ok, Sean is half-Asian. Got it, my apologies for earlier. That said, get rid of the "suddenly." One thing that I know The Knife's told you before is that it's just plain old bad writing. It's a cheap way of adding in urgency that can be done through other means.

Joe noticed that she was going through the family photo album, and sat down beside her. Mary wiped a tear from the top of her mouth, rubbing it away from the lightning bolt-shaped scar left from childhood surgery to repair her harelip. Her misty eyes were focused solely on the photos preserved in plastic.

Fourteen years ago, she was holding Sean, just a few months old. His eyes were closed, and unlike most babies, he was unusually silent.

Babies tend to sleep a lot too. You might want to change your wording a bit.

]At the age of four, Sean was sitting on top of his father’s shoulders, his little hands resting on his hair, which had more color than it usually did nowadays.

At age ten, Sean was in full Little League gear, mitt and ball in his hands.

“We’ve done a good job, haven’t we?” Mary asked. “With him?”

“I think we’ve done more than great,” Joe answered, smiling with closed lips.

Mary looked at him. “There’s this fear that I have. I’m afraid that because of what he’s capable of…”

“That the kids wouldn’t cotton to him,” Joe finished. “I’d tell them to go screw themselves.”

Mary chuckled, her voice regaining strength. “That’s a lovely way of putting it.”

“I never was the kind of guy that sugarcoats things, Mare.”

“We’ve done so much for Sean. The years have gone by so fast.”

“He’s not a little kid anymore.”

“Yeah, I know that. It just hurts, you know, letting him go his own way.”

Long dialogue is long and there's not really much wrong with it other than feeling like I've already read this conversation in another story regarding fearing Sean's capabilities. That said, tidy up the tense on the photo album paragraphs. Make us feel like we're actually looking at a memory as it's happening. That's the beauty of writing. You can describe that event without losing the flow as opposed to having to flashback in a movie or something.

“If it was painless, it wouldn’t really be called growing up.”

That's just stupid.

“I guess you’re right, Joe.” There was an uncomfortable silence as Mary struggled to find the right words to say. She was hesitant, but decided to let it loose from her lips. “Should we tell him? After all this time, should we tell him?”

“Tell me what?” a voice near and dear to them inquired.

Sean was standing in the doorway, dressed for success on his first day of high school, his backpack slung over one shoulder. A look of youthful curiosity filled his face.

“Heya, slugger,” Joe said.

“Good morning, Mom, Dad,” Sean replied. “You’ve… got that look in your eyes. Anything you wanted to tell me?”

Joe and Mary noted that Sean, ever since he was little, had the ability to read facial expressions and physical gestures, picking up on some that most other children did not. “Uh,” Mary said, “Your father and I just wanted to say that--” She choked a bit. “We wanted to say that we’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”

“I know the feeling,” Sean said empathically. “I’m headed downstairs for breakfast. You want something?”

“Nah, I’m not hungry,” Joe answered while briefly shaking his head. “I got a surprise for you, slugger…”

“Some tickets to the game on Saturday?” Sean suddenly became more animated.

“How’d you know?”

“It’s all in the eyes, Dad,” Sean said, pointing to his face.

Mary suddenly stood up. “Speaking of your looks…”

“Mom…”

“Come on, Seany! You know I have to take a picture for the album.”

“If you insist…”

“What’s the problem with that?” Joe asked.

“Nothing at all. I just don’t think I’m… photogenic, today,” Sean said.

“What do you mean, ‘photogenic’?” Mary said as she dug through the closet in search of the camera.

“Can’t I just let this be an ordinary day?”

“It’s your first day of high school!” Mary said.

“There’s a first time for everything,” Joe followed up. “Mother knows best.”

“You’re still smoking, Dad?” Sean walked towards his father and grabbed the Marlboro box inside of his coat.

“Hey-hey-hey-hey!” Joe exclaimed, gently brushing Sean’s arm away. “Get your hands off! Don’t tell me you’re thinking of taking up my habit!”

“No thanks. Blow Pops are my only vice. I don’t need another.”

“Don’t we all have vices?” Joe said.

“This vice can kill you. It even says so on the box.”

“Well, it’s going to take time to kick it, slugger.”

“Patience is my middle name. That and Percy. Are you driving me to school?”

“Of course I am. Why shouldn’t I? If you’re thinking about flying…”

“Which I was,” Sean finished.

“It’s not a good idea. The kids would flip out.”

“Well, you have a point. That and I haven’t gotten used to it yet. Takes time, like you said.”

“Found it,” Mary said, pulling out the camera. “Let’s head on outside! I want to snap one of you two before you go!”

“Wait, I’m in this too? I’m like Sean, now, I’m not exactly ‘photogenic’ this morning!”

Mary let out a hmmph.

Two things here. First off, this isn't a tv show or a movie. Long conversations tend to drag on in text more than they would in a visual medium. So try to split it up with descriptions of the characters doing something. Just, y'know, to break things up a bit.

Also, it took me a second to realize it but you switched POV from Sean to Joe with almost no warning whatsoever. It's jarring as all hell and I'd refrain from doing perspective changes until you're at the start of a new chapter. And even then make it a pattern so the reader can expect it.

After Sean grabbed himself a quick breakfast, the three Gillespies went downstairs and outside into the garage. It was spacious enough to hold Mary’s Toyota and Joe’s unmarked Charger, as well as a large, unseen vehicle that Joe kept covered under tarps.

“Are you still working on the Beast?” Mary asked. “When are you ever going to finish it?”

“Most pet projects do, Mare,” Joe said.

The last 2 sentences don't link into each other properly. My guess is either that you deleted a line or changed the second to last line without proofreading to see if it left a coherent flow. I'd say change the last line to "These pet projects take time, Mare."

Sean was tempted to peer through the tarps with his special vision, but respected his father’s privacy enough to let it slide.

“You’re fifty-five years old, Joe. Aren’t you a little old to be making man-mobiles?”

“What do you mean, ‘man-mobiles’?”

“Hot rods, pimped out rides, meat machines. Their extensions of your… of your…”

“A little thing that guys have but women lack,” Sean finished for his mother, opening the passenger’s door of the Charger.

1. I laughed a lot harder at man-mobiles than I should have. Same with meat machines. I really don't think you were trying to make it that funny, either, since the whole point is an overcompensation joke. It's just that it sounds so ridiculous, man...

2. I find this relevant (and much funnier):

It feels as if you're not putting your heart into the "compensating for something" joke and thus coming out with a setup that's unintentionally funnier than the punchline. That's the difference between laughing with you versus laughing at you. Also, don't explain the joke as you had Sean do.

Literally the rest of this chapter is dialogue that doesn't really have any significance but at least has some family bonding, which I can get behind. However, the sheer amount of dialogue, the way that it goes back and forth with little happening in the meantime, the quick shift to flashbacks, the change in POV, and including the Geffen Pictures logo at the beginning is indicative of a different and fundamental problem. However, since this is going to be a longer-winded thing related to Connor's interests in writing in the first place, I'll leave it to a separate post before taking on Chapter 2.

Thanks for reading it if you actually made through it, I know I've probably covered some stuff that others have covered but I'd like to think that I touched upon some good points. Or maybe not, I dunno.

 

[Descent]

On the morning of his first day of high school, Sean Gillespie awoke in his bedroom to find himself levitating.

Isn't this from the first episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch?

 

[Firesharpie]

Yo, @Connor Bible, you gonna post more or what. It's been ten days and I thirst for more Betateen.

 

[caffeinated_wench]

There's something I failed to notice before.

Since when is a fan right above the bed? Shinji Sean could have it partially above the bed, true, depending on where it's the bed's been positioned and the size of the room, but his face inches from the blades? Unless his bed is in the dead center of the room or the headboard is positioned away from the wall, that seems unlikely. Maybe his room's just that tiny?

 

[Idling]

Good God - Ben Phillips is giving me the creeps.

While he was in his usual suit and tie, his daughter had other ideas for appearance and attire on her first day of high school. Her hair, strawberry-blonde like her mother’s, used to fall down to her shoulders, but she insisted on a haircut. She had diamond-stud earrings. She had on tennis shoes without socks, jean shorts and vest, and a shirt that covered her navel just enough to avoid making a scene. Ben doubted she even had a bra on.

The whole chapter is written from his perspective, so when Lisa's attire is described en detail, that's Ben creepily checking out his own daughter. And then it's just downhill from there.

He was afraid that because of that, the boys would see opportunity. That angered him. He had a double-barreled sawn-off to remedy their lust.

This has already been mentioned as something inappropriate and too extreme. But right before that there's this sentence:

She got her temperament from her mother, as well as her beauty.

So Ben is staring on his daughters slutty attire, thinks she's as attractive as his dead wife and contemplates on how he will murder anybody who shows sexual interest in her. To me this comes off less like an overprotective dad and more like a pedophile father lusting for his child. Unless this is actually is supposed to be part of Ben's character, this scene will have to be rewritten, and if this is part of his character - too edgy.

 

[Mauvman Shuffleboard]

Oh, hello.

This morning I heard a noise that sounded like a dog doing a bad impression of a robot, but after a while I realized it sounded more like a dog doing a bad impression of a ghost. That dog's inability to act filled my heart up with hopes and dreams and I abandoned them all to finish up my Alphaboy related stuff and post this.

Spoiler: Part 0: Not Actually a Part to Anything

First off let me preface this all by saying I genuinely like Alphaboy and Connor's writing in general. If I didn't like it I wouldn't ever consider doing all this. I've said something similar way back whenever I did this same sort of deal with Redesigning Eva, but there's just something about his stuff that drives me to create very silly things. I might not like it for the right reasons but I like it.

Here's a little explanation of what's in the other spoilers. Part 1 is my rendition of the old version of the first chapter of Alphaboy, which was a fair bit different from the new one posted in this thread. Part 2 was what I at the time believed would be the logical next step from that chapter. Part 3 is based on what is actually posted in this thread. Part 4 is silly and tacked on the end for fun.

I never read anyone's critique or analysis of Alphaboy beforehand, I'll probably get around to it later though. I felt like it'd ruin the magic somehow, but I don't believe in magic so I'm not sure why it'd matter. I have no intention of "fixing" what Connor did because I don't know how to do that, I'll leave that to actually writer type people. I have very little understanding of writey structure stuff and the whole grammar business or whatever so I'll be up front with the fact that I learned everything I know about the English language from reading Punchmaster comics.

I had a lot of fun doing this so I hope you like it too. Here's the Amusing Adventures of Alphaboy & Allies.

Spoiler: Part 1: Original Flavor

Obligatory Superhero Origin Part

In the not so distant future there was a city that you might know or could imagine. In that city was a boy, the mild mannered Sean Gillespie. One day that boy was minding his own business playing with knives or whatever exactly it is that orphans do, when suddenly he was hit by a stray negging from a nearby and more importantly, radioactive pick-up artist!

“Hey baby, your eyebrows look like an owl in flight but I’d still fuck ya.”

The alpha waves radiating from the pick-up artist’s really fucking stupid looking hat caused permanent damage to Sean’s brain, transforming him into… ALPHABOY! With the combined powers of chinmaxing and negging, Alphaboy must defend the Connorverse from the poorly defined but certainly present forces of evil.

Part One of Many

The dream was always the same. Fuck. Wrong story.

It must have been the first day of high school, Sean always levitated above his bed on the first day of high school and right now he was floaty as fuck. It was an unconscious habit, kind of like wetting the bed, but in time he would learn to master it. Until that day came he would keep on hovering around like a dipshit and exchanging dry nights for Good Boy Points™.

It was an important day, mostly in the symbolic sense. Realistically speaking you could easily not attend the first day of classes, instead you could hang around the wharf throwing rocks at seagulls and hitting on people that are probably your cousins and not miss anything important. Lots of cool people did that, unlike hovering around the bedroom like a retarded moth.

Shaking it. (I don’t know where this came from but I’m leaving it in, fuck literary conventions).

Ever since that fateful day with the radioactive pick-up artist, doctors were trying out to find out what exactly his deal was. They found that ever since he started eating the nut cheerios, they’ve lost him weight and he’ll never go bald. Other than that though he seemed pretty ordinary, as much as a big levitating loser could be ordinary anyway.

With Sean’s bifocally enhanced vision he could see through the window, among other transparent objects. He could also hear outside the house too, as if the sound was somehow travelling through the air and into his room. His alpha senses were becoming quite powerful, no matter how much his bitch mom told him that he doesn’t have them and regular people can do these things. Could a normal person have noticed the black Audi with tinted windows not moving for upwards of eight hours? Doubtful, they would have went to sleep instead of staring outside at a motionless vehicle for like eight hours because normal people are pussies and need to sleep.

***No Bullying Zone Please Do Not Bully***

Joe Gillespie noticed that his hair was grey, good thing his trusty bifocals were there to enhance his vision. First Sonic’s arms going blue and now this, the world’s been going to shit ever since he stopped taming lions.

He heard Mary sniffling from the bedroom, she was probably posting on the Kiwi Farms again about how they were better adoptive parents than some fat kid. From the sounds of it, she must have gotten a negative rating.

“What do you mean off-topic? Isn’t this the thread where I share all my personal details and then people praise me for being better than a person who sets the bar so low that moles trip on it while burrowing?”

Joe hadn’t seen her get this worked up since the time CatParty rated her dumb at the baseball related foreshadowing event. Remember that shit where the World Series explodes or whatever from the Wrong Planet description of this story? That shit was tight and probably is related thematically somehow.

“I’m sure it was a mistake dear.” Joe sighed, the lions were a lot easier to deal with than this woman.

“Why aren’t you validating my lifestyle on the online?” Mary flapped her hands and nothing bad happened.

“Shouldn’t you be more concerned about our mutant son getting burnt at the stake for being a witch on his first day of school?” Joe looked around for a stool, those always worked with the lions.

“Joe, you should know better than anyone that we as adoptive parents are incapable of genuine love &/or concern for Sean.”

“That’s a good point dear.”

“So are you going to sign in and rate me feels or what?”

“Give me a fucking minute, I’m writing a letter to Sega in hopes that they change my hair colour back to normal.”

Sean showed up to ask something or other, but as negligent adoptive parents Joe and Mary ignored the faint and somehow fat whining coming from the boy. He’d figure out how to get to school on his own, or maybe get lost and die in the woods. A win-win situation if Joe and Mary ever saw one.

***Dank Memes***

Sean’s keen alpha senses detected a wave-like disturbance in the air, using his alpha brain he deduced that it must have been coming from the bus engine. The bus had already stopped in front of him and at this point everyone was staring as Sean took a very leisurely stroll toward the bus using his alpha legs.

“Holy fuck dude, Moses crossed the desert faster than you walk.” The bus driver’s patience was leaving him like his hair did and his wife will.

Sean looked back at the Audi, remember the Audi from earlier? It’s still an Audi and is still also black. “That Audi isn’t going to be involved in any sort of attempt to murder me now is it?”

“Get on the fucking bus.”

Sean got on the fucking bus and sat down next to some sort of gorilla creature from a far off land. “Hey, brother!” Sean was shocked that it could speak, but there was something familiar about this ape man that he couldn’t quite place.

The more Sean looked at the monkey guy the more it started to resemble three fifths of an actual person. “Terry? Is that you?”

“Let me tell you something brother, I am not Terry, I am the Hulkster!” The essence of righteousness and the American way radiated from the Hulkster’s skin.

Sean wasn’t feeling very comfortable in the presence of a real American such as the Hulkster, and black Audi of anxiety seemed to be following behind them. Black things were just naturally worse than things of other brighter colours, Sean thought to himself privately using his alpha self-telepathy. “Hulkster, I’ve got a bad feeling about the black Audi that stalks my every move.”

“I fear no man, no beast or evil, brother.” The Hulkster’s optimism was refreshing, even though a more enlightened person would be jaded and cynical like Sean.

“You should be more jaded and cynical like me, optimism has no place in our bleak modern society.” Sean tipped his alpha fedora, sending euphoria hurtling through the air with his every word.

The Hulkster chuckled. “Negativity and Hulkamania: Two things that don’t go together.”

“But seriously dude I think that car wants to kill me.” Sean turned to face the Audi and realized it had been a matchbox car in his hand this entire time. His alpha senses didn’t help at all.

Spoiler: Part 2: Extrapolation

The Second Verse

The bus was coming to a halt. Something wasn’t right. Was the Audi behind this? Sean glared at the anxiety-inducing automobile. It remained motionless, looking innocent, and probably it would have whistled if it was capable of doing so. Whistling is something nobody ever does unless they’re trying to remain inconspicuous, and why would you want to remain inconspicuous if you weren’t trying to hide something? Sean’s alpha reasoning was so brilliant it would have surprised even him if he didn’t also have alpha precognition to render him immune to being surprised by his own alpha reasoning.

“Fucky you, Audi. I know you’re up to something.” Sean biffed the Audi through the window next to him. In alpha hindsight he probably should have opened the window first to avoid shattering a perfectly good window all over the Hulkster, who seemed unfazed by the whole thing.

“Brother, I think you got slammed from the top rope one too many times as a kid.” The Hulkster ripped his shirt off and casually brushed off the remaining glass. His shirtless body glistened as if it had been meticulously oiled up in preparation for this very moment, because it probably was.

Sean pouted and crossed his arms. “The Audi started it. It was plotting my downfall all night and now it’s stopping the bus. Was I just supposed to sit there and take that kind of abuse?”

The girl seated in front of Sean and the Hulkster was lucky to not be covered in glass, but was unfortunate enough to have had to endure Sean’s muttering at the Audi the whole fucking way to school. Finally she turned and looked at them over the top of her seat. “I know you probably missed the short bus and have something physically wrong with your brain, but we stopped because we’re at the school. Can you please shut up now?”

“It’s about time!” Sean sprang up with such excitement that his head struck the top of the bus. Immediately he fell into the aisle. His alpha cranium didn’t reduce the pain at all, and his alpha hearing allowed him to hear every single taunt and laugh down to the last chuckle.

The girl frowned at the laughing students. “Guys, I think he’s legitimately retarded. Quiet down before he gets a sensory overload.”

Sean noticed the girl delivering a second line of dialogue and immediately concluded they were destined to be together. “I’m not retarded. I’m a superhero and you will one day be my wife.” Sean gave the girl a sly wink and a tip from the old fedora.

She cringed, genuinely concerned that the pure sleaziness might have rendered her sterile. “You really are special, aren’t you? Did you dress yourself today? Even though you forgot the helmet I think you did a pretty good job. My name’s Lisa. What’s yours?”

“I am Alphaboy! The first of a new generation of superhumans!” Sean sprung to his feet to strike a triumphant pose, narrowly avoiding the ceiling thanks to the combined forces of his keen alpha reflexes and Lisa’s assistance. “But my friends call me Sean ‘Thundercock’ Gillespie.”

Lisa was quite confident that Sean’s friends did not refer to him as Thundercock and was even more confident that if he had any friends, they were entirely imaginary. “I’m sure they do, Sean. We should probably get going, though. You don’t want to be late for your first day of high school.”

“You remind me of Alyssa Milano," replied Sean, "and I don’t know who that is, but I do know that you’ll be my girlfriend.”

Sean followed Lisa off the bus and into the school, checking over his shoulder every so often to make sure that the Audi wasn’t following him. To his surprise, it wasn’t.

Spoiler: Part 3: Oh Fuck Me

Part 3: Oh fuck, everything changed so I have to do this shit again. Last chance to do something smart… oh wait, I’m not that smart.

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe…

“You have to be fucking cheating. You can’t play Jace the Planeswalker the first turn of every match.” Hubert flipped the table over on to his good pal Floyd, banishing dangerous amounts of Mountain Dew and Cheetos to the floor. Generations of rats to come would eat these bountiful harvests of gamerfuel. Never leaving the basement. Never seeing the light of day. Not that much unlike Hubert and Floyd in all honesty.

“Name one good reason why I can’t.” Floyd stood up and wiped the Cheetos from his shirt and frantically licked his fingers clean, savoring every orange cheesy crumb. “Aw fuck, you got the Dew all over my pockets. If they weren’t so well-protected I’d have to give you a swirly.”

“For one thing we’re playing Yu-Gi-Oh, and secondly you’re not even shuffling your fucking deck, you just keep putting Jace on top like the cherry of your sundae except instead of ice cream it’s made with dishonor!

“It says right in the rules I can play a magic or trap card during my turn. Jace the Planeswalker is a card from Magic the Gathering so I think that’s close enough to a magic card. Would you prefer I broke out my Anime’s Greatest DickgirlsVolumes I-IV collectable card boxes and shuffled those in?”

Hubert’s glasses fogged up at the very thought, but rather than admitting his true feelings he decided to awkwardly and abruptly change the subject. “Um, well, hey! Remember the trailer to the new Geffen Pictures production Alphaboy from earlier this year? It was about a kid with vaguely defined Alpha powers and an anxious Audi. His dad was a badass lion tamer and that fucking car was in every shot, I think it might have been some product placement deal or something.”

Floyd dropped to his knees and began to lap up the sweet nectar of gaming before it got as ratty as his hair. “Yeah, everyone did, what about it?”

“The latest press release is pretty significantly different from what we’ve seen before! His dad’s not just a lion tamer anymore, now he’s also a detective. Like the loose cannon kind that doesn’t play by the rules! He smokes and everything!” Hubert flapped his hands to convey his excitement and nothing bad happened.

“Oh gosh dude, that sounds spiffy as heck. When’s it coming out?” Floyd put a handful of floor Dew into his pocket for later use.

“Well, the release date keeps getting pushed back still so I have absolutely no idea. But I’ve got the next best thing! Wait right here!” Hubert windmilled his arms with all his might and ran upstairs to his bedroom. In his excitement he nearly tripped and fell when he returned with an NES cartridge in hand.

Hubert popped the cartridge into his Nintendo and turned on the TV. “I went to Chinatown the other day to laugh at the Orientals and I found this bootleg Alphaboy cartridge on sale for like two bucks. It looks like pirates already saw the trailer and are using this opportunity to cash in on the hype.”

“This is way better than beating your ass at Yu-Gi-Oh, let’s check this fucking shit out!” Floyd’s entire body began to sweat in anticipation.

The game’s title screen popped up on the TV and our adventure begins!

ALPHABOY
7

Copyright Geffen 1988

Spoiler: PRESS START

STAGE 1-1: CHILD BEDROOM ZONE
HINT: COLLECT ALL BIFOCAL FOR EXTRA LIFE

It wasn’t every morning that Sean woke up to the sensation of his ceiling fan swatting him in the nose with its blades. However, there was a strong correlation between Sean waking up that way and Sean’s parents waking up to the sound of his Alphayelling. “OH FUCK ME! WHY DON’T WE TAKE DOWN THIS FAN ALREADY? THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS!”

The issue wasn’t, as one might expect, that Sean insisted on sleeping atop twenty three mattresses so that he could no longer feel the pea trapped beneath the bottommost one (but that certainly didn’t help matters). The real problem was his mysterious ability to levitate only in instances where it would inconvenience him. The ceiling fan to the nose wasn’t quite the worst problem that this particular power caused, suffice to say that Sean now straps himself to the shitter when he needs to dispose of his Alphawaste.

Since he was no longer being inconvenienced by his levitation he promptly collapsed back onto his towering stack of mattresses. His Alphapowers were all just as fickle, but nobody else could do the things he did so he didn’t really mind.

Sean used the Alphaladder (actually just an ordinary ladder he made his dad paint alphas all over) to descend to his bedroom floor. He glanced at the window, though the blinds were closed he could make out the distinct image of his next-door neighbor’s buttcrack. “Looking good, Gordon.” He muttered to himself.

His penetrative Alphavision could see through many things; flesh, clothes, 3 feet of dirt or wood, and even windows, so long that there was something he didn’t want to see on the other end. One time he even saw his own face in the mirror, and worse still, it was covered in acne.

Using all his might to focus his Alphasenses, Sean perceived the sun rising over Janus City as well as the sound of birds singing. It was as vivid as looking and hearing those things except somehow more like the letter A. Sean hated birds and the sun, so it bothered him quite a bit that he couldn’t stop perceiving them. Birds always ate his fries at the wharf and the fucking sun always stole his potential girlfriends. Is it really that much to ask to have just one single day hitting on girls that are probably your cousin at the wharf where seagulls don’t steal your fucking fries and the sun doesn’t take the women? Apparently so.

Sean’s low-frequency high-functioning automatic electromagnetic AM/FM Alphahearing tuned in to a local radio station just in time to remind him that this was his first day of high school. Turns out that cherries were also on sale, but they still costed way too much for what they were. Sean’s Alphareasoning would never be able to determine why cherries were always so expensive, but it was very capable of realizing that he forgot to buy school supplies. He was Alphacomforted by the fact that schools never do anything on the first day anyway and he’d have a week or so to gauge what he actually needed to buy and what was just recommended to waste everyone’s money.

There was still plenty of time to dress in a bold way to send a good message about himself to everyone he met, so he grabbed some black pants and a white shirt with his favorite Greek letter emblazoned on the front, lowercase lambda. Hopefully he’d find some fellow lambda lovers at his new school that didn’t want to bash his head in with a crowbar.

Sean thoroughly inspected himself in the mirror, judging by the presence of his reflection he concluded that he was definitely not bitten by a vampire in his sleep. His Alphahair was still a bit on the messy side but it wasn’t visibly greasy so he didn’t figure anybody would give him shit for it, especially considering that he was absolutely Alpharipped. Or at least as ripped as a lanky teen can get without working out, but he justified the lack of effort with his innate superpowers compensating for it.
“Hey me, don’t fuck it up,” he said to himself. “Let’s do this shit.” Sean engaged his Alphalegs and walked downstairs like he owned the place, when in actuality his dad did.

STAGE 1-2: PARENTAL GUIDANCE ZONE

HINT: DETECTIVE LION TAKING MORE DAMAGE FROM MACHINEGUN

Joe Gillespie noticed that his hair was grey, good thing his trusty bifocals were there to enhance his vision. First Sonic’s arms going blue and now this, the world’s been going to shit ever since he stopped taming lions. Being a detective was pretty cool and all, especially when you get to be a loose cannon that doesn’t play by the rules, but solving mysteries by shooting everyone just didn’t give him the same feeling as he used to get when he poked at lions with a chair.

He heard Mary sniffling from the bedroom, she was probably posting on the Kiwi Farms again about how they were better parents than some lazy fat kid or something. From the sounds of it, she must have gotten a negative rating.

“What do you mean off-topic? Isn’t this the thread where I talk about myself and how much smarter and better I am than everyone else and expect them to agree instead of pointing out how it’s annoying and demonstrably wrong?”

Joe hadn’t seen her get this worked up since the time they removed the sound clip when you clicked Nice Meme. “I’m sure it was a mistake dear.” Joe sighed, the lions were a lot easier to deal with than this woman.

“Why aren’t you validating my lifestyle on the online?” Mary flapped her hands so hard that she slapped herself in the face. This was the first time something bad happened while flapping and she just wasn’t ready to deal with that right now.

“Shouldn’t you be more concerned about our mutant son getting burnt at the stake for being a witch on his first day of school?” Joe looked around for a stool, those always worked with the lions.

“Joe, you should know better than anyone that I’m worried to death about Sean but I can only cope through ranting in chat for hours on end and making infographics about giraffes.”

“That’s a good point dear.”

“So are you going to sign in and rate me feels or what?”

“Give me a fucking minute, I’m writing a sternly worded post on Sega’s Facebook in hopes that they change my hair colour back to normal. I’m getting too old for this shit” Joe had a sneaking suspicion that Sega would fuck it up somehow but it was worth the risk. Besides, even if it didn’t work out too well plenty of autistic kids would like it.

“Do you think we should tell him?” Mary remembered that there were more important things to life than virtual Lucky Charms stickers, like talking about important secrets that they had kept from Sean his whole life.

“Tell me what?” Sean’s Alphavoice penetrated the open door to his parent’s room.

Mary flapped nervously and gave Joe the sort of look you give when you have something to say but would rather someone else say it. Unfortunately for her, Sean had the Alphaability to read facial cues and judge emotional states and quickly picked up on this.

“Dad? If you’ve got something to say, spill the beans.” Sean leaned against the doorframe to emphasize his cool and relaxed attitude toward life. He then slowly and sensually inserted a lollypop into his mouth to emphasize something else entirely. “If not, take a hike.”

Using a combination of his detective training and his natural aptitude for lion taming Joe thought of the perfect thing to say just in the nick of time. “We decided it was time you started working out Sean. We were going to surprise you after school, but your mother and I bought you a kettlebell.” Though he had no way of knowing, someone in the Bahamas felt very mirthful at that very moment.

“I don’t think there’s much point to me working out dad, I’m as strong as a bear with the strength of ten gorillas.” Sean flexed his Alphamuscles, which admittedly didn’t look like they were suited to much more than carrying all the reference books required for a rousing game of Dungeons &/or Dragons.

“You might have a point there, but you still look like weak piss with a lust for cock and the girls won’t go for that. Look at your mother, do you honestly think she would have married me if I looked like I was made of celery and was sucking on something at all times?”

Sean looked to his mother as she continued to flap. Somehow he suspected that she didn’t care too much aboutwhat his dad looked like. “I think she likes you for who you are as a person, dad. Are you sure this isn’t a clever ruse to distract me from exciting baseball related news? For instance, having tickets to see the Janus City Challengers duke it out with the Chicago Cubs at the Kirby Stadium this Saturday?”

“Yes, very.” Joe twirled his super cool detective revolver to distract his family. “Now on an unrelated note, let’s take a picture for your mother to post in the Pics Thread and farm some feels ratings. That’ll calm her down.”

Mary chirped with excitement and the three Gillepsies took some wholesome photographs for the sole purpose of impressing others.

STAGE 1-3: HOTDOG ROTHOD
HINT: TO WIN GO FASTER AND COME FIRSTLY

After ritualistic consumption of the most important meal of the day, everyone headed off into the garage. Like you would expect from a garage there were cars inside it, two regular cars for regular people, and one mysterious monster of a vehicle hidden under tarps and possibly also shadow magic.

“Are you still working on the Beast?” Mary asked. “When are you ever going to finish it?”

“Most pet projects do, Mare,” Joe said without questioning how that phrase didn’t make any goddamn sense as a response to what his wife just said.

Sean stood silently, Alphaquestioning what his dad just said so he didn’t have to. He was in his fifties now, maybe he had some sort of brain problems. Does smoking give you brain cancer or just lung cancer? Maybe the tendrils of addiction had taken root in his frontal lobe and are starting to fuck with him. Hopefully it wouldn’t affect his driving abilities, but even if it did, Sean was convinced that he’d survive an accident.

“So are you going to drive me to school or what? I’m not going to take the bus like a peasant.”

“Driving is its own reward. Chalk that one up to teamwork eh boy?” Joe now realized what he said to Mary didn’t make any sense. So he decided to play it off cool by continuing to speak in incoherent gibberish as if he meant to do it all along.

“I guess that sounds like a yes, let’s hit the road.” Sean sat his Alphabutt down in the passenger seat of his dad’s car.

Joe assumed the position and started up the car. “Use the batteries rightly. Everything else is matchless.” He floored it and drove off into the city like a majestic land pigeon. Sean was looking forward to a great day at school.

STAGE 2-1: DETECTIVE DAD
HINT: JUMP BARRELS WITH B

“Dad you’re so fucking gross, stop staring at me like that.” Lisa positioned her backpack between herself and her father, Sgt. Detective ‘Cowboy’ Phillips N.Y.P.D. “Please keep your eyes on the road and maybe shave that moustache when you get home because it’s seriously creeping me out now that I see it up close.”

Sgt. Detective ‘Cowboy’ Phillips N.Y.P.D. wasn’t about to play by anyone’s rules, not even his own, and especially not his daughter’s. “I’m a loose cannon Lisa, you know I can’t play by the rules.” He glared at his daughter while swerving wildly through oncoming traffic. “Look at what you made me do because I sure as hell aren’t! I suggest you pay very close attention to the road and vividly describe what’s going on because we’ll be late for school if you don’t, and I’ll have to bust you for truancy.” Cop Dad honked aggressively and flared his moustache with all his might.

“Jesus Christ dad!” Lisa braced herself for the inevitable impact and started sobbing.

“I hope by that you mean our Lord and Savior is coming right for us because I asked for a vivid description of what’s up ahead, not your best impression of a pussy.” Cop Dad’s eye twitched, but he resisted the urge to actually look at the road. “I’ll trust you though, because you’re my daughter and you wouldn’t lie to me. Wave to Him when we pass by.”

“If I wave will you start looking at the road again?” Lisa didn’t wait for an answer and began to wave frantically.

“That’s the spirit, pumpkin. The Holy Spirit to be exact.” Cop Dad did a sweet powerslide into a garbage can in the name of justice. “It’s good to see that you’re excited for your first day of school.”

“Dad I think you just hit a dog.” Lisa looked in the mirror, and while objects may be larger than they appear, there was clearly a dog of indeterminate size behind them and it wasn’t looking too hot. “Yeah, you just did an admittedly sick powerslide into someone’s dog.”

“Stop trying to change the subject, that dog probably coincidentally died of old age after it realized it had nothing left to live for. Lots of things do that after seeing how sick my driving is. How old does that dog look, like five? Do you have any idea how old that is in dog years?”

“It was a fucking puppy dad, so like, less than one actual year and around 4 dog years tops I guess.”

‘Trick question, dogs experience time at the same rate as everyone and everything else. I wouldn’t be a detective if they didn’t, I’d be extracting their time glands and selling them to African warlords to turn child soldiers into regular soldiers.”

Lisa sat there in stunned silence. Her dad still thought he was a detective, and also a cowboy. He wasn’t looking at the road. He was swerving through traffic. And now he was talking about how, if given the opportunity, he’d extract glands from dogs to transform children in adults in order to more effectively wage war.

This couldn’t possibly be real, it had to have been some sort of strange femur dream, she thought to herself. She then realized she had become so frightened she was thinking in bad skeleton puns. Maybe if she believed in herself and was vertebrave she’d make it out of this one okay.

“Wait a second, I’m not supposed to be talking about dogs right now. You won’t fool me again with your clever tricks. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, well that’ll never happen and I’ll laugh at you for thinking that the first time was anything other than luck. Your mother made that mistake too, you’re a lot like her for some reason.” Cop Dad realized that he had been driving the wrong way this entire time and did a quick U-turn to get back on track.

“I had something important to tell you too. I almost forgot it in my dog-related excitement.” Cop Dad took a very serious tone and a grave look about his moustache. “There’s going to be a kid at your school, his name’s Sean, he’s probably going to be wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with his favorite Greek letter. Don’t trust him around you, he’s crazy and dangerous.” Cop Dad said while steering head-on into an oncoming truck.

Rather than dying in a horrific crash like Lisa expected, when the two vehicles collided they both came to a gentle and immediate stop. “I don’t play by the rules Lisa, not even the laws of physics. Isaac Newton can suck my loose cannonballs if he wants an object in motion to stay in motion because I’m not about to be objectified by an autistic dead man, do I make myself clear?”

Cop Dad pressed on the gas and passed through the truck as if it didn’t occupy space at all. “I know for certain that Sean’s going to be crazy and dangerous. If you’ve got superpowers, that’s what happens to you, one way or another. Don’t get involved with him. It’ll be the worst mistake you ever make.”

Lisa had a ton of questions for her father after that marrowing encounter, but one was slightly more important than the rest. “Can we go home right quick? I think I need some new pants.”

“Where we’re going, we don’t need pants.” Cop Dad floored it and drove off into the distance like a majestic land pigeon.

STAGE 2-2: COP OUT
HINT: CHARGER YOUR ATTACKS BY HOLDING LEFT AND UP

They say Rome wasn’t built in a day, but then again they say a lot of things that don’t have much to do with the current situation. A more appropriate expression would have perhaps been ‘birds of a feather flock together’ since two majestic land pigeons were pulling into the school parking lot.

As everybody in Janus City knows, majestic land pigeon is regional slang for a Dodge Charger being driven recklessly by a detective who refuses to play by the rules. Much like pigeons, they’re everywhere and shit on everything. Unlike pigeons they cannot fly. The name makes perfect sense if you do the math but aren’t very good at doing math.

The fact that they have a specific term for this situation really says something about the city that they probably wouldn’t want to put in their tourism brochures. There was a very foolish reason for having an abundance of loose cannon detectives driving around in Chargers. No two citizens could agree on exactly what that reason was, however.

Sean’s personal Alphatheory was that a powerful biomedical corporation had bought out the police department and replaced it with a bunch of private detectives. Then one day word got out that their CEO was really into Robocop and was also heavily invested in Dodge. Ever since then people have been signing up and acting as recklessly as possible in hopes of being brought to the brink of death and then redesigned into something greater than they could ever be alone. His dad said that this theory was ridiculous which only made him believe it more.

Using his penetrative Alphavision Sean gazed through the window and watched as the students frolicked merrily into the school. Thanks in part to his Alphahearing he could also listen to the sounds that students make while moving, including but not limited to chatter, shouting, and footsteps. Sean truly was a marvel of the modern age.

“Well, I guess we’re here now. Go learn something and don’t get in any trouble.” Joe perched his majestic land pigeon in its nest.

“That’s the plan, old man.” Sean shook his father’s hand and they both stepped out of the car. “Wait, why are you coming with me?”

Joe pointed at a man inexplicably dressed as a cowboy walking alongside a frightened young woman. “That’s my partner, Sgt. Detective ‘Cowboy’ Phillips N.Y.P.D. He’s a loose cannon that doesn’t play by the rules. You might think I’m one of those but this man takes it to a whole new level. You don’t know him, but he doesn’t like you very much.”

“I don’t care about him, he looks like a fucking lolcow.” Sean chuckled to himself, his mom would have thought that was funny. “Is that his daughter with him? I hope she likes lambda.”

“Yeah that’s his daughter, Lisa I think. She kind of reminds me of Alyssa Milano but I don’t know who that is.”

Cop Dad shouted from across the parking lot. “I hear someone talking about my daughter, how about you say that to my face and not over there and we’ll see what happens.” Lisa pretended she didn’t exist, but through the act of pretending she proved that she did in fact exist. How self-defeating.

Sean and Joe approached Cop Dad through the use of Alphalegs and ordinary legs respectively. Using his Alphavision Sean noted that Lisa continued to exist despite her best efforts to pretend otherwise. “Hey there, babe. Do you like sigmas? Because you look like you want sum of this.”

Before Lisa had a chance to respond Cop Dad grabbed Sean by the throat and screamed in his face. “Did I give you permission to talk to my daughter? I will fucking end you!”

Using his Alphaneck’s protective slime coating Sean could easily escape from Cop Dad’s grip. Unfortunately the only power that sprung to his rescue was his Alphamemory to remind him that he could escape using his Alphaneck’s protective slime coating if only he had voluntary control over it.

“Dad! Keep strangling him, finish him off just like you’re supposed to!” This wasn’t a phrase most people would ever have to say in their entire lives. For Lisa it was the often the first thing she said in the presence of a stranger.

Cop Dad released Sean and scowled. “You’re lucky it says in the rules that I’m supposed to strangle you and that I don't follow the rules.”

“I have a feeling that if you played by the book you wouldn’t be strangling me.” Sean sweated nervously as his neck produced a slippery cyan Alphaslime.

“Well your feelings are wrong you pint sized piece of shit. I wrote my own rules just so I could break them! On an unrelated note, ever hear the term ‘shotgun surgery?’” Cop Dad’s moustache burned bright with the flames of passion and anger.

“In passing but I don’t really remember the context, why do you ask?” Sean’s neck slime migrated into his shirt and gave the impression that he had some fairly large breasts.

“I don’t know what it means either, but we’ll find out together when I give you a colostomy with a twelve gauge. Let’s schedule it for right after you try anything funny with my daughter.” Cop Dad gave Sean a sly wink that suggested that this was his idea of subtlety. “I am not licensed to administer anaesthetics either, if you catch my drift.”

“Does that mean you’re going to administer a lot of them because you don’t play by the rules?” Sean’s neck slime slipped out from his pants and scuttled into a nearby drain.

“Oh fuck you, I bet you think you’re so smart because you think you tricked me. Look at me! I’m Sean Gillespie: Boy Genius! I have an autistic fixation on Greek letters and some kind of superpowers I can’t do anything with! Well I have news for you, nobody fools Sgt. Detective ‘Cowboy’ Phillips N.Y.P.D.” Cop Dad raised his arm and pointed skyward. “Pop quiz fucko, what has the strength of seven bears if the bears each have the strength of ten gorillas?”

“Seventy gorillas.” Sean replied with the utmost Alphaconfidence.

“No, just one.” Cop Dad pointed to the trunk of his Charger and cackled like a madman. The trunk burst open and a hulking hairy humanoid emerged with a barrel held high above his head. “Meet my other partner, Detective Abe: Gorilla at Law. Unless you can jump like an Italian plumber, you’re boned.”

“Hello, Sean.” Abe hurled his barrel at full force, knocking Sean flat against the pavement when it struck. “Goodbye, Sean.”

Sean’s Alphapain receptors indicated that the barrel was thrown with the strength of approximately eighty gorillas. He opened his mouth to correct Cop Dad’s math but no words came out, only screams and his stupid lollypop.

STAGE 2-3 SCHOOL FRIENDSHIP ZONE
HINT: YOU SHOULD HAVE PRESSED B

“Are you even awake? I hope you are because I’ve been talking for a while now and really should get to class. Sorry again about my dad, he’s a retarded spaz sometimes but I never expected him to try to kill anyone via mutant gorilla.”

Sean opened his Alphaeyelids and scanned the area, Lisa was sitting down next to him and all the other students had already gone inside. The detectives and their cars were nowhere to be seen. “I’m awake now, and I’ll be fine, I think.”

“That’s good to hear, but I’m not supposed to talk to you anymore. I just wanted to make sure you were okay and maybe take your money if you weren’t. So, bye forever.” Lisa stood up and waved at Sean before running off toward the school’s entrance.

“Hey, wait.” Sean mustered all his Alphamight and rose to his feet. “How about instead of listening to your nutjob dad we go to the wharf and whip rocks at seagulls or something?”

Lisa turned to face Sean “Is that what you do for fun? You must be a pretty weird kid if you really think I’m going to skip school to pelt birds with rocks.”

Sean nervously began to release Alphaslime down his neck, but through sheer force of will managed to retract it. “I thought girls were supposed to like bad boys.”

“If that’s your idea of what bad boys do, you’re going to learn a lot today.” Lisa turned away and continued toward the school. “Now hurry up and get to class. You aren’t fooling anyone, you big nerd.”

Sean engaged the full force of his Alphalegs and followed Lisa into the building. It was much seedier and sleazier than a school had any right to be. It was as if someone had replaced all the students with extras from a Troma film when nobody was looking. Some urban youth were engaging in their rich cultural heritage of gambling publicly. A morbidly obese man was taking a piss on some lockers as dweebs cried for help from within. And most worryingly of all, a bunch of weebs were taking the newest and hippest drug they called “Z” and battled each other in a fierce martial arts competition.

“Is this a prank or something?” Using her non-Alphaeyes Lisa couldn’t detect any nearby cameras but still held out hope that her school wasn’t a huge pile of shit.

“This is no prank, this is something much worse.” Sean’s Alphasenses were tingling to suggest something or other. However, to this day Sean had absolutely no idea what his Alphasenses actually did but it always freaked him out when they tingled. “Allow me to serve as your sextant to help you safely navigate the murky waters of high school &/or adolescence and guide you toward your first class of the day, m’lady.”

“No offence Sean, but I liked you better when you were unconscious and not talking to me.” Lisa noticed a hefty man with shaved eyebrows approaching and decorated with what seemed to be at least thirty pounds worth of leather bondage gear and body piercings. “On second thought, let’s walk together.”

The grease goblin sauntered over and came to a stop uncomfortably close to both Sean and Lisa and wrapped an arm around the each of them. His voice gave the impression that he was not so secretly an alien from a planet whose atmosphere was primarily helium. “Hey guys, you must be new because haven’t seen you folks around here before and believe you me that when I say I see everything, I mean it. Before you even ask, yes that does include why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. My name’s Cygar, like the thing you smoke except spelled with a Y. An easy way to remember it is to think why would you bother smoking a cigar in this day and age, we know that shit’s bad for you, or at least we should, my dad didn’t. Haha, just a little lung cancer humour for ya, my dad had it pretty bad so I make jokes about it to feel better about it sometimes, it doesn’t usually work, it’s not working right now. I miss my dad. Anyway, what are your names?”

“Cygar, are you bothering the new students again?” Sean quickly consulted his Alphadirectional hearing to assist in turning to face where this commanding voice was originating from. It was a middle aged woman with the sort of physique that suggested she was born to play the part of a fish named Big Bertha someday. Judging by her ID card, her name was Mrs. Burnett and she was the principal. The likelihood of her being destined to playing the role of a fish seemed quite slim now, unlike her.

Cygar covered his face and scurried away, hissing at Mrs. Burnett as he made his retreat. “I’ll find out your names later when the old lady’s not around!”

Sean extended his hand toward the principal and introduced himself. “Hello there. I’m Sean Gillepsie, you might recognize me from the time I was in the newspaper for breaking the Janus City Children’s Funathalon speed record for boys 7-12 by a staggering three seconds. It was kind of a bad picture because my face was pretty blurry from how fast I was going but most of my nose was still quite sharply defined. Oh, and this is Lisa. She’s cool.” Lisa waved apathetically.

Mrs. Burnett wasn’t very impressed with Sean’s athletic achievement and refused to shake his hand. “Before you go off to class I’d like to have a chat with you in my office, Mr. Gillepsie.”

STAGE 2-4 PRINCIPAL OF THE THING
HINT: I REMEMBER SEARCHING FOR THE PERFECT WORDS / I WAS HOPING YOU MIGHT CHANGE YOUR MIND

Mrs. Burnett’s office was technically speaking, spiffy as fuck. Everything was meticulously organized and kept shiny and polished, somehow even including the carpet. Mrs. Burnett looked through Sean’s records and despite his best efforts, his penetrative Alphavision refused to let him see what they said.

“It’s not a very good sign when three separate detectives feel the need to warn me about a new student, but you’re not a typical case are you?”

“Everyone says I’m a pretty special guy, I guess they must be on to something.”

“My job would be a lot easier if you weren’t. Your father warned me about your unusual abilities, so did the other detectives. For whatever reason they all described you as being strong as a bear with the strength of several gorillas.”

“Maybe it’s some sort of detective slang.”

“It doesn’t really matter how many gorillas you can lift, I’m running a high school and not a zoo. I don’t want to keep you here very long, so I’ll make it brief. I’ve heard several accounts of an incident from when you were in seventh grade. Three boys got sent to the hospital because of your actions that day. I don’t care why you did it, but try anything like that in my school and you won’t be here for long. Don’t hurt anybody, don’t break anything, and don’t fuck around with my daughter.”

Something about Mrs. Burnett’s inflection filled Sean with unease, it was familiar in the worst possible way. “Your daughter?”

Mrs. Burnett removed her mask to reveal the shocking truth, that she had in fact been Cop Dad in disguise this entire time. “Yeah, my fucking daughter. I told her not to talk to you anymore but she didn’t listen, I guess she gets that from me but you’re the one that’s going to pay for it. Your chair was filled with poisonous spiders but I think you squished them when you sat down. You’re lucky I didn’t think this one through very well.”

Sean stood up and slowly backed up toward the door. “I’m just going to, go to class now, or something. And not talk to your daughter ever again while I’m at it.” He hoped his Alphabluffing would calm the murderous desires in Cop Dad’s heart but knew deep down that his life would be filled with spiders from that point onward, just like grandma’s basement.

Spoiler: Part 4: The Adventures of Alphaboy and Betabitch

THE ADVENTURES OF ALPHABOY AND BETA BITCH

I said the name Alphaboy to my friend and he said it sounded like something you’d find on a PUA forum. He suggested a sidekick named Betabitch. This was the resulting conversation.

Betabitch: Aw man Alphaboy, can have I some chips today? I’ve been good all week.
Alphaboy: Fuck you kid, the chips are mine. You can lick the salt out of the bag when I’m done with it.
Betabitch: This is like the last woman we fucked all over again.
Alphaboy: You mean the woman I fucked and you got friendzoned by.
Betabitch: [silence and sadness]
Betabitch: [quiet acceptance of his place in the universe]
Betabitch: [soft sobbing]
Note: Betabitch never got the chips.