"I couldn't," Megavolt said simply, taking a seat on the couch. "Ooh, it's still warm."

Tegwen folded her arms across her chest impatiently. "Why not?"

"Because . . . You don't know what kinda weirdos hang out there," Megavolt replied after a tiny hesitation.

"I hang out there!" She shuddered, a new memory suddenly surfacing. "Speaking of weirdos . . . You should have seen this . . . this . . . thing I saw there before you showed up at the bridge and took me to the Goldeneye last night!"

"Oh?" Megavolt raised an eyebrow somewhere behind his goggles, though not sounding all that concerned.

"Yeah! It sounded like a helicopter, had a headlight er spotlight er whatever, like one . . . Like a helicopter, I mean . . . But it was . . ." Tegwen shook her head with a snort. "This is gonna sound crazy -- It was duck-shaped!"

In a roar of detest, Megavolt sent a bolt of lightning through the floor a few feet in front of him.

Tegwen stepped back immediately, staring at Megavolt in awe. He's dangerous! Slowly, a smirk grew on her bill. He's just every bit as dangerous as I am. Maybe this could work out after all.

Megavolt sat on his couch in a huff, glaring at some invisible target.

"You know what I'm talking about, then?" Tegwen asked hopefully. "I'm not imagining completely whacked-out things?!" Oh thank God!

"Gizmoduck," Megavolt seethed. "I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!"

Tegwen nodded slowly. "What'd he do to you?!"

"You don't remember what happened last night?" Megavolt asked slowly.

"I got completely schnockered with a girl I barely know and probably said things I shouldn't have said," Tegwen recalled. "I hit up some stud in -- what he tried to convince me was the men's restroom -- and now I have a hangover to end all hangovers." She closed her eyes, recalling having seen urinals on the wall opposite the sink she'd thrown up in the night before. Funny how that didn't seem odd to her at the time. Tegwen's cheeks flushed. "Luckily I'll probably never see that guy again." Luckily and unfortunately. He was so . . . yum. "Oh, yeah, and he turned me down. Not like it matters." It matters a lot. Rejection blows.

Megavolt nodded slowly. "That's . . . it?"

"Yeah. And I asked you to take me to the bridge but I ended up here instead"

Megavolt growled. "Gizmoduck showed up. He ran over my foot. Again."

Tegwen blinked. "He . . . ran . . . over . . . your foot?"

Megavolt nodded.



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