Double Date part 1

“Come on, it’s almost the time we have to be there,” Aria Kahner said to her friend Paulina Wilson, better known as Polygirl. They were in Poly’s lab at Stranger Industries.

“I know,” Poly replied as she and several of her duplicates hurried between the various devices, “But I want to make sure everything is functioning properly before we leave.”

“Poly, you’ve already checked everything five times in the half hour I’ve been here,” Aria pointed out to her friend. “Are you really that nervous?”

Poly stopped and looked at her while fidgeting with lower set of hands. “It’s that obvious, isn’t it? The thing is, I’ve never really been on a date before. Well, one of my duplicates did but I don’t remember anything that she did. I have a theory why that is. You see….”

“Poly, you’re procrastinating,” Aria said gently. “Now, you like Gordon, don’t you?”

Poly looked away shyly and admitted, “Well, yes.”

“Well, you really should spend some time with him. And it’s not like you’re going alone. David and I will be there with you.” Seeing that Poly was almost ready to go, she played her trump card. “And we could go on your scooter. I know how you been wanting to take me on a ride on it.”

“Really?” said Poly, growing excited. “That probably for the best, considering the time.” Her duplicates pulled Aria over to the scooter while the prime Poly dug out a helmet for her. ”I’m sure I got all the bugs out of this engine and it won’t explode like the last one did.” Aria was beginning to wonder if maybe this was a bad idea as Poly reintegrated her duplicates and had Aria climb on behind her. “Now hang on tight, and we should get there in no time,” she said just before she kicked the scooter in gear and drove out of the lab.

* * * * * *

Elsewhere in Angel Falls, Gordon Martin and David Blake were waiting in front of the restaurant. Gordon was wearing a suit. “Don’t you think you’re overdressed?” David asked him.

Gordon looked down at what he was wearing. “Well, it’s my first date with Poly and I wanted to look good. So, um, how did you and Aria meet?”

David rubbed the back of his head. “Well, I was working with this gang at the time and she showed up to bust it. One thing led to the other, and I shot her. Then she dropped a catwalk on me and hurt me bad. Still, even though I tried to kill her, she saved me. I didn’t see her for a while after that, although deep down I wanted to. Then I, or rather Concussion, got involved with one of her dad’s schemes. After Xeranad stabbed her, Concussion showed up and knocked her around a little and then she died, but she had touched me and gave me the strength to overpower Concussion, something which had never happened before. I managed to heal her and allowed her to get some closure on an incident that had haunted her for centuries.” He looked over at Gordon and said, “You probably think that’s messed up.”

Gordon shook his head. “Actually, I met Poly when I was supposed to kidnap her so I don’t think I’m in any position to judge.”

Just then Poly pulled up on her scooter. Aria climbed off and rushed over to David while taking her helmet off. “Hey, are you alright?” he asked, seeing the distressed look on her face.

“I’m fine,” she replied, slightly louder than she intended. The ride over was something she had never experienced before, and hoped that she never would again. Poly wasn’t a bad driver, it’s just that the scooter went faster than any scooter had a right to, due to the souped up engine. The fact Poly was oblivious to her worry didn’t help.

Meanwhile, Gordon approached Poly while she was securing the scooter. “Um, hi,” he said to her.

“Hi,” she said, turning towards him. “You look nice.”

“Thanks,” he replied, blushing. “You look nice too.”

By then Aria had regained her composure, and so the four of them entered. The selected a booth and sat down. A waitress came over and asked what they wanted. Poly ordered four entrees, and the waitress then asked if she was ordering for the whole group. Poly shook her head and said, “Nope. That’s just for me.”

The waitress raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything as she took the orders of the others. After she was left, Aria looked around and saw a karaoke stand in the corner. “Cool! I always wanted to try that,” she said as she went over to it. A minute later, she came back looking disappointed.”

“What’s wrong,” David asked.

“They only have ten songs, and none of them are older than ten years and newer than five,” Aria said to him. “That thing is seriously outdated.”

“Outdated?” Poly said. “Oh, I can fix that, no problem.” With that, she got up and hurried over to the machine while getting her tools out, with Aria following. Poly opened the side of the machine and began to fiddle around with it.

The manager saw this and stormed over, shouting out, “Hey! Get away from that, you fre….”

His last word was cut off when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder. He looked over, and then up, to see a large muscled young man standing beside him. He was a foot taller than the manager and his suit was straining at the seams. “The lady is going to fix your machine for free, mister. I think you should let her,” Gordon said angrily.

The manager stood there bug eyed and said, “Yeah, that sounds good.” Satisfied that Poly wasn’t going to be interrupted or insulted, Gordon shrank down and took his seat.

Meanwhile, Poly had finished upgrading the memory in the machine and had connected her own media player to it. “How many songs are you loading onto it,” Aria asked.

“All the ones I have,” Poly replied. “I always carry a half a million karaoke songs with me in case of an emergency.” Aria started to ask what kind of emergency would require karaoke songs, let alone that many, but then decided she probably wouldn’t understand the answer and kept quiet. Finally, Poly was done and said, “You want to go first,” as she closed the machine up.

“Oh yeah,” Aria said, looking over the now expanded song list. “Cool! You have the Paul Williams’ version of ‘An Old Fashioned Love Song.’” Aria began singing it, with David getting up and joining her for the second verse. After that, Poly split off three duplicates and sang Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster Stronger”. Finally, Gordon got up and sang a slightly flat but still passable version of the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer”.

After that, the food arrived and the four of them settled down to eat. Aria, David, and Poly all finished their food while Gordon left about half of his. He didn’t seem to notice that Poly was helping herself to his uneaten fries. Aria and David ordered a sundae with two straws for dessert. After that, while they were waiting for the bill, they began to discuss what to do now. “We could always go back to Guardians HQ and watched ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ on the big screen there,” Aria suggested.

“That sounds good to me,” Poly said. “How about you, Gordon?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I’d be down for that.”

Aria turned to David and asked, “So are you going to make it unanimous?”

He said nothing as pulled out his wallet and placed enough bills on the table to cover the check as well as supply a generous tip and then said, “Why watch a movie when you can experience the real thing?? And with that, the four of them vanished.

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Set in

Part two here :thumb340720418:

Art by , story by (owner of Gordon Martin) with input from (owner of David Blake aka. Serenity/Concussion), (owner of Aria Kahner and Xeranad), and (owner of Polygirl and Stranger Industries)