As Miss Chievous realizes the full ramifications of her troll attempt, she still can't bring herself to be mad at Jonathan. As expected of her new rival, after all.

"What!? Hey! At least leave some for me!?" Finally leaving her parked position in the doorway, Miss Chievous charges over to lay what claims she can upon the remnants of the charcuterie board.

If it wasn't for the fact that he had already eaten more than he had any business doing, Jonathan seriously considers using his powers to eat faster. He still stubbornly eats one last piece of soppressata with extra sharp white cheddar on a multi-grain sea salt cracker, all while maintaining eye contact with her, though.

Lucas was already leaning back, having eaten his fill, but even still he deliberates taking one for the team and having more as well. He ends up deciding not to give himself stomach pain just for the sake of a little extra spite, but it wasn't a decision he came to easily.

Miss Masher has no such reservations, however. After she has two more heavily loaded woven wheat crackers, she finally stops eating when Miss Chievous gives her a pitiful whine, caving in and letting her have what's left.

After diligently wiping his hands, Jonathan heaves a huge sigh and picks up the massive stack of densely packed legal lingo. Papers at hand, he can finally continue his quest that was previously left off at... Halfway through the second page.

Miss Calculated has done a bit more babysitting in regards to the update progress of Willy's tablet. She is also almost done reassembling Jonathan's phone, after having completted her inspection to her satisfaction. Noticing Jonathan's sigh and how few pages he's flipped past, she remembers that Miss Chievous was the one to hand off the paperwork, and she clearly had not mentioned an important detail.

"Oh! It's printed in full so you can have your own copy of the documentation. But, for the most part, it's just fail-safes against false claims and wrongful applications of the form, in your case you're good to skip the first thirty-two pages, just worry about the ones with a star in the bottom right corner. Of course, if you WANT to read it all to be sure, that's your choice." As Miss Calculated drastically reduces Jonathan's workload, he can't help glaring at Miss Chievous.

"That was way worse than trying to get me lost!" As Jonathan voices his complaint, at first Miss Chievous can't help grinning at him, but after a few seconds of deliberation, the smile runs from her face.

"Actually, you know what? I'm sorry, I honestly didn't think about what forms you might have had in there. That crap is absolutely awful and no one should have to dig through so much of it." Miss Chievous gives one of the most sincere apologies she's said throughout her entire life, feeling an uncharacteristically large amount of guilt.

'Heh, you know the paperwork must be shitty when a trickster apologizes.'

[No kidding.]

Miss Masher leans back into the plush couch, absentmindedly petting Willy's back as she does so. As Miss Chievous admits her failings, Miss Masher nods repeatedly, apparently also finding the arduous paperwork too cruel for mere mortals.

On the other hand, Miss Calculated simply snorts, Willy is in a food coma, and Lucas isn't far behind Willy, reclined heavily into the luxurious velveteen couch while the pup rests his head on his lap.

Even though he has discovered that he has a greatly reduced workload, Jonathan still can't help groaning as he flips ahead through the pages. He had made the grievous mistake of looking over at the lazy couch filled with two drowsy strength supes plus napping smartypants pupper.

Once Miss Calculated has finished reassembling Jonathan's phone, wiping it down to ensure it's completely clean, and remounting the rubber duckie nanogel case, she turns it back on to ensure everything is running as it should. While it's booting up, she's shifted focus over to the finally-done-updating tablet, now going on a spree of fetching apps she seems to deem dog-appropriate.

Short of licking up the last few tiny crumbs, Miss Chievous has decimated what little remained of the charcuterie board. While it may have been less than what she wanted, there was at least still a fair amount for her to inhale, considering how heavily Miss Calculated loaded it up.

Wanting to snoop on her newfound rival, she shamelessly plops down on the couch right next to Jonathan's left side, leaning over to see what documents he's even looking at.

Tensing up a bit with the sudden unexpected audience, Jonathan reflexively hunches up and leans away from her, subconsciously trying to hide what he's reading from her prying eyes.

All this accomplishes is encouraging her to turn invisible so he doesn't know where she is.

Sighing with defeat, he just gives up and continues plodding through the verbose fine print, and she goes to stand behind the couch and read while leaning over his right shoulder.

"Eh? You're renouncing any ties with your family? Damn, what the hell did they do?" As Miss Chievous suddenly speaks up, barely an inch away from his right ear, he can't help jumping with fright. His shoulder leaps upward into the bottom of her chin, but at least he didn't jump high enough to actually hurt either of them.

She flinches a bit after being forced to bite her tongue, although thankfully for only a little bit, and yelps slightly as she jerks upright. These antics, unsurprisingly, earn a snort of laughter from Miss Calculated.

"Seriously, what did you think was going to happen? You had to have been trying to spook him on purpose." While Miss Calculated taunts her unfortunate sibling, she picks Jonathan's phone back up off of the coffee table now that it's done fully booting up. Or rather, more importantly, she's reached a lull in her pup app acquisition spree.

"Ah, right. Here, go ahead and put in your pin and double-check that everything's fine." As Miss Calculated says this follow-up, she tosses the phone over to him with a gentle underhanded toss.

Dropping the paperwork down onto his lap he catches the phone mid-air, but before he enters anything in he holds completely still.

"Hey, um, I want to know you're not watching my uh, code, um, Chi." As Jonathan's firm request comes out sounding more like a timid suggestion, she surprisingly complies.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. But really though, why bother renouncing ties with your folks? Even if you don't get along with them, what're they gonna do to you anyway?" She drops her invisibility while repeating her question that led to her tongue becoming sore, circling back around the couch and going over to sit down next to him again,

Now that he knows where she is, Jonathan enters his pin in as fast as the phone can register the input, earning a smirk and a good-humored snort from Miss Calculated as she notices the rapid movements. No one else had noticed the brief display of limited power usage, considering that half of the occupants of the room are collectively asleep together on one couch, and Miss Chievous was pointedly not looking in his direction to give some semblance of privacy.

"Ah, I guess you weren't in the room yet at the time, you're gonna love this. Since the two of them hate his parents, in order to spite them he's severing all ties and having his boss adopt him. I assume that now that it's underway is why they began showing off how much money they actually have, since his parents won't see a dime of it." As Miss Calculated explains on Jonathan's behalf, Miss Chievous bursts out laughing loud enough that it wakes up Miss Masher and Lucas.

Willy's puppy dreamland remains undisturbed.

"Eh!? Wha..?" As Lucas very eloquently asks what just happened, Miss Masher has a near-identical reaction as him, also being woken up from the sudden boisterous laughter.

[...The similarities are almost alarming.]

'Huh? What?'

[...Though I guess I'm a bit thankful you aren't as much of a battle nut as she is, at least.]

"Eh? Who... Miss Masher?"

[...Who the hell else would I be talking about!? Are you always this slow when waking up!?]

'What!? I wasn't asleep!'

[...]

-----

Lucas kills this chapter: 0

Lucas total kills: 7

Lucas deaths this chapter: 0

Lucas total deaths: 10

Lucas current GDV: 8.91

Lucas's fame level: 2.5* (Mostly just local)

Lucas's hero suspicion level: 1* (Only highly paranoid people)

Jonathan kills this chapter: 0

Jonathan total kills: 5

Jonathan deaths this chapter: 0

Jonathan total deaths: 2

Jonathan current GDV: 1.95

Jonathan's fame level: 1.75* (Just local)

Jonathan's hero suspicion level: 1* (Only highly paranoid people)

-----

Little character theater:

Jonathan, completely mentally done with doing the extensive paperwork, yet hasn't so much as signed once: Why is it so elaborate!?

Willy, twitching one of his legs in his sleep: Bark...

Lucas, rubbing his eyes hard enough that it's a good thing he has enhanced endurance: I was just resting my eyes...

427, once again at a loss as to what to do about Lucas: [I still can't believe you actually started taking a nap...]

Author, snickering: It's normal to overindulge on snacks and then enjoy a pre-duel nap in each other's company... Right?

Mr. Quacks, still amused by Miss Chievous's self-inflicted injury: Quack!