LNH: Hungry, Hungry Sabertooths! #7: "Un-Curb Your Enthusiasm"

HUNGRY, HUNGRY SABERTOOTHS!
#7: "Un-Curb Your Enthusiasm"
A tale of the Classic Looniverse in quarantine, by Drew Nilium

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Kid Enthusiastic, also known as James Takato Preponderation, hung upside-down
from the ceiling of his room, in the middle of a tangle of wires and weirdness,
putting the final touches on an enormous, fantabulous machine that he was *sure*
would fix things up good.

Most people seemed to think that James's sunny demeanor could stand up to
anything! He appreciated the faith they all had in him, but the truth was,
sometimes it was *really hard* being enthusiastic!

Like, the thing was, he could always be enthusiastic when he was in the middle
of some big adventury thing or in a crowd of pals, because a lot of his energy
came from bouncing off other people - sending out his good vibes and getting
them back! And obviously that was a bit of a problem right now!!

And the other thing was, he was replacing as much in-person contact as he could
with virtual contact, but it wasn't quite up to snuff. Oh, not for James - for
him, online contact was just as good and intense as in-person. But that wasn't
true for most of his friends and teammates, and so he wasn't able to get back as
much energy. But that was okay, right? He'd just have to do more social-ing than
usual!

But the problem was, he also needed to be *alone* for big chunks of the day! To
focus on his own projects, or just to enjoy himself in disconnected pursuits!
But he needed the energy he got from other people to really engage hard in
that!! And there just wasn't enough time in the day to get that much energy and
then be alone for long enough aaaaaaa!!!

So he was eating more candy and drinking more soda and playing anime music to
keep his brain stimulated as he worked on some kind of thing that could fix this
problem. He'd taken his second shower of the day earlier, which helped, and had
painted his nails pink with gold sparkles, so he got constant flashes of
interesting color as he worked.

The big problem was, of course, that he was a gadgets and contraptions boy, and
they needed a biologist. He'd built a universe telescope to try and find Doctor
Stomper and Multi-Tasking Man, but checking world by world was *incredibly* slow
and repetitive so he'd handed off *that* task ASAP. He had an adjustable universe
portal, but going to any world where there were life-forms that might get
infected by the virus was a *super* bad idea. At least it let him get out of his
room and explore some worlds that didn't have larger animals - still wearing a
mask, of course, just in case.

But, okay, right, the big problem was that due to understimulation he wasn't
thinking as well, right? So maybe he could build something to give himself that
energy! But of course, anything that had to do with brains and neurotransmitters
and stuff was biology too, so that seemed to be out of the question...

Until he realized that there was another way to do it! Sufficiently advanced
technology was the same as magic, right? And clearly a lot of his technology
made absolutely no sense, so it *must* be sufficiently advanced. So *therefore*,
if he could just *build* something to do the right kind of magic...

He was always really good with library books so he'd convinced Librarian Lady to
convince Occultism Kid to lend him a couple of his less-eldritch tomes. And
looking thru them he'd found exactly the perfect thing and set right to work!

And now it was almost done!!

He plugged one motherboard into another, soldering here and clamping there,
closing up the panel! He ratcheted himself down from the ceiling, unstrapped his
safety harness, and grabbed the huge, chunky control box!

"Switch one... *on*!" He flipped the switch and the lights dimmed in the room as
the machine drew power from the LNHQ's grid. A bone-deep hum rumbled thru the
machinery.

"Switch two... *on*!" He flipped the switch and parts of the mechanism swiveled
and turned, analyzing necessary position based on time of day, phase of the
moon, and angle of the galactic plane. They locked in place and beams of coherent
light shot out, leaving colorful laser trails that traced circles of complicated
magical symbology.

"Switch three... *on*!" He flipped the switch and synthesized chanting rang out,
harmonizing in waves, dropping in and out of phase with itself in a delightfully
creepy way.

Okay, all the basics were in place. Now for the really tricky parts.

James gently turned one of the little knobs, turning his head to look at one of
the readouts as he did. The hum of the machinery went up and down as he turned,
just a bit at a time... to do this manually was difficult, but magic always
seemed to need a personal touch, and this felt like the right place for it...

He was rewarded with a crinkling, tearing noise, just on the edge of hearing
over the humming and chanting. Out of his peripheral vision, he could see the
colors of the space within the machine changing, as the weave of existence
unraveled just a little bit...

And once it had unraveled that little bit, he cranked the knob all the way back
to zero, pressing the solid weight of consensus reality against the loose
threads, holding them in place. Awesome.

He took three steps back, put the control box down (but kept it right at hand),
and raised his head, speaking in a clear, loud voice.

"Sorry for being rude and all! If I could please talk to the personification of
all that is bright, energetic and unstoppable in the Looniverse, that'd be
great! If I could please see the form of forward narrative motion incarnate,
that'd be lovely! If I could meet the E-named embodiment of enternal excitement,
that'd be wonderful!"

"If you're there and willing to talk to me, please step forward..." Kid
Enthusiastic swallowed, skin tingling in excitement. "Enthusiasm of the
Finishless!"

The loose threads of reality curled together, weaving around and around each
other. In the center of the shining, colorful laser circles, a form seemed to
come together out of the patterns of light and shadow; a form of childlike
androgyny, edges blurred from barely-contained energy, but with bright eyes and
a bright smile.

"Let's have some fun!!"

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Drew "getting a bunch of my experiences in here" Nilium