Blast: The Teenage Hero

9. The Girl Next Door

"I said, leave me alone!" Harris interrupts with a resounding yell, before entering the house and closing the door in Alex's face.

"Well... that didn't turn out how I hoped," Alex says. "I guess maybe I should just leave him alone..." he adds, thinking of what he could do instead. "Maybe I'll just go see Tommy. I'm sure we'll have fun together."

Alex does exactly that, flying over to Tommy's house, and knocks on the door. Tommy opens the door immediately with a smile. "Hi Alex, how are you?" Tommy asks.

"I'm doing alright. I was just thinking we could do something fun together. It's Saturday after all! Might as well make the most of it!" Alex tells Tommy with a smile.

Tommy nods. "Video games?" he offers with a smile.

Alex smiles back, and nods in response. "Video games."

Cue a montage of the two teens playing through all sorts of different games together, including a car racing game, a fighting game, a platforming game, an open world adventure game, and so much more.

"This really is life!" Alex says, smiling as they begin another game. "Just two best buddies playing games, with no worries at all."

Tommy chuckles a bit. "Yeah, it sure is fun!" he adds. "Though you know, I kind of wonder what Alice might be up to."

Meanwhile at Alice's house, she's inside her lab, working on her experiments and projects. Passionate about science as she is, to her Saturdays are just a day free for her to work on all the projects she's most excited about, with nothing to worry about at all!

Suddenly the sound of glass breaking is heard in the background, snapping Alice out of her focus. At least, almost nothing to worry about...

She turns around to see Max touching things in her lab and causing a mess. "Max, how many times have I told you to not come into my lab!?" she tells him, staring him down.

Back at Tommy's house, Alex just shrugs. "I don't know, it's Alice after all. It wouldn't surprise me if she's just doing her science stuff that I don't understand." Alex tells Tommy with a chuckle. "Loosening up and playing a game doesn't sound like the kind of thing she'd do."

"It's not like she never has fun though." Tommy tells him, thinking a bit about it. "She just... has fun differently."

Alex looks back at him. "Yeah, I guess," Alex adds, just imagining Alice getting all hyped up about working on some kind of science project. "though differently is kind of... an understatement..."

Tommy shrugs a bit. "Well, if it's fun for her, then I think it's alright."

However, the conversation is soon cut short by the sound of screaming outside, which catches both Alex and Tommy by surprise. They rush to look out the window, where they a familiar trio of masked men robbing the nearby jewelry store, running off with a bag, presumably full of the items they stole.

"Criminals!" Tommy yells, astonished. However, Alex recognizes these three: A tall and slender man, a heavy and wide man, and a short one, just like that trio he fought not too long ago.

"I think I remember those three. The Bandit Brothers, is what Lily called them if I remember." Alex explains. "Anyway, there's no time to lose, I've gotta stop them again." he tells Tommy, as he flies out of Tommy's house, and stops right in front of the three men, causing them to stop cold.

"Alright you three, we can do this the easy way or the hard way." Alex tells them, while all three of them get a bit nervous, remembering their previous encounter with this superpowered teenager.

"Not you again!" the tall one exclaims, while the shorter one decides to try something. "Hey look over there! Someone's giving away free video game consoles!" he announces, pointing in a random direction.