Heeeeey, fancy meetin' you here! How're ya-- whoa! Careful there, pal. Here, lemme help ya in. Boy, am I glad you called me. An' you'll be glad too - I got bottles of water in the mid compartment there, an that switch right there is for the seat warmer. Yer welcome.
Yeah, it gets pretty cold in the winter here in Titan City. Doesn't really stop most people. Heck, in Downtown you can go walking from building to building without ever goin' outside, thanks to the skywalks an' such, so why would anyone slow down? Never stops people from tryin' new things, though.
I remember one year, durrin' a pretty bad blizzard, a bunch of mad science guys got together an' did a contest to see who could do the best job a keepin' the city streets clear a' snow. So all night there were giant robots an' laser-plows an' puddles of gray goop an' all sortsa werid stuff, runnin' around, cleanin' the roads an' sometimes fightin' each other over choice pilups. It was insane! But then, what do you expect from mad science guys?
The streets were clear, tho. An' I swear they were cleaner than they'd been before. I was workin' that night an' didn't even have my tires slip the whole time.
Oh, sure, we've had some funny happenings. I mean, hey, it's New Years, any city's gonna have some crazy stuff happens. Ours just tends to be bigger'n louder.
One year, we had a monster came out of the water, hadda be thirty stories tall, headed for the fireworks display an' then started torchin' things. There was a big fight of course, but in the end it turns out it was just tryin' to communicate. Get this - the poor thing fell in love with City Hall! Thought the fireworks was the buildin' comin' onta him. They fixed his vision somehow, an the guy was so disappointed. Blubbered for hours, loud enough everyone could hear 'im.
What? Oh, yeah, big monsters happen sometimes around here. Don't worry, all homeowner's insurance for the area is good for monster attacks by law, and they usually don't cause as much commotion as you'd expect.
Anyway, one a' my favorite stories of the season is when Hexbane was goin' around the town stealin' presents kids'd gotten on Christmas. See, Hexbane, he's this guy that collects cursed stuff. Nobody knows why, but he just can't get enough of it. Well, that year some jerk'd been passing out toys an' games with bad mojo on 'em for the holidays, an' they were startin' to take effect on the kids. Hexbane can't just do nothin' straight, tho, oh no. He's charmin' enough he could probably just tell them what's up and get it done, but instead he goes an' breaks into people's houses to collect the toys, leavin' stylishly cut-open windows in his wake.
So Anthem gets wind of this, an' even tho she's supposed to be takin' th' day off she goes after 'im, because that's what she does. She an' Hexbane have history, see. They fight, an' it's always pretty spectacular to see those two fight, lemme tell ya, they just go tearin' across the city. Hexbane keeps causin' problems to distract her, or I dunno, maybe he just does it to watch her fix 'em, but this goes on a while and then he finally jukes when he should've swerved or somethin' and she grabs holda him. Delivers one helluva lecture, an' let me tell you, when Anthem shouts everybody hears it. She thought he was just doin' his usual stealin', didn't know he was doin' those kids a solid by takin' away the toys. But she does him one better.
See, Hexbane's rich. Like, serious old money rich. So she grabs the guy an' they go buy some new toys - on his dime, natch- an’ she drags ‘im around th’ town collectin' the rest of the toys, and visitin' the people he'd taken the ones he already had from. An' they give the kids all new toys to replace what they'd lost. Clean a’ bad juju, a’course. She even got him to pay for the window repairs, too. All outta pocket.
After that she gave the guy another browbeatin' an' then let 'im go with a warning. He took it in stride. What's his hangup? I dunno man, he just likes to be stylish.
I got a million a' these, tho. Like, this one time there was... ah... uh... ... no.
Nossir, you ain't seein' a forty foot tall guy standin' naked as a jaybird in the middle of the road. An' he ain't shoutin' nothin' 'bout not puttin' his pants on 'till he gets some respect.
I, uh, I think we got someone else needs a ride home, tho. Oh, an’ the seatback in frontaya has barf bags. Y’know. Just in case.
What? Oh, sure. Yeah, it’s possible to drive places without runnin’ inta supers in this town. ...I mean, normally. On New Year’s Eve? Nnnnnot so much.
