Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Runaways (Vol. 1) Issue #5 – “Pride and Joy (Chapter 5)”! In the previous installment, the parents start catching on that the kids are starting to catch on. While the kids inspect Mr. Stein’s shed at Chase’s house, they get caught and are almost thwarted! But then they get away in time.

The issue ends with two sets of parents in Molly’s bedroom while she’s sound asleep. “You have to stop playing these games… or I’m afraid we’ll have no choice but to do something terrible to your young friend Molly.”

So, that’s rather fucked up. Let’s see where that goes.

Runaways (Vol. 1), Issue #5 [November, 2003]
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan
“Pride and Joy (Chapter 5)”

THE HAYES RESIDENCE – 5:34am

Mr. Yorkes holds an axe. The Drs. Hayes have these creepy glowing eyeballs. “The call is in,” says Mrs. Yorkes into her phone. “I told the children that unless they surrender themselves to us within the hour, Molly will be executed.”

Eek!

“Do you honestly think they’ll fall for a bluff like that?” asks Mr. Yorkes after Mrs. Hayes hangs up the phone.

Not so eek.

These parents still can’t believe that the kids witnessed their sacrificial ritual, what’r dey gonna du? They weren’t supposed to know about The Pride until they turned eighteen! There was supposed to be *counts on fingers* some years until that happened!

Molly ain’t gonna wake up because she’s been hella sedated. Telepathically. Cool! Oh wait, she’s stirring. I guess she’s gonna not ain’t wake up after all. Dr. Momma Hayes takes off her bad-guy mask and attends to her daughter.

“My… my stomach is all hurtie,” Molly groans. She didn’t have a good night; all the other kids were acting strange around her. All like “get out of the corridor, Molly” and “get into the bathroom, Molly” and “eat this strange thing we found on the floor, Molly”. The last thing didn’t happen, but it would’ve explained her stomachache. She mentions that Gert made her feel like she was cursed or something. “I didn’t really believe her, but then a little blood came out of my–”

Whoops! Ok, that’s enough! Go back to sleep!

Driving into a lake is the way to do it. It’s worked for people in the past!

ROADSIDE REST STOP (CLOSED FOR REPAIRS) — 5:43am

Roadside rest stops are where you go for some anonymous bonin’! No boning here, though, as much as Chase would probably like to. Would they try to kill Molly? Nico’s mom allegedly tried to kill her. Staff of One right in the chest, remember? At any rate, going to the cops is probably not a good idea anymore. It isn’t anyway. Cahoots and whatnot.

“We should go into hiding, Saddam-style. Like I said, I know this awesome abandoned–”

Chase is cut off before he can talk again about his heroin den. It’s going to end up being something really fucking cool and good that they should’ve done ages ago. Wait and see. Alex suggests charging into Molly’s house and rescuing her from the Big Bads. “Don’t be stupid Alex!” Gert furrows her brow angrily. “The last time we tried to fight a few of our parents, we barely got out alive!” That’s a fair point, that DID just happen literally 50 minutes ago. Alex says no one else has to come, he can do it himself. The idea just got dumber, my friends.

No way, Alex. He’s the only one that doesn’t seem to have anything special going on. Karolina has her alien flying/zapping powers. Gert has her 900th-dimension dinosaur. Nico has a Staff of One lodged inside her. Chase has the so-called Fistigons, which he suddenly figured out how to weaponize (against his parents’ hopes). They blast out fire. Like flamethrower gloves. “Oh. Well… that totally rocks.”

Yes, these seem to be a good way to gain the advantage. Then it’s settled: everyone’s going to help plain Jane over here. The one without any powers or cool toys. Just an expiring MMORPG subscription.

All your children are stupid enough. If only you knew. One of them is going to probably try jerking off with flamethrower gloves.

THE HAYES RESIDENCE – 5:48am

Mrs. Dean showed up as soon as she could. Mr. Dean got stuck in Manhattan taking care of some Skrull business, whatever the hell that might be. I don’t care. I don’t care about Skrull. I don’t care about Kree. I barely care about humans. Bring on the mutants!

They all catch up. The Steins and the Minorus aren’t answering their phones since they got beat up by children. The Wilders are making Plan B preparations in case the kids don’t show up to try to waste them.

Cool. They’re going to wait and see what happens.

ACROSS THE STREET – 6:26am

The kids have paired off. Chase and Karolina are crouched behind bushes keeping a lookout. Alex and Nico are heading toward the Hayes house preparing for Phase One (doing the getting Molly thing).

Alex and Nico prepare to approach the house.

Nico is worried.

Alex says they’ll be fine.

Nico says all she’s been thinking about lately is death.

Alex says that she knows what she means.

Nico says “You do?”

Alex says “Totally.”

Then she kisses him. It fries Alex’s brain for a second, but he regains composure. Nico tells him not to spoil it by talking.

All righty then! Continuing with Phase One…

Alex and Nico ring the doorbell and Dr. Daddy Hayes answers the door still wearing his bad guy uniform. He ushers them into the house forthwith. “Tell me, where are your other playmates?” Oh, they’re nearby. One of them is playing with himself with his fancy gloves. The other is probably flying around like a literal manic pixie dream girl. Gert’s somewhere, who cares. They’ll all turn themselves in too as long as it’s assured that Molly is safe and sound and not at all decapitated.

Yeah, well, Daddy Hayes don’t play that. “KNEEL. Now tell your friends to show themselves, or I’ll force you to snap each other’s necks.”

Eh. That’s not so scary. Snapping is good for necks, right? Oh, wait, no it isn’t! I was thinking of something else entirely! Time for Phase Two…

A goddamn dinosaur crashes through the window and lands on top of Dr. Daddy Hayes. Now that he’s been duly indisposed (rent to shreds, perhaps), the kids start investigating the house. Before Alex can even say “boo”, and why would he, he gets hit in the head with the flat of Mr. Yorkes’ axe. “Girls, I’m disappointed,” he says, speaking past the knocked-out Alex to Gert and Nico. “Call me old-fashioned, but all of this fighting seems very unladylike.” Nice bit of sexism, Mr. Yorkes. Do you suck your wife’s pussy with that mouth? He comments upon Gert’s dinosaur, the one she’s not supposed to have until they’re dead.

Yeah… well, uh… consider yourselves dead meat from, like, uh… Slaughterhouse City… man.

Gert can’t sic the dinosaur on her parents because it’s genetically engineered to not, which is awfully convenient. The Yorkes are about to do something bad to their daughter, like a spanking, when Nico rushes them with a hearty “RAHHH!” Yorkes, as a gut reaction, lifts up his axe and accidentally cuts Nico’s arm.

After a quick “oh shit” moment from the Yorkes, Nico lifts up her arm and starts speaking in in a quavery speech balloon. “When blood is shed… let the Staff of One emerge–” And lo’ and verily, the Staff quickly extrudes itself from Nico’s chest and clobbers Mr. Yorkes right in the chin. Mrs. Yorkes is completely taken aback by Nico’s possession of her mother’s Staff. Nico tells Mrs. Yorkes to freeze, and she does. She freezes like a popsicle right in her tracks.

“When Alex comes to…” she says to Gert, “…tell him I’m on to Phase Three.”

While Nico prepares her Phase Three-ing, Chase and Karolina continue staking out in the bushes while he wears his see-through-clothes Peeping Tom goggles. “Let’s go, Karolina! Take off your bracelet and let’s storm the castle already!” Nope! Bide your time, you impatient dingus.

Chase tries to use his goggles to see through the house walls, but Karolina’s bad-guy Mom shows up, zaps him with freezy powers, and starts speaking to her daughter. “Hello, my angel.”

“MOM?! Stop it! You’re… you’re hurting him!”

“Merely detaining him. You’ll understand when you learn to use your beautiful gifts, Karolina.”

Mr. And Mrs. Dean had always hoped to take Karolina back to their homeworld before, like, you know, all this shit went down. Sorry for lying all these years! Also, don’t bother taking off the bracelet and threatening to kick some parental ass. Mrs. Dean has the exact same powers. “You made me wear this anchor my entire life! And if your powers are the same as mine, then… then touching it must do the same thing to you that it does to me…”

“…it must take away everything that makes you special.”

Hell yeah, Karolina! Woop woop woop woop woop!!

Karolina hurts her hand cold-cocking her mother. Chase thinks it was super hot.

Back in Molly’s bedroom, Dr. Mrs. Hayes sings her a lullaby and gets interrupted by the staff-wielding Nico, who looks like some kind of steampunk Game of Thrones character. Nico calls her a witch. Hayes says she’s the one who looks like she should be burned at the stake. Nico calls her evil. Hayes gripes about “kids these days”.

“Now why don’t you drop the stick and act like an adult?” Dr. Mrs. Hayes says as she uses her creepy violet-eyeball powers to freeze Nico in her tracks.

“Why don’t you drop the condescending tone and admit that you’re a monster,” Nico replies, grunting like a moose.

Molly wakes up, nose bleeding. “Nico? What are you doing here?”

Her eyes begin glowing and she addresses her shocked mother. “Oh jeez. This is what I was trying to tell you… something’s wrong with my body.

Indeed there is! You see, when a young woman comes of age, she starts bleeding out her… well, I guess her nose, in this case.

Dr. Mrs. Hayes is thoroughly befuddled! They had Molly tested at a young age! She came up negative for the X-gene! And the Y-gene and the Z-gene and the H-gene. All the letters! As she talks, Nico tells her to shut up and whacks her in the head with the staff. THUNK. Down she goes.

“STOP IT!” Molly yells, standing up on her bed, eyes glowing fiercely and looking nothing short of absolutely terrifying. “GET AWAY FROM MY MOM!”

Final Thoughts

Things are spiraling out of control, it seems. Pretty soon these kids are going to have to Run Away, and probably from the police since they keep assaulting their parents and knocking them unconscious!

Molly’s gonna fuck a bitch up, that’s going to be fun to see. I’d rather hang with Molly than any of these other losers. Especially Alex, that kid sucks.