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The world looked different when life threw you for a loop. There was a sense of literal darkness that filled Johnny's eyes and mind. It gave him a moment to reflect on his state of being and his place in the world and the events that brought him to this point. Here was a certain peace, a certain serenity associated with being so close to yourself. Johnny twiddled his thumbs. What could he think about? Maybe about how the day had just started and he was fresh on the trail of a suspected criminal, or how he was working on being an excellent skateboarder, or even how his ninja skillz were improving day by day. He really could have contemplated a great many things while in his current position, but the blood rushing to his head made things rather difficult.

One Johnathan Miller had been stuffed in a trash can just outside a small grocery store by two goons whose trails he'd been following. The young lad-turned-detective had suspected them of being shoplifters and sought to bring them To Justice, but he was caught and his plan magnificently backfired. The two bullies were quite a bit taller and stronger than the boy and they easily rounded him up, shoved him in and shut the lid. Hmm. This made for a very interesting predicament. Johnny may have been able to squeeze himself out if he wasn't upside down, and the can was one of those heavy metal cylinders, much too heavy to rock back and forth. Johnny was rather stuck.

"...um... excuse meeeeee~?" he called, hoping his echoing voice would reach someone on the outside. "Excuse meeeeeee....!"

Oh boy a savior! Johnny was elated when he felt gravity's cruel grip loosen and he was hoisted into the air. Far into the air. His eyes went wide at the sheer strength of whoever it was, and as soon as he was placed on the ground, the boy went about thanking his rescuer. "Thank you so much Mister... uh... wow you have a lot of muscles." came the deadpan end of the sentence. Sure, his face had been stuffed in trash, but that didn't mean his eyes couldn't bug out at the sight of Superman!

The lad gladly took the sanitizer and the cloth and Squeegee'd his face clean. The faster he went about this task, the sooner he could start asking questions and devolve into a frothing fanboy. This man was quite a bit taller than the blue haired boy, who only stood to be 5'5" at his best. Johnny stared up the man's great barrel chest and practically went wall-eyed with excitement. "WOOOOOOW! How did you get so many muscles, Mister?! Were you born that way?"

The sheer thought of birthing something as musclebound as Bjorn probably would have made any woman faint. "You're so strong and so coooooool! Oh and thanks fr saving me! I was trailin' these bad guys and they caught on and stuffed me in the trash. I guess my ninja skills need some work." Johnny sighed audibly and his shoulders slumped in disappointment. Now if he had super duper muscles like Big Blond here, he could do anything! Like open jars of pickles!

At Bjorn's explanation, Johnny's eyes went wide. You could work out and get that big? Really? What did he do, bench press cars in his spare time? The bluenette couldn't wrap his mind around it, so he gave up halfway through and it probably showed on his face. Heroic Blue Screen. He blinked himself out of it before he could start drooling. "Well if you were born lazy and small, then you certainly turned all that around! You're like, eight feet tall and 95% pure muscle! And probably the other 5% is badassery. Or whatever combination of percentages you want." The boy grinned and leaned in as if to tell the much taller blond man a secret. "You could probably get away with more than 100%."

After several decisive nods, Johnny leaned back to answer the one thing he knew how - whether or not he was a ninja. Poor Bjorn got it all wrong! "Ninjas are like swords and guns - they're just the tools of whoever employs them!" Whether or not this was historically accurate didn't matter to the boy - it all worked out in his head and he felt rather sorry for ninjas who had to do evil things for evil bosses. "Like, I'm a self-employed ninja! I do good things like trail thieves and stuff. But I'm obviously still in training. I got caught." The boy kicked at the dirt in the alley in a show of shame, frowning. "I need more training, but next time I'll catch 'em!" The boy pumped his fists in the air for emphasis.

"You know, I think you'd make a pretty good ninja too. Just pop people's heads like watermelons!"

Johnny struck a pose (one he had seen from a movie) at the mention of being all speed. "Yep! I gotta be speedy! Super speedy! In and out before anyone notices and all that. That's the part I'm still working on. The sneaky part." He stood up again and mused for a moment before his brain shut down. Anything too complex made it overheat.

He turned to the bigger man then and smiled. "You wanna be a husk...huslardar? That sounds awesome! I dunno what an earl is, but he sure does sound important. Maybe you could also be one of the President's secret service! ...but if everybody knows about them, how can they still call themselves 'secret'? I don't get that." More musing happened before the actual paradox of it all hit him and rendered him useless again. He chalked it up to the same strangeness that Victoria's Secret operated on. Very weird, made no sense, too much boob. Moving on.

"I bet you could sneak if you tried! I mean, if you Got Big after being super small, who's to say you can't be a sneaky guy too? Or you could just pulverize whoever spotted you." Johnny smacked his fist into his open palm for emphasis, smiling. "And I totally have a ninja master! His name is Ryu! He goes like this! HADOOOOOUKEN!"

After trying to do the pose, Johnny ended up falling over in a heap of bagged garbage. "Like that!"

Finally righting himself after fighting with the drawstrings of the trashbag, Johnny brushed himself off, peeling an old sock from his shoe. "He's uh... well... Ryu's... he's in a video game." The admission left the boy in a sad state of affairs, as he wished so desperately to attend a for-really-reals class and train under a real master. All he had as far as training was concerned was watching Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee movies and emulating the video game characters he would see in commercials and at the arcade. "We don't have the money to go to those fancy dojos in town, so I just try to improvise."

Johnny did the best he could with what he had to work with. But when Bjorn admitted to being able to pulverize things (people or otherwise), the boy visibly brightened. "Oh hey, since you're so strong and stuff, do you do those lumberjack competitions like on TV? Throwing axes and stuff at trees and lifting wood? Or what about those times when big, beefy dudes have to strap themselves to a car and pull it? Can you do that?"

His father was a rampant fan of anything even remotely considered 'manly', which included things like lifting competitions, football (not soccer, but American football), NASCAR, wrestling... Definitely not curling despite Johnny's strange interest in it. Talk about a sport that made no sense!

Herding the boy was actually quite easy and he toddled along, oblivious and happy as a clam. "Whoa really? Dad loves watching people throw things and lift things and pull cars. He has a bunch of them taped. I could never pull that stuff. I'm too puny, but it sure is fun to watch. Those guys are so mega beefy!" As he walked, Johnny removed his coat to let it air out a bit. Maybe one day he'd catch the criminals, but his new super awesome buddy Bjorn said he stunk, so first thing's first.

He then decided to explain what he'd seen of the lumberjack competitions. "Yeah, they through axes and chop lots of wood and climb up trees using spikes in their shoes. And wear flannel!" That was about the extent he knew, though mustaches and other awesome facial hair seemed to be secondary to the competition proper.

"Oh, and my name's Johnny. It's not super cool like yours, Bjorn~" The boy tried his best to imitate the proper pronunciation, and it would likely fluctuate a few times, but his heart was in the right place.

The boy toddled again to where he was being led, no doubt not even paying attention to where he was actually going. Some people did stop and look at the rather large young man herding the much smaller one like an older brother. Johnny was fifteen, but acted as if he were seven. Some of the people on the street recognized him as a vigilante who sat up in trees with binoculars, looking for burglars. He'd been pretty harmless for the past few months, so no one paid him much mind.

"Magnus Magerstein sounds super cool!" he finally said as they came to a complete stop in a bathroom. Turning on the water, Johnny stuck out in tongue in a bout of concentration while he washed his hands and face. Bubbles started to pour out from the sink once he got lathered up. Washing didn't stop him from talking, though. "My dad named me with a J cuz every other guy in my family has a J name." More suds, followed by some squeaking. "Like my grandpa is Josiah and my dad is Joseph... but anyway, I bet you could easily be the World's Strongest Man like seven times and in your sleep too!"

Squeak squeak scrub squeak...

Fumbling around with eyes closed, Johnny finally got a grip on the paper towel dispenser and went to work drying himself off so he could see. He spoke into the paper as he worked. "I saw 'em shopliftin'!" The paper was stuck to his forehead momentarily and he grinned at it. "Saw 'em put some candy bars in their pockets and try to walk out, so I was like STOP RIGHT THERE, VILLAIN. But it didn't really work."

A frown, followed by severe disappointment all over again.

Johnny shook himself out of his self-imposed stupor and began to shine again. "I guess everybody has customs. If I had a kid, oh man, how scary would that be? A little me. But anyway, if I had a boy, I guess I'd have to look up some other J names and see what sounded good. No idea on a daughter. Maybe I could make my own tradition! But it sounds like you've got yours all figured out for the last name but..." The boy blinked. Didn't children have the same last name as the parents (barring divorce and all those confusing hyphenated names)? He tilted his head at Bjorn, blinking. "How come their last name has your first name in it? Unless your last name is Bjornson too?"

The invitation to be made stronger and faster practically made him vibrate all over again. "You'd teach me to be awesome too? Really?!" He did a little dance by rotating swiftly in place before landing in a ridiculous pose. "That sounds awesome! I'd love to! And... and I'll do my best to teach you to sneak! I'll also make you dinner! I love cooking. What do you like to eat, Bjorn?"

Already, Johnny was coming up with as many sweet and savory concoctions as he could, mentally listing all the ones he'd memorized the recipes for. Casserole, pies, chili, over roasted turkey... those were easy, but ethnic dishes were always a ton of fun. If Bjorn had a preference, one could bet on the boy rushing home to practice it.