1Chapter Five: Familiar Enemies
Born with insight and a raised fist
A witness to the slit wrist, that's with
As we move into '92
Still in a room without a view
Ya got to know
Ya got to know
That when I say go, go, go
Amp up and amplify
Defy
I'm a brother with a furious mind
Action must be taken
We don't need the key
We'll break in
-Know your enemy, Rage Against the Machine
I know the pieces fit
cause I watched them fall away
Mildewed and smoldering,
fundamental differing,
Pure intention juxtaposed
will set two lovers souls in motion
Disintegrating as it goes
testing our communication
The light that fueled our fire then has burned a hole between us so
We cannot see to reach an end crippling our communication.
-Schism, Tool
Huey began to nod off and slept peacefully on top of the comforter of his bed.
Huey woke up with a jerk once he realized that he had slept until 6:00.
"Oh, No! I'm late. Riley's meeting is probably over by now."
Huey heard a faint tapping at his window. When Huey looked over, he was surprised by what he saw. A large, purple, humanoid creature with bat wings was hanging on the siding of his house. At first glance, Huey thought that it was another one of Riley's villains but the creature continued to tap on his window. Huey opened it and the creature quickly crawled in.
"Who are you?"
The strange creature stood erect as he introduced himself.
"My name is Goliath and I am a Gargoyle. A thousand years ago, my bretheren and I were deceived and would not awake until our castle had risen above the clouds. Now, I-"
"—Umm, sorry to interrupt you," said Huey in a disillusioned mood, "but you are too late. The LULZ meeting was three hours ago; they are probably done."
"Not quite. While flying on my way here, I happened to do some recon. I believe that the new Headquarters for LULZ is approximately in the neighborhood that is east of this one."
"Oh. Wuncler's mansion. No doubt he is there with Gin and Rummy too. They are still holding their meeting?"
"So it seems."
"Okay. We have to do something."
Immediately after Huey had said that, two figures entered his room. One was a man dressed in yellow and blue leotards with claws protruding from his hands. The other was a caped woman dressed in black and white and had white hair.
"I think this is him, Wolverine."
The man in the yellow leotard who appeared to be Wolverine unfolded his printouts of Huey's Facebook page.
"This is obviously him. I mean, look at his hair! It's bigger than he is!"
"ANYWAYS!" screamed Huey, "If there are no more people to interrupt me, we have to go to…hey wait a minute. How did you get in here?"
"Front door." Said the two in unison.
Huey did a facepalm and calmly recollected himself once he realized that he should not at all be surprised considering what has happened thus far.
"Wait," said Goliath hesitantly, "Those two…dressed as that, could just walk through the front door without being stopped? Before I crawled up here, I could have sworn I saw a parental figure downstairs in the family room."
"What can I say?" asked Huey in a perturbed tone, "Sarah may just be the worst babysitter ever and I am stuck under her care for probably enough time to earn an award. But that's nothing new. I mean after all, she is the same person who batted an eyelash when the Joker and Dr. Drakken would frequently spend long hours with my brother in his room discussing harmless pranks. Obvious child neglect aside, we need to leave the house now to head to Wuncler's mansion."
"Wow, this is really fascinating," Exclaimed Gin, "who knew that Riley could be such a little nerdy herb once he put his mind to it."
Riley, Gin, Rummy, the Joker, Dr. Drakken, and a strange newcomer who simply called himself "Him" were sitting in Wuncler's mahogany furnished meeting room.
"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Riley indignantly.
He was standing in front of a projection screen with a PowerPoint presentation. The slide that the presentation was on was one that depicted a world map with various Xs marking the hot spots of certain countries.
"What Gin means is," began Rummy, "you can really be quite the mastermind when you put your mind to it. It's not a bad thing. It's kind of cool."
"Well he does have quite the teacher," remarked the Joker in mock modesty.
"As I was saying," continued Riley, "My plan is that we—,"
"—Oh. I know!" exclaimed Dr. Drakken, "We could infiltrate the Disney Channel television broadcast center and once they are about to show an episode of "Hannah Montana", we could switch the tapes with a porn flick. It'll be REALLY funny."
Everyone except for Him stared at Drakken in disgust.
"Drew," spat the Joker, "the whole Six Flags thing was mostly your idea. And now you want to do this? Do…do you…Is there something you want to tell us?"
"What? No, I'm not. NO. NO," Drakken began pounding his fists on the table, "it's just that when you spend most of your adult life trying to create plans that are constantly foiled by a stupid, cheerleader, Buffy-the-Vampire-Slayer wannabe, you just…you just want to stop children from ever existing, let alone let them have a normal, non-traumatic childhood. That is what my nemesis has done to me. I hate kids…except for you Riley; you are okay."
Him sympathetically patted the evil doctor on the back and cooed in his falsetto, "It's okay, Drew. I understand. I have child nemeses, and of course, I HATE CHILDREN TOO! But unfortunately your idea has already happened."
"How do you know?" asked Gin and Rummy
"Why, I was just the person who gave that offender the idea. It was a rather fun prank."
Awkward silence pervaded the room.
"Umm…you know what guys," announced Riley in a disturbed voice, "Maybe we should just call it a night. Our meeting was too long anyway. Let's just meet up again next Wednesday. Same time. Same place. How is that?"
The guests nodded in agreement and left the table to exit the mansion.
Outside, Huey and his group of heroes had just arrived on the roof. Goliath flew off of the roof and crawled to the window of the meeting room. He flew back to the roof to tell them the bad news.
"It seems that we are too late," announced the Gargoyle, "they are leaving the mansion as we speak. Only Riley and two other men are still inside."
"Ssh," said Wolverine as he cocked his ear to the wind, "I can hear them discussing the next meeting. ..It is going to be next week at Friday at this time, in this house. They say that they can't wait for Riley's plan to be revealed."
"Take me down there, Goliath," demanded Huey, "I need to talk to Riley. You other guys can leave if you want. But make sure to be at this house next week on time."
Goliath flew Huey down to the front steps of the mansion and then flew away. Huey walked through the door and walked into the meeting room. On his way in, he could hear snippets of Riley's conversation with Gin and Rummy.
"Man, those guys are kinda weird. Oh well. Beggars can't be choosers."
"Riley," began Gin, "Are you sure that you should go through with this. I mean...you're interested in pranks and shit…but these guys are really into fuckin' with people's lives."
"They're fine. Maybe you two are the ones I should worry about. Chickening out and everything."
"You gotta admit, Riley. They kind of give me the creeps. Especially the clown. Man I never been afraid of no clowns till now. Damn. You saw that little lizard thing he did? Weird."
"Yeah. He is really weird." Affirmed Rummy
Maybe I shouldn't be doing this, thought Huey. It will blow any advantage that we have on them and they will change headquarters.
Huey walked back through the mansion and out through the door. He came upon Wolverine and Storm outside near their X-Car that they drove to Woodcrest in.
"Why are you still here? I said you could leave."
"We knew that you would realize sooner or later that what you were about to do would not be wise." Remarked Storm.
"Oh. Yeah. Well since you're here, could you drive me back to my house?"
The two superheroes drove away from the Freeman residence once Huey opened his house's door. As expected, Sarah Dubois paid no notice to him being gone. Huey walked up to his room and sat on his bed reading until Riley came home.
Rily walked through the door and flopped on his bed.
"Yup," he commented, "Its good to be the boss."
"How was the LULZ meeting?" asked Huey contemptibly.
"How do you know that is what I was talking about?" asked Riley accusatorially.
"Are you serious? That is the only thing that you could've been at this hour."
"Oh yeah. Well, none of your business. That's how it went."
"Riley, you—"
"Hey, I don't need to hear anymore about why you hatin. Just because you don't like what we do doesn't mean you can just keep raggin on me."
Huey put down his book and stared at Riley mercilessly.
"I'm 'raggin'' on you because you don't seem to understand why what you're doing is wrong. You don't know these people, Riley. They're sick."
"They're not sick," said Riley, "They're just like the villains on the cartoon shows. In fact, they are even funnier."
"They are not like them, Riley. They are dangerous people. You should not be around them."
"If they are so dangerous, then how come no one else seems to mind?"
"I don't know why Mrs. Dubois or anyone else is concerned, but trust me Riley, they should be. You are just creating a problem for yourself and you keep making it bigger everyday. You are my brother and I care about you."
"You don't know anything about what you are doing."
"And you do?"
"Sure, this is nothing I can't handle. I'm just taking it to the next level."
Huey sat down on the bed and thought about what was happening. It suddenly came to Huey that this whole time, he had been passively waiting for things to happen, and he would still become surprised when things did not work out the way they were supposed to. He would wait for his Granddad to come home, he would wait for Mrs. Dubois to suddenly take an interest in his life, and more importantly he would wait for Riley to suddenly stop being a member of LULZ and causing trouble. If anything were to happen, then Huey had to finally do something and break the cycle. Somehow, no matter how illogical it may be, he knew that if he did not do something and just kept waiting for things to happen, then this dimension or whatever he was in would never change and he would be doing this routine forever.
It's about time for me to make some plans of my own, thought Huey.
Huey set an alarm for his watch and went to sleep at the same time that Riley did. At midnight, Huey awoke and turned on the computer in their room. Huey hacked Riley's username account for the desktop and searched through Riley's recent documents. He heard a slight mumbling and turned around to make sure that Riley was asleep. Riley's body was turned away from Huey and was snoring on and off. Huey returned to his work and found a file titled "Friday's plans". Huey opened the PowerPoint file and read through the different plans. He then logged in to his Facebook account and sent out a message to his hero group.
CHANGE OF PLANS: MEETING ON THURSDAY AT 12:00PM INSTEAD OF JUST ON FRIDAY. BE PREPARED FOR A FOLLOW UP MEETING ON FRIDAY. DO NOT BE LATE TO EITHER!
Huey then emailed himself the Powerpoint document and made sure to log off of Riley's desktop account.
The boy jumped into bed and slept in that Saturday.
It was Thursday morning and Huey and Riley approached the school building. Riley walked in while Huey slowly began to fall back within the crowd until he could hide behind a tree. Riley never acknowledged Huey in school anyway. Even if Riley were to notice, it would be too late, Huey would have already had his meeting.
Huey walked back down the street towards his house. When he came upon it he opened the door and walked inside. Of course, Sarah would be at work until 2:30, so he would be home alone. Now was time for Huey to be proactive.
12:00 PM
Huey was sitting in his livingroom with the other heroes finally all together and early for once. Behind him was his Granddad's laptop hooked up to the big screen television set so that everyone can see Riley's Powerpoint slide that was now in Huey's possession.
"Okay guys. We have to do this quickly before my brother gets home at 3. You see these Xs on the map? They are the exact same spots where Hazmat facilities are located."
"Why would Riley be interested in those?" asked Storm, "From what you have told us, he only seems interested in playing pranks."
"Because," began Huey, "Riley is not the only one pulling the strings. The Joker is also working with him. I did some research. Last year, the Joker had hired a team of chemists to synthesize a stronger analog of nitrous oxide. Joker's laughing gas was later confiscated by the FBI and distributed to these facilities for research. But it seems that Riley is being persuaded by the Joker to activate the capsules with a detonating device. In Riley's notes at the bottom, he talks about how they are doing it just to see how many people will pee their pants from laughing. But I have another theory. You see how these facilities are located nearby major banks? I think that the Joker and his crew plan on robbing them while everyone is incapacitated."
Before Huey knew what happened, Goliath stomped on the laptop.
"What did you do that for? My Granddad's gonna kill me."
"Just relax, Huey."
Huey could not believe what he just heard.
"RELAX? What?"
"It will work itself out," said Wolverine, Storm, and Goliath in unison.
"How is this going to work itself out?" screamed Huey, "We have to stop Riley before Friday at 3!"
"Today is Friday and it is 3:00," said Wolverine, "Face it kid. You're out of luck."
Huey looked at the clock and a calendar. He could not believe it.
"No! What is happening? This can't be happening. I have to stop Riley!"
Bright lights and colors began to flash in Huey's field of vision. His sight began to swim as he fell to the floor.
"No. What's….what.."
Huey woke up in a cold sweat.
"Huey, you've been asleep for hours. Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he muttered slowly, "I guess…I just had a really crazy dream…."
"That wouldn't surprise me," said Mrs. Dubois, "You've had a fever since this morning. You were probably delirious."
"But this was really weird. Riley had started this stupid villain club and real life criminals and terrorists were part of it but no one believed me. I'm just glad it was just a dream."
Mrs. Dubois inserted a thermometer into Huey's mouth.
"Hey, Huey," greeted Granddad as he entered the room, "I came back from the funeral hours ago but you were still asleep. Thanks for watching him, Sarah."
"No problem, Robert. Although, it's a good thing that Huey got better otherwise we would've had to take him to the hospital."
Huey took the thermometer from his mouth and saw that it was approaching the normal range.
"Well I'm better now. Where's Riley? I have to tell him something."
"He's in his room doing homework." Answered Granddad, "Why?"
"Oh no!" shouted Huey, "He can't be on the computer!"
"Oh don't worry," reassured Granddad, "I caught him downloading music again and I took the Ethernet cable out you two's room."
"Good idea," sputtered Huey, "But we need to act now! He needs more extracurricular activities, and study time after school so he won't get into more trouble than he already does. Trust me, he's getting there."
"I heard that!" shouted Riley, he traipsed into the family room while holding a glass of his favorite brand of chocolate milk, "You should know better than to worry about me so much, Huey. I do fine by myself."
Huey realized that his words had hurt Riley and that no matter how indignant his brother may act, he is just a mischievous child. Maybe Huey was overreacting due to the bizarre dream and although Riley may be disrespectful at times, his actions do not necessarily denote a devious personality.
Riley stopped sipping his chocolate milk and pulled out a slip of paper from his pocket.
"If you're feeling better tomorrow Huey, then maybe we could go to the soccer tryouts. I already have some designs for the mascot."
"Oh really," perked up Huey, "What are your ideas for the mascot?"
Riley's picture was a figure dressed in a purple outfit and wild green hair.
"See, Huey," said Riley, "The school is never taking the game seriously and they always play around on the field, so I thought that they should be the clowns."
Huey froze and screamed while he ran out of the room.
"Is…is it something I said?" inquired Riley nervously.
"No, silly," remarked Jazmine, "He's just still a little delirious."
Huey was in his room when he slammed the door.
"No. This can't be happening. What if…Wait."
Huey ran to his bookshelf and checked for "Planes of Mind" his final piece of evidence. The only memory he had of owning the book was the memory in his so-called dream. If he owned the book in real life, then that meant that he could be in some other dimension that was linked to the last one. There was no sight of the book at all.
"Good," he sighed, "It's over. It's really over."
THE END
Word Count: 11,945
Target Word Count: 11,000