This man was irritating. Cruella remembered that much.
The fact that someone like this had made it onto the board was... concerning to say the least. Dreadful to say the most. This poor town dealing with the insufferable. But fortunately, as long as Cruella said her piece, they hopefully wouldn't make such poor choices as to ruin her own goals.
"There are several reasons why. The first is this... do you hate bringing in wealth to this town? I recognize that it is a small charming little...place," a hell hole to her still really, but she was forced to live in it, so it needed to suit her interests. "But for people like me who really want to invest in town. To support people and their livelihoods here... not being able to do that at my best capacity would be a travesty. For them and for me."
Had she even bothered paying for real estate in town yet so far? No, she was quite content with her business on her own tax-free property. But there could always be occasion for change, and she didn't want to be blocked from that option.
And here Drakken thought she was actually going to have a good reason. His brows creased upward, expression fully telegraphing how unimpressed he was with that explanation. It sounded exactly like the kind of person he was trying to prevent from moving into this place and buying up every last scrap of property Swynlake had to offer.
"Support people, huh?" he said, pressing his feet against the floor in order to push himself up in his chair. "And you think you need to do that by...what? Taking away opportunities for them to be business owners? Home owners? You want to tell me how that's investing in the town and the people in it rather than yourself?
"Because I want to help the town's economy by ensuring that it remains a place of equal opportunity. Where anyone can come in and build themselves up, without having to answer to some third party landlord who'll charge them out the ears for ridiculous fees. If you want to go back to the feudal system go build a time machine."
The amount of questions he had dodged about the state of his eye at school after returning back to Swynlake were getting to be grating. Everyone was acting as though they had never seen a bruise before! Ridiculous. And, despite his very good excuse of getting elbowed on the plane (as he had cited going to visit Mother back in the states for his trip away) by someone trying to get their bag into the overhead compartment, rumors among the children had already started.
Spring fever had everyone in a mood these days.
It had served as a welcome distraction, though, since the end of the day meant a meeting with Dr. Garcia and Isabela Madrigal for the summer program. The end of the semester was a few mere weeks away now and they were putting the final touches on the project. But it wasn't the meeting itself that he was thinking heavily about and in need of a diversion from.
They met in the Board offices, as always, and it did not take very long. As he had suspected. Dr. Garcia bid them farewell and Drakken, who was usually the first one out the door from these things (he was busy!), lingered. As soon as Isabela looked like she was getting ready to depart he tried to speak, "Uh–"
In which Drakken goes on a side quest and gets more than he was expecting out of it.
Trigger Warnings: minor violence but no major injuries. implied child kidnapping and abuse.
Having a busy civilian life meant that his first free weekend in months was being dedicated toward his criminal pursuits.
He had been working on several designs for a portable cyclotron, but had come to the crossroads of needing a source of power. The ever pressing problem he ran into when it came to his inventions, and it was much harder these days to obtain such things since he usually hired a third party to do the thieving. He was perfectly capable of it, of course, but he was always busy. Teaching didn’t exactly afford him the luxury of being able to just up and leave for however long a heist would take.
But an opportunity had come his way that he simply could not pass up– a group was being put together to infiltrate a scientific research facility. Some nonsense about needing to rescue some test subject being held against their will inside. As if Drakken cared about that melodrama. No, he was much more occupied by the facility’s Hydrology studies where they were using Carbon-14. If he could get his hands on that then his power source problem would be solved.
After a brief exchange with the group that had put out the wanted ad and the ridiculous over-the-phone-interview they’d put him through (and which he had nailed, thank you very much), he had been hired onto the team. He had made it abundantly clear that he had his own agenda, but so long as he helped them to break in and get the test subject out safely, then they would be square.
The only down side about it was that he had to go back to the USA of all places. California.
Ugh.
He’d left Commodore Puddles and the house in the hands of the twins, packed a bag, and left Swynlake early in the morning.
The flight was long and tedious, leaving him with a severe case of jet lag. He had not been back in the states since he had left it behind for the likes of Swynlake, and yet being back was just like…well, not quite like riding a bike since he still had no idea how to do that. Perhaps it was like using a welding torch, the skill always there in the back of the mind that just needed to be reawakened.
He got picked up at the airport by one of the team members, who introduced himself as Dan, and drove to where the rest of the group would be meeting that evening. The setting was a bit jarring, being back in such a densely populated and large expanding city after years of being tucked away in a small town surrounded by farm lands and forest, but expected. These research facilities were usually always in a place with high costs of living. As much as media like to depict them out in the middle of nowhere, trying to remain a secret from the general public, that simply wasn’t a good business model. How were they supposed to maintain employees that very required specific skills in a place where the population had more animals to people? How were they supposed to maintain their infrastructure and need for various resources out where it would cost more to have it all shipped in from that long of a distance? Logistics never did make for a good screenplay.
Drakken jostled awake at the feeling of a hand on his shoulder, apparently having dozed off with his forehead resting against the window. He breathed in and shook his head, attempting to get his brain to jump start by knocking off the layer of fuzz that had settled around it. He followed the driver inside the restaurant he had taken them to. Somewhere he could hear a voice scolding him for being so trusting, for having not staking out the establishment before ever stepping for inside it, and for allowing himself to be in such a vulnerable state of being around people whose true intentions he would never know.
But Drakken didn’t operate on that level. He did not have that sort of training or carefulness about his work. It was why he had been caught and put in prison, because while he was quite smart, he hardly thought before he acted. Plus, he was always under the impression that he would be able to get himself out of any mess that he may find himself in– he had a perfect record of doing as such so far in his life, why would that change any time soon?
The restaurant had plenty of patrons inside, tables filled and the bar lined with people either waiting on a drink or a place to sit. Servers criss-crossed the floor, carrying large trays of food or drinks on their palms. Conversations made the air buzz with unblended chords of the various voices and laughter.
Drakken was eventually led to a booth where two others were already sitting. A man and a woman, side by side on one bench as they had left the other empty. He looked at Dan, who looked at him, expectant.
And, alright, he had just gone on that internal monologue about he didn’t sweat this sort of detailing, but he did have some sense of self preservation. No way was he about to be cornered into a booth seat by this guy– even if he had just fallen asleep in the passenger seat while he had driven him there.
Clearly seeing that they were at an impasse Dan turned, catching one of the waiters to ask for an extra chair. The worker nodded and hurried off. Dan slid into the booth opposite the other two and Drakken was left to wait beside the table until someone returned with a chair for him to pull up. He sighed happily as he scooted close enough to rest his hands on the table, taking in the people in front of him.
“So,” the woman smiled, dark eyes running over his person, “you’re Dr. Drakken?”
“Yes,” he replied with a nod. “And you are?”
“I’m Monica,” she said, holding out her hand. He took it, giving it a firm shake before letting go. She then motioned to the man beside her, “This is West, and you’ve already met Dan.”
Drakken nodded again, looking over at Dan with a smile. The driver did not return it. “Is this everyone?”
“Yes,” Monica said. “Well, in truth, you and West will be the only ones actually stepping foot into the building. I’ll be off sight and Dan will be your transport, meaning he’ll be waiting outside as your escape vehicle as well.”
“I see,” Drakken said, glancing at West. The guy looked like he had been made for this sort of career, which was both entirely disconcerting to be in the vicinity of and altogether comforting to be working with. He didn’t know if it was a good thing that the team would be so small, as the less people involved meant less of a chance for error and he could presumably go about his own business without much push back. It also meant that since he was the only other person going in, that he was going to have much more responsibility and expectation to perform their desired task than he would have otherwise wanted. “Well, I had plenty of time to read over the files you sent to me on my trip here, and as far as I can tell it should be a pretty cut and dry job. So long as you’re sure it’s just an extraction you’re looking for.”
“We are,” West spoke then, voice as rough as his appearance. “What else would we want?”
He shrugged, sitting back a little, his lower lip sticking out briefly. “Revenge? In my experience, this sort of thing only happens with prior theft and usually when someone takes something that doesn’t belong to them, the original owner will want to establish why she shouldn’t be stolen from ever again. People usually make that point with arson or destroying someone’s life work, that sort of thing.”
Monica hummed, an amused little smile curling the corners of her mouth. Her fingers tapped in sequential rhythm against the table top, not that he could hear it above the restaurant's ambient noise. “I do like the sound of that…”
“Mon,” West said.
“What?” she asked, brows arching. “He’s got a point. If we burn the place down they’ll probably be more occupied with re-building than they will be looking for us.”
“No. We stick to the plan. In and out,” the bulk of a man said. The pair held eye contact for a moment but Monica eventually relented.
“Very well,” she sighed, letting her chin plop into the palm of her hand, elbow planted on the table. Her eyes returned to Drakken. “Did you bring everything you need? Or will you need to acquire anything before you go in?”
“I’ve got everything with me,” he said. It hadn’t been easy getting it through security, but the nice sorcerer who had helped him out with both the invisibility spell and the fresh-scent spell to cover up the invisibility spell from the magic-detection had ensured he had been able to bring his equipment through security. Which was kinda scary, thinking about what all was getting pulled through under the TSA’s noses, but that wasn’t his problem to solve now was it?
“Good,” she said.
They sat at that table, discussing the plan at length until the restaurant started to empty out due to the hour. They stood and left, walking to the car park where apparently Dan had parked next to Monica and West’s vehicle. The party of four paused behind the two cars to give their farewells.
“Dan and West will pick you up tomorrow,” Monica said.
“I’ll be ready,” he replied. There was a pause and Drakken frowned as he realized Monica was giving him a strange look. He glanced over his shoulder to see if there was anything there and…nope, she was definitely looking at him. “What?”
“I’ve been waiting for you to ask what it is we’re trying to jail break since the beginning of this whole ordeal,” she said. “And yet you haven’t. Even now.”
“It doesn’t really matter to me what it is. An elephant, your family dog, a hamster they confiscated from your kid brother,” he shrugged. “Makes no difference to me.”
“Why not? Surely the difference in getting an elephant out of a facility versus a hamster would have played some role in your decision to accept.”
“Nope.”
She hummed again, head tilting slightly, but smiled. “Very well. I look forward to working with you, Dr. Drakken.”
“You, too,” he said, returning her smile. “You guys have a good night.”
West grunted in response.
Drakken climbed back into the car with Dan, who engaged in a rather pleasant conversation about Dan’s recent trip to Canada before dropping off at his hotel. After a shower, some minor prep work, and triple checking his alarms had been set, Drakken promptly passed out for several much needed hours of sleep.
As promised, Dan picked Drakken up from the hotel the following evening. He was in a different car that day, instead of the smaller hatchback he had been slicing through traffic in he was behind the wheel of a cargo van. Which on principal looked suspicious, but was an older model that looked like every parents’ worst nightmare. It looked beat up and had several tools attached to the roof, ladders and a weed wacker. A large logo advertising lawn care with a phone number was printed on the side.
It had been parked, so Drakken had to wander through the lot to get to it, and opened the back door to climb inside. The interior was much more plush than the outside would have led on– but he guessed that was kinda the point.
West was already sitting there when Drakken got inside, decked out in proper gear. Anyone else might have felt intimidated or under dressed in comparison, but since they weren’t going for any sort of undercover angle (despite the truck) he was perfectly fine going in what he usually wore to these things– black t-shirt, comfortable boots, and his blue coveralls. A sturdier alternative to the lab coat, and with more convenient pockets. West even appeared to have weapons, which Drakken did not have, but he was the brains to West’s brawn in this plan so it made sense.
The ride to the facility was long, Dan having to take care to appear to be a perfectly normal lawn care service for any and all traffic cameras that would pick the vehicle up. The route couldn’t be a direct one.
It was so tedious. Drakken missed the days when he would just drive a reinforced car straight through the wall of the building he was trying to break into, uncaring of security footage since cameras hadn’t been that good and the footage easily tampered with through different means. These days you couldn’t walk anywhere without ending up in the background of some viral moment, and no one had any sense of containing their own privacy! Just willingly putting their lives out there for anyone to get information on.
They eventually came to a park and Drakken shrugged on his backpack, following behind West as they exited the vehicle.
This was usually the part where an elaborate plan to sneak inside the well guarded building would be put into action– but with West, there was no need for it. The man had magic. It granted him the ability to phase through solids, which was endlessly fascinating and disgusting to Drakken. He could not imagine what it felt like to have one’s insides passing through solid concrete and dry wall.
So it was all really rather easy. Drakken simply watched the large man as he disappeared, waited a good long while, and then had the doors finally open for him to walk through like he was supposed to be there.
It was a head scratcher as to why they had even needed someone like Drakken when West was the perfect candidate for this specific mission.
That was until they made it down to the level where the charge was being kept where an apparent gridlock on magic had been put into place– ironic that someone with magic would have had to dish out the warding to block magic. They had taken the staircase down rather than the elevator, much to Drakken’s frustration (because they were going to have to climb back up them, too!), and as soon as they seemed to past the threshold of the magic block West made a sound like he’d been punched in the stomach.
Drakken paused on the landing, turning to watch as the large man had to brace himself on the railing and wall. “Are you alright?”
“Fine,” West spat. “Just…don’t feel right.”
He hummed, brain turning over the problem. “Interesting! You must not be used to your full density and mass thanks to your magic. Are you aware of when you’re using it fully? Maybe subconsciously you’re always making the atoms of your muscles and fat content–”
“No time,” West cut him off, stumbling down the next few stairs to the landing.
“Erm, maybe it would be best if you waited up on the next floor,” Drakken suggested.
“No,” the other man dismissed, but his whole body was tilted awkwardly, like it didn’t know how to stand correctly.
Drakken frowned. “We’ll need you to get out of here, and if you’re too busy throwing up, it’ll do no one any good! Can you even walk in a straight line? What if you fall down the stairs and bust your leg, then what are we going to do?”
“I have to go,” West growled.
“If you do and you pass out down there, I can’t drag you back up! Do you want to get out of here or not?” he griped. “I’ll come back with your jail bird. I want to get out of here with what I came for just as bad as you do.”
West paused, eyeing the next set of stairs, and then heaved a sigh. “I’ll wait here.”
“Good choice,” Drakken said, about to pass West when the larger man’s massive paw shot out to grip Drakken’s arm stopping him. He turned, brow raised.
“When you get there…” West said, face pale and chest moving in rapid little motions against his panting. “When you get there, knock.”
“...knock?” Drakken echoed.
“Like this.” West clumsily folded his fingers against his palm and tapped a rhythm against Drakken’s arm with them. “Got it?”
“Uh,” he hesitated. “Can you do it again?”
West did.
Drakken nodded, repeating it back with his knuckles against the wall. “Am I good to go?”
“You have thirty minutes to get back here before I follow you.”
“Make it fifty, I’ll need at least ten to get back up here,” he said, continuing downward all on his own until he reached the right floor. At least…he thought it was the right floor. He distinctly remembered Monica saying twelve….or had it been twenty?
Ah, whatever.
He pulled open the door and stepped through.
The corridor was dark, save for the ghost lights that remained on.
It was a very boring building, wasn’t it? All the walls were white and without texture. The ceilings were white, the tiled floor was white and shiny under his boots. The only different colors were the mandatory fire exit signs and other safety measures that had to be there and stand out. He understood the necessity of a plain and under stimulating lab area– but this was just lazy!
Drakken continued on down the halls, turning one way and then another, until he came upon a large set of doors that were made of metal. They were automated, but that meant they had a heavier locking mechanism. Obviously because that was where they were keeping something to be guarded behind. He approached, crouching down one knee in front of the handles and shrugging of his bag so he could rifle through it for his automated skeleton key. (It wasn’t actually a skeleton key, but Drakken didn’t think there was beating that name in terms of coolness.) The device, which he had assured Monica and company was fully functional and ready to go, was still in its testing phase.
It had worked a few times around Swynlake when he had needed it to! And it had also failed on several occasions when he hadn’t needed it to. He had been working on it in the time leading up to this job so, hopefully, it would come through for him now.
Drakken stuck it under the handles of the door and pressed the button, the glowing blue light indicating that it was getting to business. It took a moment, but he could hear the inner mechanism of the door clicking around, responding to the device. He waited…and waited…and then the blue light turned red, the skeleton key giving the error noise.
He pulled at the handle, but the door did not budge.
Dang it.
Drakken tried again.
Clicking. Clacking. Red light. Error noise.
He tried again.
Clacking. Clicking. More clicking. Red light. Error noise.
“Work, you stupid thing!” he griped, giving the little device a firm shake before he tried again.
Clicking. Clicking. Clicking.
Green light! Happy noise!
Drakken yanked the door open and gave a noise of victory, holding the skeleton key up in the air before kissing it. Red light. Error noise.
No more lights.
He frowned, putting it to his ear. No more noise. Drat, it must have exhausted itself and overheated or something.
Well, he hoped there were no more locked doors he would have to get through.
Drakken picked up his bag and hurried through the heavy set of doors, crossing into the new section of the floor level.
And it was far different than the previous sets of halls and rooms. Now it felt like he was walking through a school, a setting he was all too familiar with. The floor was still the same white tile, but the walls had been painted with an off white. A subtle difference but apparent all the same. The shade of lights were warmer, too. And there was art on the walls, posters that had been made by the hands of children given its rudimentary designs and clumsy depictions or penmanship. There were framed photos of large groups of people. He stopped to study one– various adults were in rows, all smiling at the camera. In the front row, though, were children. About half a dozen of them were lined up in front of the adults, all of them in uniform, all of them young, all of them smiling, too.
The next photo was of the same nature, though the children had obviously aged and more than a few of the adults had been replaced with someone new. They followed this pattern, though by the third photo a child was missing. And then another. And another, until only half remained. They appeared to be in the double digits now, limbs awkward and smiles without the innocence of their youth.
…he was starting to regret having not asked what Monica had wanted from this facility.
Drakken continued, making his way through the directions he had been given, until he turned down a corridor with several sets of doors. He passed by the first two, one had photos and posters stuck to it, the other decorated with a white board with various drawings, and stopped at the second door on the left– it had nothing on it but a name. North.
He snorted softly and then gave the door West’s secret knock before stepping back.
It took a minute, almost long enough that Drakken was about to just walk in, but eventually the door opened. A girl stood there, probably the age of the students he taught back in Swynlake, squinting blurrily out at him. “Uh, who are you?”
“I’m–” he started to answer, only to realize he had no idea how to. “I’m here to get you out.”
“Out of what?” the girl yawned. It made Drakken yawn, too.
“Uh…here,” Drakken said, gesturing around them. “I guess.”
“Oh,” the girl’s shoulder’s dropped. “Does Dr. J want to see me?”
“Who?” Drakken asked, and then quickly shook his head. “Nono, I mean here. The– whatever the hell this place is. The building! Come on, kid, we gotta go.”
“What? What do you mean? Who are you?”
“I just told you! And– didn’t that knock mean anything?”
“What knock?”
“The knock! The– oh for the love of…” Drakken reached forward to do it again. The girl’s eyes went wide, jaw slack. “So it does mean something to you?”
“Where did you learn that?”
“The guy I’m with. Big, rough, bald,” he said, gesturing as he spoke. “Goes by West?”
“Oh my god,” the girl gasped, a hand flying up to cover her mouth. “Where is he?”
“Back upstairs, the whole magic block thing had him feeling a little woozy,” Drakken explained quickly, ready to get to the end of this conversation. He still had to get what he came here for. “Look, kid, are you coming or not because we really don’t have time to be standing around discussing semantics!”
“I-I-I don’t know,” she shook her head, her eyes darting past him and back toward the other two doors. “I don’t– Why now?”
“Does that matter?” he hissed.
She made a strangled noise of frustration, her hands coming up to clench into tight fists. “You don’t understand.”
Drakken huffed. “No, and I don’t care either. Are you coming or not?”
“God!” The girl turned away sharply, looking like she was about to kick the wall but pulled her foot before it could make contact with the solid surface. After two strikes she rounded back on him, whispering getting more and more aggressive, but volume somehow being maintained. "Who even are you?”
“Wrong. Right answers to my questions only.”
“This is a hard decision, please just– give me a minute to think. Please.”
“Wrong answer again,” he said, flapping insistent fingers at her. “Come on.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
“No!”
“Why would you want to stay?” he shot back, gesturing around them. “I’ve been to prison, kid, I know what it looks like. Sure, you’ve got prettier decor and it smells a lot better here, but the locked doors and routine and lack of freedom remains the same.”
“You have no idea what this place is like,” she told him with a harsh shake of her head. “No idea.”
“What could possibly make you want to stay?”
“I…I have a responsibility.”
“To who?”
“The work we’re doing. My-my friends and I,” she said. “It will help people.”
He considered that– as a scientist, he thought his own work was the most important thing in the world. And it was, to him. Why else would he be here, arguing with a teenager?
“You’re willing to give up your freedom for it?” he asked. “Because after this, after whoever is running this joint finds out they had someone break in, they’re going to crack down on security. This is probably the only chance you’re going to get in a long time. You really want to spend your next birthday down here?”
Her lower lips started to wobble, eyes going glassy. She closed them and turned away, running her hand under her nose but said nothing.
Drakken slapped a hand to his forehead and pulled it down his face, trying to keep himself from yelling in pure frustration. He was really wishing this girl had actually turned out to be an elephant right about now. “You can’t stay here!”
“I’m– I’m doing something good, though,” she argued. “I know we are.
“Who cares? What good is it for you to be trapped down here? There’s people who went to all this trouble to get you out of here! You’re just going to leave them out to dry?”
“I didn’t ask for them to do that!”
The sound of a door pulling open caught both of their attention. A boy, around the same age as the girl, stepped out into the hallway. His eyes darted from Drakken to the girl. “North? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she assured him, raising a placating hand. “He’s– fine.”
“I heard arguing, I thought–”
“Everything’s okay. I promise,” she told him. “Can you wake up Kayla?”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain when you get her. We don’t have time to do it twice, okay?”
The boy nodded. His eyes lingered on Drakken as he quickly crossed the hall and knocked on the door with the pictures all over it.
“Uh, no,” Drakken said, stepping closer to North and pointing, “I didn’t sign up for this! I’m just supposed to come back with you.”
“For all you know, you’re going back empty handed,” she bit out, turning a harsh glare up at him. “Because if they want to stay, I’m not leaving without them.”
Drakken let his head fall back, hands covering his eyes. Teenagers.
Another girl appeared in the hallway, shoving on a pair of thick glasses and blinking at the other two kids. “Who the heck is that guy?”
North rolled her eyes, “Our supposed rescuer–”
“Ah, ah,” Drakken cut in. “Don’t call me that! Last thing I need is something that positive on my resume.”
“Whatever,” she frowned. “He came to get us out. So either we can leave with him now or stay here and…keep going as we have been.”
“Leave?” the boy said. “Like…leave leave? Forever?”
North nodded. “Pretty much.”
“What will we do?” the other girl asked, her arms coming up to hug her small frame. “I mean, I…I barely remember…”
“Who cares?” the boy grinned. “Hell yeah we should go! Let me go get my shoes on.”
Finally! Drakken thought, someone with some sense! The boy ducked back into his room.
“We don’t have to,” North said, looking directly at Kayla. “If you want to stay, I’ll stay with you.”
Kayla bit her lip. “It has to be right now?”
“Right now,” North confirmed. “Now or…never.”
“I don’t know,” Kayla breathed, shaking her head. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Drakken groaned, having heard enough of this wishy-washiness. “You do not want to stay here! Come on, enough with the cry baby routine and let’s get out of here!”
“Hey!” North cried, shoving her hands into him. “Do not talk to her like that! You don’t know what it’s been like in here for us.”
“I know it can’t be good if they don’t even let you out of here on the weekends, or pay you for whatever it is you’re doing,” he barked, uncaring of his volume now. “You two cannot seriously be contemplating throwing your lives away to be stuck down here. You’re just scared of what you don’t know! Stop being cowards and come on already, I don’t have time–!”
“Hey!” North shouted. “You don’t get to make this decision for me, or her! Or any of us! It’s our lives, it’s our decision for once!”
That startled Drakken enough that any retort he had at the ready fell out of the holster. He blinked, glancing at the other girl who had hunched her shoulders up toward her ears.
“No one asked for your opinion,” North continued. “God, why can’t adults ever just listen?”
The boy returned to the hallway, still in the pajamas he had been wearing but with the additions of a jacket, baseball cap, backpack, and sneakers on his feet. He was smiling, obviously enthusiastic about the escape. But once he saw the girls he paused, expression dimming. His eyes flickered between them.
“...guys?” he asked.
“I don’t know if I can make it out there,” Kayla admitted quietly. “You…you two should go.”
“What?” the boy shook his head. “No way! If you’re not going then– then I’m not going either.”
“No!” Kayla said. “You want to go. You should go!”
“Then come on, Kay,” the boy said, reaching out to grab her hand. “Let’s go. Let’s get out of here! Think about it– no more tests? No more simulators? We could go get real pizza, not just the stuff from the freezer!” A beat. He looked up and over at Drakken, “There’s still pizza parlors, right?”
“Uuhhh, yeah, kinda,” he shrugged.
“See!” the boy turned back to beam at the girl. “Pleeeeease can we go get pizza?”
Kayla fought to hold back a smile but eventually broke, nodding. “Yeah….yeah okay.”
“Okay!” the boy said with a bounce. “Come on, let’s go get your stuff and let’s get outta here!”
They walked back into her room, the door remaining open as they disappeared inside. North watched them go for a moment and then turned back to go to her door. She paused, looking at Drakken, “This is real, right?”
“If you hurry,” he said.
The three kids all stood in the hallway, seemingly ready to go, a few minutes later. Drakken, who hated change that he had no control over, sighed but was just happy that they could finally be on the move. It was a miracle that no one had noticed that anything was amiss yet– either this place’s security really was that bad or West and Monica had really done their homework.
“Come on. Stay close and keep your heads down,” he told the trio. They all made their way back down the hallways back the way he had come, through the warmer corridors to transitioning into the clinical area until they were back behind the large set of mechanical doors. Drakken, thinking nothing of it, shoved one open– and as soon as he did an alarm started going off.
“Oh no,” Kayla cried. “We– we need to go back!”
“No, we need to run,” Drakken said, holding the door open and grabbing the boy's arm to pull him over the threshold, “Go, go, go!”
The boy did, and the two girls went after him. A door on the left sprang open, a man appearing and making everyone pause to stare at one another. He was pretty big and dressed in uniform, a utility belt at his waist with what looked like a gun sitting on his hip.
Drakken quickly ducked out of the way, falling to his knees to hide behind the still closed door. He had expected the other one to shut but it remained wide open, like whatever alarm he had tripped had also triggered the door’s mechanism to keep it that way.
“Hey!” the guard yelled, moving first to grab North’s arm. She tried to flinch back, but his large hand already had a grip on her elbow.
“Let go!” she yelped, her other hand trying to pry him off of her.
“You can’t be out here,” he told them, and then reached for the radio that was clipped to the belt.
Augh! Of course he’d had to grab the girl he had been sent here for– he couldn’t have chosen one of the other two that could have easily been left behind? Drakken grit his teeth, glancing around the hallway as his brain worked to figure out what to do here. He was hardly the sort of person that was equipped for this sort of situation! This was what hired muscle was for!
Too bad that hunk of meat was too busy fighting off a tummy ache several floors up.
Drakken pulled off his backpack, clumsily getting a zipper open and began to search. It had to be in here…he knew he had packed it…where was it…no, no, no….
“I got a Code White down here on negative 12,” the guard was saying into his radio.
“Run!” North yelled at her friends. “Go, get out of here!”
The pair just stood there, staring wide eyed at the scene.
“Stay right there!” the guard yelled at them, pointing with his radio. “Do not move!”
North tried to yank herself away, bringing up a foot to kick into the man’s shin. He let out a grunt of pain and stepped back, but didn’t let her go. Instead, he seemed to grip her tighter, turning it in the wrong direction and making her let out a gasp of pain.
Meanwhile, Drakken had found what he had been looking for– he shouldered his backpack and stood, launching out behind the door with a can of his new and improved formula of Dr. Drakken’s Sleepy Spray. Once he was close enough to get a shot at the guard’s face, he held down the nozzle. The compound hissed out, spraying the man who let out a sound that was surprised but quickly transitioned into disgusted and concerned for what had just entered into his nose and mouth, and probably eyes.
He released the radio, hand blindly reaching for his weapon on his belt but Drakken caught his hand before it could unclip the gun from the holster and, not knowing what else to do with it, pulled as hard as he could. The man’s body jerked, and he, North, and Drakken all went to the ground.
Once there, the guard’s grip on the girl’s arm released, but the larger man fell onto Drakken, pinning his legs under his torso.
North rolled, shoving herself back until she hit the wall.
“Go!” Drakken yelled at her and then was too busy getting a face full of fist.
His ears rang and his vision went back. Well, he had just closed his eyes actually, but when he opened them his vision was more than a little fuzzy. It took a few hard blinks for things to come back into focus, and it was just in time to feel the front of his coveralls being yanked, body lifting off the ground as the guard brought his fist back to bring down on Drakken again. On instinct he brought his arms up, blocking his face and head. The man seemed to change tactics, releasing Drakken so he could aim for his sternum and landing a punch to the stomach, knocking the wind out of him and causing whatever had been in there to try crawling back up his esophagus.
Another punch landed on his ribs, and another, and then…another, but lacked the power the others had.
Drakken dared to peak out from behind his arms, watching as the guard was blinking hard, trying to fight against his own eyelids. The man swayed and then fell forward, boneless, landing on top of him in a massive heap. He let out an oof and laid there, trying to catch his breath enough to scramble out from under the weight of the guard.
The radio on the ground continued with chatter, the alarm buzzing.
He stared at the man’s sleeping form for a moment and then looked down at the can he still had clutched in his hand. A grin spread over his face.
“Ha!” he laughed in victory, throwing his arms up, only to regret that desperately as soon as he did, ribs giving protest after the beating they had just taken.
“Hey!” a voice called and he turned, holding the can up in defense, ready to spray, only to find the kids all still standing there, staring at him. North raised a brow, “Are we going or not?”
He blinked at the three of them, only sparing a moment to wonder why they hadn’t made a break for it and waited for him before shambling to his feet. They probably just hadn’t known where to go from here.
They ran through the too white halls, Drakken bringing up the rear and shouting directions at the kids as they went. The alarm continued to blare from the speakers behind them, the sound dimming the further they got away, but there was no telling what it had triggered or who it had alerted. As soon as they got to the stairwell door the lights turned on, almost blinding in nature after his eyes had adjusted to the dimmer setting, and another alarm sounded out through speakers in the ceiling. An automated voice reported, “Code White. Level Negative 12. Code White.”
Drakken hauled open the door, shoving the teenagers through, and said, “Up the stairs, as quick as you can. West will be on– one of them!”
“Which one?” North asked as Kayla and the boy hurried to follow his instruction, climbing the stairs at rapid speed.
Jeez, would it have killed them to have had that pace five minutes ago?
“I don’t remember!” he yelled over the noise. “You’ll know it when you get there, he’s hard to miss.”
She rolled her eyes and turned, starting up the stairs after the other two.
Drakken, meanwhile, started to head in the opposite direction.
“Wait!” North called, leaning over the rail to look down at him as he snapped his head back to look up at her. “Where are you going?”
“None of your business!” He started back down the stairs. “Get out of here!”
Down, down, down Drakken went to the fifteenth level and hauled open the door, plunging into the new floor. His movements were less graceful than usual, shoulders bumping into walls and feet slipping underneath him– augh! That stupid guard had probably given him a concussion. It made more anger ooze into his pours. His brain was precious to him, the last thing he wanted was to think about it sustaining a bruise!
Focus.
He needed to focus.
Drakken squinted at the placards positioned next to the door he was passing by, having to slow down as he did since whatever idiot had designed them had decided to go with a complicated serif font that was impossible to make out!
Finally, he came upon the door he had been looking for and reached for the handle– only to find it locked.
“No,” he said aloud, despite the alarms still blaring overhead. Drakken tried the door again. It didn’t budge. He put both hands on the handle and pulled. Nothing. He braced a foot on the wall next to it and pulled. Still nothing. He continued like that until his strength had reached its limit, hands slipping on the metal of the handle, and sending him sprawling back into the wall opposite the door.
He hit hard and slid to the ground where he slumped in defeat. Everything hurt, his head, his stomach, his feet. All the points pulsed in time with his rapid pulse, emphasizing the pain.
“Bested by a slab of metal,” he muttered to himself.
Footsteps fell somewhere up the hallway. Instincts told him he needed to flea, knowing that if he stayed there he would either be tossed back into the American legal system where they would no doubt go very hard at a man with his priors, or the company who ran this facility would take matters into their own hands– neither were very good prospects.
And yet, he couldn’t find it in himself to get up.
The footsteps got louder, more rapid in pace. He just sat there, waiting.
“Hey!” a voice alerted. It sounded…familiar. Drakken frowned and turned, squinting as he looked up to watch as North came to a stop a few paces away from him. “What are you doing?”
“Why are you here?” he asked instead.
“I– I came to help.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re helping us. It’s only fair.”
Drakken shook his head, looking back to the door. “You can’t help me.”
North looked at the door, too. She pointed, “You need to get in there?”
“It’s locked.”
She snorted, “Well yeah.”
He glared at her, “So what do you suggest we do?”
“You don’t have anything in that bag that could like, I don’t know, help?” she asked, gesturing to him. “Take off the handle or something?”
Drakken thought about that for a moment, and then quickly dug around in his bag until he found his screw gun. He looked up at the girl who smiled, and then got to work pulling apart the handle to get to the screws.
“What do you want in there, anyway?” she asked.
“Power source,” he told her, turning his head to peer into the locking mechanism. He glanced at her, “You shouldn’t be down here.”
“Neither should you,” she shot back.
“No, I shouldn’t,” Drakken agreed. Above them, the alarms stopped. They paused, listening to the silence. After a few seconds he snorted, getting back to work, “That’s not good.”
“No?”
“No,” he said through his teeth, working until– ah ha! The lock went click and the door was able to be pushed open. “Probably means they have everyone on staff well aware of the situation and are ready to strike. Hopefully the others are already out.”
“Hopefully,” North sighed, following him as he walked into the room behind the door. It was a large storage room. Shelves lined with boxes of varying shapes and colors, all labeled neatly much to his satisfaction. He followed the alphabet down until he found the box he had been looking for. It was about the size of his lunch box and slapped with warning stickers.
Drakken picked it up and shoved it into his back, having to wriggle it around until the zipper closed after it. Then he walked back out the door and started down the hall again.
“That was it?” North asked, jogging to catch up until she fell into step beside him. She pulled the strands of hair that had come free from her ponytail and got caught in her mouth with her index finger. “That’s all you came here for?”
“A power source this small and as long as a half life as it does, you better believe it!” he said, taking a sharp right.
“Hey, wait, the stairs are—”
“You're welcome to them but I’m not taking those,” he informed her, lifting a hand in the air, pointer finger up. “They’ll have it flooded and all the doors occupied, no doubt!”
He let his arm drop and listened as she continued to stand there, weighing his words, and then hurrying to follow him again.
They walked in silence for a few meters, save for their footsteps.
“Do they let you pick what you get to eat down here?” he found himself asking her.
“What?”
“For your meals. Do they let you pick what you get to eat?”
“Uhhhh, why are you asking me that?”
He rolled his eyes, “Why does anyone ask anyone anything? Because I want to know the information!”
“...no,” she said. “No, they just bring us the food.”
“They don’t take requests?”
“Not really,” she shrugged a shoulder. “A few years ago they had a guy who brought us our meals who would sometimes ask if we wanted hot chocolate– but when they found out about that they fired him. Our diets…kind of a part of the strict structure they have us under, you know?”
“Ah,” he nodded. “Of course.”
More silence.
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Of course I do!” he griped. Only a few seconds later to sigh, “I’m taking an educated guess anyway.”
She laughed faintly. “Right.”
“What do you care? You wanted to stay down here, remember!”
“I–! That’s not what I said.”
“Oh please.”
“You’re pretty judgemental for a guy who was just crying over a locked door, you know.”
“I wasn’t crying,” he defended himself. “I was…resting!”
“Sure you were,” she said. “Again, I didn’t ask your opinion.”
Drakken shook his head at this. “What does that have to do with anything? I was apart of the conversation, I have the right to express my thoughts on the subject in discussion–”
“Or maybe you could just listen.”
“I did!”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did,” he insisted. “I don’t have hearing damage. I heard everything you said!”
“That’s not the same as listening,” North said. “Do they not teach that out there in the real world? Because they drilled it into us down here.”
Drakken frowned. “I don’t understand.”
She sighed, “How old are you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Just wondering why I’m having to explain this to an adult,” North said. “Have you ever been a part of a conversation where they weren’t asking for you to do anything other than just listen to what they had to say?”
“That’s not a conversation,” he scoffed. “A conversation is an exchange. Besides, why else would someone say something if they didn’t want feedback on it?”
North squinted at him. “Do you always want people giving you their opinions and advice on your life?”
He let out a short bark of laughter, only to wince and lift a hand to rub at his aching ribs. “No, of course not. No one ever knows what they’re talking about! If I wanted their opinions I’d…”
Drakken turned his head to find North looking at him, brows arched and one corner of her mouth curling upward.
He harrumphed, looking away. “That’s different. I offer good, sound advice.”
He heard her giggle and ignored it. “Okay, say you do. Sometimes that doesn’t matter. Sometimes people don’t want to even hear the good advice.”
“That’s absurd! Of course they do.”
“No they don’t,” she said. “Have you ever had someone tell you to do something you were already going to do? And then just suddenly didn’t want to anymore? It’s like– I was going to clean my room, but as soon as Dr. J told me to do it, I didn’t want to anymore because suddenly it was his idea and not mine.”
He nodded slowly and then with more purpose to the movement as the idea solidified in his mind.
“Yeah? So you get it.”
“I fail to see how that applies to giving advice, though.”
“It’s just like being told to clean your room except with, like, your life. They know it. If they wanted help cleaning their room, they would ask. Same things for their life.”
“That’s not true,” he said. “People don’t just ask for help like that.”
“Sure they do,” she said. “You just have to listen.”
Drakken sat with that until they turned down another hallway.
“How old are you?” he asked her.
“I think I turned 17 a while ago,” she replied. “But I’m not entirely sure.”
“You seem very assured for someone who’s been locked up for nearly two decades.”
“I live in a basement, not under a rock,” she said. “I doubt people in here are much different to the ones out there.”
He hummed. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re going to do just fine on the outside.”
North blinked at this, then turn to give him a soft look, “Yeah?”
“Yes,” he said. “Assuming we can get out of here, anyway.”
They turned another corner, a large doorway shaped at the end of the hallway. Drakken stopped short as the sound of voices carrying, drawing back to hide behind the corner and motioning for North to join him. They pressed their backs to the wall and he peaked around the wall, watching the doorway. Several people walked past it, inside the room beyond. They didn’t appear to be in any rush, merely going about their business as usual. He dared to move his head out a little further so that both eyes could peer down the hall into the room.
It looked like a lab, everyone inside wearing some version of a white coat. Lab tables were placed in neat rows down the middle of the room, and further down where he could see the walls were shelves with various pieces of equipment sitting on top. Cabinets sat above and periodically a desk with computer monitors were situated, people sitting on rolly chairs in front of them typing away.
It appeared to be a dead end.
That was, until a pair of women came out from the doors. Neither had lab coats, but appeared to be dressed professionally– including closed toed shoes. One was carrying a large tote bag in her hands, digging around in it, and the other had a backpack on her shoulders. They walked to the right, out of sight into an alcove, and Drakken heard the tell tale ding of what could only be elevator doors.
“Bingo!” he whispered to himself and pulled back behind the wall.
“What?” North asked.
“There’s an elevator at the end of the hall.”
“...and you think we’ll make it there without anyone noticing?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
She opened her mouth only to shut it a moment later.
“Wait here. I’ll go down and press the button, and when the doors open, run to get there,” he told her. “If you hear anyone question me, go back the way we came and figure something else out.”
“What about you?”
“What do you mean what about me? If I’m caught, I’m caught. I’ll have to figure it out from there,” Drakken said. For such a smart kid, she asked some very lackluster questions sometimes. “Ready?”
“No!”
He stepped out from around the corner and moved down the hall like he was supposed to be there. Drakken found that people didn’t usually ask questions if you could appear like you knew what you were doing. He walked down and over to the elevator, pressing the button. It lit up, the mechanism inside whirring quietly. Above the doors the LED screen indicated what floor the carriage was coming from, the number changing as it came down to attend to who had called for it.
Seconds ticked by and Drakken forced himself to face forward, not look over and into the room just behind him. His heart began to pound in his chest once more, somehow making it feel like it was in his throat instead of in his chest where it belonged. No one was looking at him and they wouldn’t, so long as he didn’t make any sudden movements and call attention to himself.
The wheels of someone's rolly chair dragged across the floor, followed by muffled footsteps. He watched the numbers above change. -11, -12, -13…
Someone sneezed.
“Bless you,” he called on instinct and then froze.
“Thank you!” a voice called back.
The doors in front of him opened. Drakken whipped his head toward the way North was waiting, and saw her start to make a break toward him. He stepped inside the, thankfully, empty elevator and pressed the button labeled Parking Garage but held the doors open with his arm braced against one side. The doors tried to close after a few seconds but stopped at the resistance, pulling apart once more.
North rushed inside, footsteps pounding on the tile. As soon as she crossed the threshold, a woman poked her head out of the room. Her eyes went wide at the sight of them, “Hey!”
Drakken stabbed the Doors Close button. The woman jogged forward, holding her hand out. Drakken, not willing to risk it, reached blindly at his bag and pulled the first thing he could get his hand around free– a package of hand wipes. He threw it at the woman, making her flinch and stop moving toward them. Her face had contorted comically, as if she had been expecting to be hit by a baseball. The doors slowly rolled shut, the elevator taking them upward.
He heaved a breath of relief, leaning his body into the wall and let his forehead press against the cool mirrored surface.
North burst out laughing.
Drakken frowned, opening his eyes (when had he shut them?), to look at her. “What?”
“You–! You just–!” North mimicked what he figured was him throwing the wet wipes at the woman. “Chucked that thing at her! Oh my god, her face.”
He snorted, shaking his head a little at the young girl’s antics, and enjoyed the all too brief moment of peace before gearing up for the elevator doors to open. When he opened his eyes, he found himself to be alone.
Drakken frantically looked around the elevator for the girl.
“What?” her voice asked.
He jumped, shoulder hitting the wall. “AH!”
“What?” she asked again, tone fearful now.
“Wh- Where are you?”
“What? I’m right– ooohhhh,” her voice said, brightening considerably. Suddenly she appeared.
Drakken jumped again. “AH!”
She looked down at her arms, smiling. “It still works!”
“You have magic?” he breathed, pressing a hand to his chest in an effort to calm his heart.
North let out a little breath, blinking rapidly, “I…yeah. I thought…they might have broken it but…”
He nodded, then glanced up at the screen as the elevator began to slow. Drakken stood up, tucking himself to the corner of the elevator so that when the doors opened, if anyone was on the other side, they might not immediately see him. “No time like the present to test it out.”
“Oh. Right,” she said, and then was gone. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open.
Drakken flinched when he felt a hand on his arm and looked down to find– nothing. Just the floor of the elevator.
What the–?
A pair of large men stepped into the elevator, both in the same uniform as the guard that had been downstairs, only with bulky vests pulled over their sternums and larger weapons on their hands. A bit of overkill, considering they were going after teenagers, but whatever.
Drakken and North slipped out, the door hitting him on the way and making them bounce open again. He heard one of the men grunt and say, “Stupid thing...”
The elevator had deposited them into a little entry where automatic doors opened to a cement parking garage. It was sparse for cars, but they continued down the slope of the ramp until they hit ground level and could walk out. The evening air was warmer than the frigid halls of the building, but it was very welcome.
The place was crawling with personnel. Men in uniform, both who worked for the facility and police alike, were roaming the grounds. The emergency vehicles lit the exterior in flashes of red and blue.
Drakken guided the girl around to the place where he had entered, trying to spy if– ah! The lawn care van! “This way. As soon as we cross the street, you can make us visible again.”
“Okay,” he heard North reply, panting. Probably tired from both the night and the sudden use of magic that she had been barred from using for…who knew how long. He hurried them down the road until they were level with the van and then crossed the street, becoming all too aware of his visage as it came back to the world. Had he always been able to see his nose?
Drakken knocked on the back door and it opened, a gun pointing in his face. He instantly held his hands up as the barrel pressed into his bruised cheek, eyes squeezing shut.
“West!” North cried.
“North?” West breathed.
The metal removed itself from Drakken’s flesh and he pried an eye open in time to watch as the large man unfolded himself out of the van and engulfed the girl into his arms, pulling her to his chest. He was large enough that when he straightened up her feet picked up off the floor. Drakken quickly looked away, feeling like he was imposing by watching, and peered into the van. The other kids were inside, smiling as they watched the reunion.
He moved, opening the passenger side door and hopping inside to take a seat. Dan was still behind the wheel, his own attention on West and North before he peeled it away to eye Drakken. He winced a little, “Woo! What happened to you?”
“What? What?” Drakken grabbed for the sunvisor, flicking the mirror open and adjusting until his face came into sight. He gaped at the sight of the black eye that was forming, the puffiness on his cheek bone.
“Going to need to put some ice on that,” Dan said.
Irritation flared in his chest and he almost snapped at the man– only to stop himself as he came face to face with the unwarranted advice. Drakken sat back, glancing at the side view mirror where West had put the teenager down and they were both climbing inside, the trio of kids suddenly filling the car with chatter.
West followed in after, slamming the door shut behind himself. “Let’s go.”
Dan was already pulling out of the parking spot.
They drove for a long time, no doubt to ensure they weren’t being followed. But then an hour turned into two hours and he was pretty sure they were no longer in the city and their designation probably not even within the state. Smart, he supposed, to put more distance between the kids and that building.
Drakken spent the time…thinking. Mulling over a problem he had not realized could be solved until then. And yet, when the car pulled up to a seemingly very normal looking house in a cul de sac, he found that he did not know how to. Solve it, that was.
Dan pulled the van into the driveway that sat in front of the house, leading up to a garage. He pressed a button on a remote that was attached to the sunvisor above him and the large door began to retract. Everyone filed out and into the garage, which was piled high with moving boxes, waiting for West as he pulled out a key ring to open the door to get inside.
The normal exterior matched the interior– they appeared to be in a home. A regular home. With dishes in the sink and dog hair on the ground, and something playing on the television in the living room just beyond the kitchen.
Dan walked over to a refrigerator and pulled out a glass bottle, popping the cap and leaned back against a counter top to take a long drink.
“Mon?” West called. “We’re home!”
Footsteps pounded. Monica appeared.
Another reunion took place as North went flying into her arms. A dog came through into the kitchen, some sort of collie mix if Drakken could hazard a guess, and made a line for the large man. West bent down on a knee to be greeted with kisses from the dog whose tail started going a mile a minute. Once the dog had gotten their fill of the man, it turned its attention on the two teenagers who were lingering next to Drakken.
They both stared in awe as the four legged creature came forward, sniffing cautiously.
Drakken glanced at them, and then held his hand out. The dog came forward, giving the hand an examination, and then stepped forward with a happy wriggle. Drakken began petting them, dark fur soft under his fingers.
It made him miss his own dog terribly.
He looked over at the boy and nodded toward his hand. The boy blinked and then held it out toward the dog, who sniffed, gave their approval, and awaited more pets. The boy gently ran his palm over the dog’s back. When the dog stepped further into the boy’s space, pressing up against his leg, the boy smiled and began petting the dog in earnest with both hands. The girl followed her friend’s lead and soon enough the pair of them were on their knees, giving the dog all their attention.
“Dr. Drakken,” Monica said, making him look up to find where she was standing, North under one of her arms. “Everything appears to have gone well.”
He nodded, then glanced at the kids again. “Hope you don’t mind. They were apparently a package deal.”
North smiled.
“We’ll make room,” West said. “We’re moving to a bigger spot soon.”
Monica gave a sharp nod, hugging North tighter to her side briefly. “Thank you.”
He winced at the sound of that. That wasn’t normally how their sort operated. “Yes, er…job well done.”
“Dan can take you to get a hotel, or you can stay here if you’d like,” she told him. “Is anyone hungry?”
The three kids eyed one another, but didn’t say anything.
Drakken said, “I could go for some pizza if there’s anything open around here.”
After three slices of pizza, two cinnamon rolls, several glasses of water, and an ice pack pressed to the side of his face, Drakken found himself waiting in the garage for Dan to get back with another car so he could take Drakken to go find a place to rest his head for the night. The door to the house opened and closed, North stepping out to stand beside him.
“Where you going?” she asked him.
“I’m not telling you that,” he said. “Just like you shouldn’t tell me where you’re all moving to.”
“Right,” she bobbed her head. “Well…bye, I guess.”
“You guess?’
“I don’t know, what if we run into one another again?”
“That is not likely to happen.”
“Yeah? You don’t think we’ll all get dragged back by the police for what happened?”
Drakken considered this for a moment and then shook his head. “No. The people that were holding you three don’t want the bad press. So long as you all keep your heads down, I don’t think they’ll try that hard to find you.”
“What about you?” she asked. “You did steal from them.”
He scoffed, “They can try to come after me. They will fail.”
North smiled at this. Silence passed between them.
“May I ask you something?”
She shrugged, “Yes?”
“In regards to our discussion earlier, about listening,” he said. “If, hypothetically, someone had not listened to someone when they were confiding with them and they took offense to what was said…is there anything that could be done to mend the situation?”
Her eyes narrowed at him for a moment. Then she asked, “Hypothetically, did the person ever say what they wanted to fix it?”
Drakken started to say no, only to stop himself. He nodded once. “Yes. I think they did.” A beat. “Hypothetically.”
“Probably that then.”
He groaned softly. “And if it’s an apology? Is there any alternative to that?”
She laughed. “No. I don’t think there’s anything that compares to that.”
“I figured,” Drakken concluded. He startled when he felt a weight on his arm and looked down to find North’s hand there. “Good luck, kid, you’re going to need it.”
She pulled back, “I thought you said I was going to be fine?”
“Yes,” he said. “But the world is still the same place where people who keep kids locked up in a basement exist– take any advantage you can get.”
“It’s got people who will help drag them out, isn’t it?” North smiled and returned back into the house.
Drakken grumbled to himself as Dan pulled up to the house in an SUV, dragging himself down the driveway to get in. He was never taking a job like this again.
With the other’s affirmation, Star carefully placed the little birdie in his hands. Then, they got to getting down really (kinda) quick. Xe almost lost xer balance a few times but! It was worth it! Because ze were down now.
Holding the bag out properly, the fallen star turned to the other. “Alright! I can carry ‘em the rest of the way. Which way to your…” What had he called them? It wasn’t doctor exactly… “… vet?” That sounded right! Either that or bet but that didn’t sound right, wasn’t that only for games?
“Let’s go quickly, maybe there won’t be any issues!”
Drakken kept his arms outstretched as he continued to hold the bird as far away from himself as he possibly could, eyes locked on it to see if it was going to start trying to peck at him or something. He'd seen the Hitchcock film! He'd been to the beach with food! He'd been in the home of an older woman with a parrot that only liked her and hated all other humans! He knew the evils birds were capable of!
Puddles jumped up, leaning his front paws on Drakken's leg in an effort to try and get a better look at the bird, nose sniffing the air.
Thankfully the stranger was quick and he was more than happy to let them take the bird back into their custody.
"Yep, this way. It's a bit of a hike," he said, leaning down to scoop the poodle into his arms. As much as he loved the dog, Puddles' little legs didn't make for as fast of a pace as the bird probably needed.
Drakken led the stranger and bird through Swynlake and to the farmlands to the vet, who looked after the small animals of the town and the larger animals of the farms. He held the door open to the front office for them, and then stepped in after, greeting the receptionist with the familiarity of a man who had been there a few times. Of course he had, since Commodore Puddles had been a patient of the practice for a while now.
"Got a live one," he said making her dark brows arch.
"What?" she asked, standing from her chair to peer over the desk.
Drakken motioned to the stranger and the bird in hand.
Collette stood in the corner hands to cheeks. Mouth agape. Shook.
No help in her. The beastie had wings! Are you kidding!
Georgette though wanted to snap back at this Doctor. Yes they had spoken before at the salon but he was a bizarre man. Who was he to yell at her!
Yet she jumped and went to unlatch the window.
“You can’t just let that thing go loose?! It needs to be given to animal control or something! Or it got loose from the magic zoo department!” Her nose was scrunched in frustration as she looked back to Drakken. “You can’t just let it fly!”
Reluctantly she pushed the window open and glared back to him. “That things got a vendetta against me!”
The bin continued to jump as the animal threw itself against the plastic walls, Drakken doing everything to keep it from shoving hard enough to get him to let go or to the edge of the desk where the opening might stick out over the ends to offer it enough leverage. Frustration was growing a mile a minute having to listen to this woman speak instead of helping!
But, miraculously, she did end up doing as he had asked. Drakken didn't hesitate, as soon as she was out of the way and there was a straight shot at the window, he took it.
He stepped up onto the desk, making sure to keep his hands on the trash can so it remained pinned down, and climbed over to the other side where the window was. Then he quickly flipped the trash can on its side, the creature scooped up with the fast motion, and pulled the bin up short so the creature's momentum continued, tossing it out the window in a blur. The animal made its screeching sound, hurdling through the air for a few seconds in obvious surprise at the change of scenery. It flapped its strange wings, catching itself and lofting into the air.
He dropped the trash can and slammed the window shut, latching it back into place. It didn't really matter, though, as the creature had taken off and out of sight. Drakken turned around and leaned back against the wall, letting out a long breath of exhaustion and utter relief.
After a moment, he picked his head back up and eyed the pair of them.
"Would you have rather let it stay in your office while we went to collect someone from the magizoology department?" he asked the blonde, eyes moving to peer around at the mess it had left behind.
Isaac was fully unaware of the internal conversation Drakken was having with himself, but that probably wasn't unusual since the other man likely had a lot of conversations in his own head. The occasional dismissal of his suggestions was the only indication and Isaac was used to the other man seeming like he was off in his own thoughts at times, it happened regularly enough at Town Hall.
And even if he hadn't assumed that Drakken himself so often claimed some boast about his insight or intelligence that it wasn't a far stretch.
Isaac retrieved a glass from the shelf and made a quick detour to the fridge, and he was just as afflicted by that little unintentional prompt as any parent would be.
"I think we're getting close to the point of getting him into some actual art lessons, he cycles through things he likes to do but painting has been one that's stuck," Isaac mused, and as inclined as his own magic was to artistic endeavors he wasn't terribly artistic himself. He could certainly change colors and had an eye for that sort of thing and how they fit together but was hard pressed too to do the sort of sketching and drawing that Avery gravitated towards without it looking messy.
"I thought he was going to end up spending too much time watching TV as he got a little older but he really seems to like the quieter things like his books and his painting; so I'm sure the house will be just covered with whales and fish drawings by the time he's in secondary."
Which certainly wasn't a complaint.
He set the glass down in front of Drakken before picking his own coffee mug up off the counter and joining him at the table.
"And who knows, maybe by that point his cousin Luca will be a bigger influence and he might be interested in science more; you never know with kids."
Drakken was quite used to this song and dance. He, too, was a teacher after all. Even if he didn't think of himself as one and still saw it as his cover for the person he was pretending to be in this town– but he never really could do anything in halves. He was an all or nothing sort of person, always had been.
It's why he was still gunning for the same thing he had been going after since he was 17. He didn't know how to do anything at any other level than 100%. The whole reason he had shown up today at the Mayor's house was because he was trying to do his Board job, wasn't it?
Anyway, the point was, he had sat through enough parent-teacher conferences and had many-a phone calls home to parents about kids and listened to other teachers as they talked about students to hear this sort of thing. Granted, it was different with Morey's kid just because of the age demographic he sat in. They weren't discussing uni acceptances and exam marks– they were just talking about him developing into a person still.
"Ah! Well, if his taste in liquids are anything to go by then I have a feeling he'll pick the better field," he said with no remorse for the blatant bias he had toward science. "Just wait until he figures out he could go see and interact with those sea creatures for himself if he goes into biology!"
It had come to Cruella's attention that on the whole... the entire board seemed to be rather incompetent. Not entirely shocking, it didn't seem like they had much power to do much of anything. A pitiful elected body. That said, there were some things, such as petitions and so on that they did have some sway in.
And one, a drafted one by one of the board members had offended her so immediately that she needed to make her voice known. Something Cruella was quite good at, if one could imagine.
She found her way to the office of one named Drakken. As she stepped inside, she realized... oh dear it was that horrid man. The one she'd met previously when she'd been walking Nefertiti. "Well you can start by removing that concept of a petition on not owning more than 5 pieces of real estate."
Meanwhile, Drakken didn't remember this woman at all from their last encounter. He tended to do that with things he didn't care enough about, just let the memory fall by the wide side. If he didn't care then it wasn't important.
Had this gotten him into a lot of bad situations? Of course. Had he worked to change it about himself? Of course not!
Despite not knowing it, he had the same first reaction to her now as he did then– utterly confused but also mildly offended. Because that had been one of his favorite petitions! Why no one had taken him up on it was still baffling but not as much as someone trying to get him to shred it.
His eyes cut to the side, back toward the door she'd just walked through, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. The other Board members playing a prank on him? Someone would come through with a phone in a second, like that one show where they staged immoral situations to see what people would do?
"...is there any particular reason why?" he hedged.
“I - Uh- I!” Collette only wanted to panic but the doctor said. “Georgie!” She now whisper yelled. “We have to listen to the doctor! Try your best to not yell!”
Letting go of Drakken she scurried to the corner and grabbed a book. Opening it up she used it as a cover for the top of her head. Collette did not need it in her hair.
Just as the question was asked Georgette poked her head out from behind her desk. Hair looking disheveled and mascara running down a little on her cheek. “Sir I don’t think I can!” The whites of her knuckles shining as she gripped the top of her desk.
Georgette did not do wild animals like this. A horse at a stable or someone’s pet on a leash. Of course that was doable. All of this though?! With a whimper of a breath she got to her heels and made a jolt for the window! Instead of staying calm though she shrieked.
“MAKE sure it DOESN’T get me!” Georgette half gulped out as she went to the window. Hands fumbling with the latch.
Then there were two loud swoops and the bat like create was diving for her!
Drakken glanced over his shoulder when the ever hovering presence of Richards left him, only to do a double take when he looked at her using a book for refuge. Well, actually, he guessed it wasn't that bad of a move since the book could quickly be used as a weapon instead of a shield. And she had done the most useful thing for him– getting out of the way.
He looked back to the other woman when she made a sudden appearance from the other side of the desk, and sighed quietly to himself at her nay-saying. For science's sake, didn't she want to help herself? What was all of this for if not to get this thing out of this room? Didn't she have a scrap of self preservation?
He searched for something more positive to tell her and motivate her to open the window, but then she was doing it all on her own. Oh. Well. good then!
Only–
"Don't make any sudden-" he tried to warn, but her erratic attempts to get the window made enough noise and movement that the animal reacted as it had been.
Wonderful.
Drakken crouched down, bracing his hands on the desk as he ducked. He may have been there to supposedly help, but he was no hero. He wasn't about to take a hit for her or something stupid like that. The thing made a run for the woman at the window, narrowly missing her, and then began to turn to make another attempt. He looked away to search the room for...something...ah!
He picked up the little rubbish bin by the door, dumped out the contents, and turned in time to see the thing land clumsily on top of the desk. It opened its wings, hissing at the woman, and then moved to lunge at her. Drakken slammed the trash can down on top of it, trapping the majority of the creature underneath the make-shift cage. It gave a noise of pain, one of its wings having gotten caught out and it yanked to pull it in with it. He held down firmly as it tried to throw itself against the sides, trying to escape.
"Open the window," he told the woman firmly. Drakken had to put more of his weight against the trash can as it jostled under his hold. "Now!"
The drone was easily repairable, which of course wasn't the point. He had knocked a hole in the guy's house but that was also fixable; but Hiro wasn't the type to place chess. He wasn't calculating moves, he jumped several ahead.
The drone also wasn't the only robot he had.
His phone was tucked away in a side pocket and it glowed, wiggled and popped out to drop to the ground with a swarm of nanobots, only a small wave but it rolled over the larger robot, across the floor and reformed from a fan of the tiny bots into a singular stream.
Since the dog was in Drakken's other hand and he didn't want to harm the creature by it snapping and possibly swallowing and choking on one of them, the bots swirled around to the opposite side, forming themselves into a skittering arachnid body with spindle-thin appendages. It shot up the man's leg and circled his arm and wrist rapidly, leaving behind a trailing stringy web of bots wrapped around the weapon as the larger swarm scurried back to the ground and, disproportionately strong for the size of those bots, gave a nice, firm jerk along the strands to relieve the man of his interesting little toy.
Hiro didn't necessarily want it, but Drakken had damaged his robot so he didn't want him having it either.
"Don't be a jerk, I said I'd fix the hole. You think I'd damage my robot on purpose?" He added simply, curious to get his hands on that gun and see how it functioned. "How did you build a laser gun? The power source alone..." he trailed off, he personally dealt more with robotics and mechanical engineering wasn't as much his area but that didn't stop him from wanting to know. That was the sort of tech that had useful applications, and mostly he just liked trying to figure it out.
It also stood to reason Drakken had the resources to make something like that, but that was less surprising; magic town did tend to mean a lot of people were hiding interesting things.
If Drakken wasn't so mind numbingly angry, he might have been impressed by the robotic display.
As it was, he was more mad than he had ever been in recent years. Swynlake had certainly seen some of his melt downs, but they had been more melancholy in nature than anything else. (See: getting broken up with.) Despite his temper still being a quick fire thing, ready to go at any given moment, becoming a teacher and a local politician had certainly curbed it. Strange, wasn't it? That positions that usually drove people to having shorter fuses would have lengthened his own.
This particular version of his anger was much like that of his youth. When emotions felt so big and so endless that he hardly knew how they fit inside of him, how something as small as himself had been able to create such a thing.
He was forced to drop the gun, a wretched little noise pulling free from between his teeth as his hand released its hold on the weapon. Drakken turned to face the kid fully then.
"I think you're a reckless fool who has no regard for others, let alone your own creations! I was just treating your robot as you seemed to. And this is my house, I can be as much of a jerk I want to be!" he barked, ignoring the intrigue into his own gadget. Commodore Puddles gave one of his own, too, wanting to add to the conversation. "You think I'm going to take your word for anything worth a damn? It means nothing to me when all you have done is damage my home and now are trying to steal from me!"
Isabela made note to ask Copper if her CPR training would still be good or if she would need to renew it, which she was sure she could do at the hospital. As a volunteer there, she had access to those sorts of things. Though, honestly, usually they didn't have much interest to her. She got anxiety, thinking too much about injuries and blood and that sort of thing. The Advanced First Aid course had been a lot for her and she was pretty sure Dr. Tibbs had only passed her as a sympathy.
But, if she was going to be in charge of a room full of children, she was going to have to be prepared. Isabela knew better than most how suddenly things could change.
She shot Benjamin a look when he got impatient with Dr. Garcia. The teacher was their ally in this. In fact, she was more of an ally right now than Benjamin was. Even if he had just defended her.
"Not at the moment. Do we think we need a petition? Or will the school be able to fund the program on it's own?"
"I think the school should be able to manage. Especially since we'll have the facilities, it's just a matter of material, but I don't think it will run them into us into the red or anything," Dr. Garcia said with a little reassuring smile. "Buuuuut, I don't think there's ever anything wrong with potentially looking for sponsors. Or anyone looking to donate for a good cause."
Drakken frowned at this– the last thing he wanted was some rich idiot coming in and making all the kids wear their logo on a shirt or something while saying Thank you! to a camera. In the end, the kids got a free shirt, sure, but at the cost of promoting what?
Maybe he could just anonymously donate and be done with it. It wasn't hard to steal money these days. The big companies hardly noticed a little chunk being taken out from under them when they were making 10 times that in an hour.
"Don't worry about the money," he said, dismissive. "Alright! If that's everything, I think we can call it there for today."
"Wonderful," Dr. Garcia said. "Thank you both so much! I'm excited."
It had been quite a long and torturous day for Drakken. The spring semester tended to do that, since it dragged on for a good while and the promise of the summer break always had some of the kids acting up, ready to be done the the precise time they were in need of buckling down. Everything had been a minor inconvenience for him– the pencil sharpener breaking, having to take several trips to the supply closet because he kept forgetting something, one of the lights in the hall outside his room flickering and driving him mental.
And, to top it off, he was having to sit in the Board office that evening because it was his turn.
He had been there for awhile and no one had come in. Which was both annoying, since it proved his presence pointless, and preferable, since he didn't want to deal with anyone.
There were ten minutes left on the clock and then he could go home.
So, of course, someone walked in. Drakken's shoulders dropped at the sound of footsteps, but turned in his chair (his lone, outlier desk seated to the left of the door) to greet them.
"Welcome," he said, though it lacked anything particularly inviting. "How can I help you?"
Star nodded along. They might’ve laughed at the little joke if the bird wasn’t in danger. It still got a smile out of em though. “Okay!” ae turned back to the birds in the nest, “uhm, don’t worry, we’ll get you some help in no time at all! My friend’s super fast!” Probably.
It wasn’t relevant that Star didn’t know said friend’s name just yet. While waiting for the two to return, may as well hang out with the birds, right? They were clearly still panicking so!
“Oh! I know! I can tell you a story. Actually, I saw this one by the book place overrrr… that way!” she took a second to point in the direction of the university, “it had pictures in it! Can you believe that? It was once every few pages but still! No other books had pictures in them in that place. Or maybe there are… I gotta go through them some more…”
It was about to continue the story when it heard a familiar voice. It brightened, looking down at the other. With a bag in hand! “See? Super fast.”
He nodded, going down the ladder a little to grab the bag before hurrying back up. Okay, slowly and carefully! Please don’t fall…
With all the gentleness xe could muster, xe used the bag a bit like a towel to carry the bird. Alright, success. Now to head down just as slowly. One step. Two step. Three step. Four step—oh! He can reach it from here.
“Here, hold onto them while I get down. It’ll be safer!”
Drakken took a few steps back after the stranger had climbed back up, bag in hand, to get a better vantage point and watch what they were doing. At his feet, Puddles peered up at his owner and then sat down to mirror him, though his attention flitted around the park, drawn to one movement to the next as they happened.
As soon as the person started to descend Drakken's eyes squinted, bracing for something to go awry as they tried to carry the animal and hang on to keep their balance. Before he could comment on their attempt, wanting to correct their obvious mistakes, they were telling him to come take the bird from them.
He frowned. Why did he have to do that? Why couldn't they have put the bird in the bag and carried them down that way? An annoyed breath left him through his nose.
"Fine! Fine, fine," he said eventually, and walked forward to stand beside the ladder. Drakken held his hands above his head, as high as he could get, and waited for them to pass the little creature along.
He had to assume the conversation was very important, or else the alternative was that Drakken was just borderline a lunatic. While that was plausible, and likely the conclusion most people would have arrived at, Isaac was giving him the benefit of doubt in the situation.
It was still a bit jarring to have to switch to having a guest so suddenly but he'd manage.
"Well, we have coffee for sure," his own favorite vice, "and tea and a few stray sodas in the fridge," mostly because of his brothers' preferences and his tendency to keep things in hand for them, "and Avery has a little bit of a fixation on orange juice lately."
Kids were like that; zeroed in on a certain preference until they moved on to the next one.
The kitchen table was still littered with a few pages from Avery's sketchbook and the variety of sea creatures he'd been busy with his watercolors painting early in the afternoon. Isaac gathered the pages carefully to move them to a counter so Drakken could have a seat at the table.
Drakken's face wrinkled in disgust at the word coffee. Eugh! He had no idea how people drank that stuff. It smelled like it was akin to some of the chemicals he worked with, in his opinion. And tea was like its watery cousin. The both of them bitter and nasty. How it was that there were whole industries built around those drinks was an absolute mystery to him.
(...and also did get him thinking that maybe he could use that to his advantage, a new idea for a take over the world plot blooming...but not right now!)
Soda's made his teeth from the sugar, and his chest hurt from the carbonation. Also a no. He shook his head to indicate.
His hopes were dwindling, when– ah! "OJ! Sure, I'll have that. Thank you."
Drakken watched the mayor remove paper from a surface, turning his head a little to look at what was on them with no thought for decorum or privacy. Not that it mattered anyway, since they were just drawings. Nothing of importance, other than showcasing developmental and artistic capabilities.
"Kid's the only one around here with good taste," he said as he pulled out a chair and sat himself down at the table. It didn't even occur to him that this sounded like a prompt, or an opening for Morey to share about the child in his care. To Drakken, this was just a fact that needed to be stated based on the drink choices listed.
Collette was impressed.
The doctor was impressive! What could she say! Hello have you see him?! With a gadget none the less! Right when they needed it most!
Hovering over him watching as he switched at the door Collette hummed and made an array of sound effects as Georgette continued to wail on the other side of the door.
Just as the door clicked and his pushed it open the chaos really billowed out.
"OH MY GOODNESS GRACIOUS!" Collette screamed gripping onto Drakkens shoulder. "WHAT IS THAT THING! DO YOU THINK IT HAS RABIES! WE SHOULD CALL THE POLICE!"
Not that the police would be able to help? WIth a large bat looking creature with eyes and tongue of a serpent but wings of a featehred bird. Collette didn't know a poodle from a piranha but this certainly was no normal bat?!
"Georgette!!!" She clung onto the doctor a bit tighter. " THROW A SHOE AT IT OR SOMETHING!"
Drakken squeezed one eye shut as the woman's voice raked across his ear drum, wishing that the human body wasn't so poorly designed and that he could have done the equivalent to block out his hearing instead. He also cringed at the feeling of her hand on him– he didn't really enjoy people toughing him. Especially ones he didn't know all that well, even if she had been pleasant to him.
(Not that he would ever look too far into it, but this probably stemmed from a lifetime of brutality sent his way. The only kind touches coming from his mother. He still hadn't learned to be comfortable with it from strangers, too defensive in every facet.)
He tried his best to ignore her. Honestly! If she had wanted to call the police, she should have just done that and left him out of this whole thing!
Whatever. He was involved now, he might as well do something.
"Will you please be quiet? Both of you!" he hissed at the pair of them. After having worked on Chakraborty's farm and owning a dog of his own, he had learned that animals didn't really enjoy loud noises. If they were stressed, it only made matters worse. (As if they could get much worse here.)
The...animal, he supposed, swooped overhead and he ducked down, getting out of its way as its wings flapped loudly overhead. It circled around and around, until it landed on one of the higher shelves in the room, clumsily finding its footing. Drakken looked up to assess. It seemed to still as the energy in the room settled.
"Miss...er...Georgette," he said, voice hushed but no less terse. "Are you able to open any of your windows?"
Dr. Garcia pushed against the idea and Isabela immediately shrank back. She was not the person to question authority. And if Benjamin had not said something, Isabela would have allowed the suggestion to dissipate. Float away.
She blinked at Benjamin, looking at him again. Surprised by his defense of her. It confused her.
The last time they had spoken, really spoken, he had insulted her. Seemed not to know anything about her. Or care about her feelings. And now he was defending her?
"Uhm," Isabela said, glancing once more at Benjamin before looking at Dr. Garcia. "A-actually, si, I took Dr. Tibbs' Advanced First Aid course. I-I might need to re-up my CPR training." That was only a year at a time. "But--I can do that."
Dr. Garcia blinked, then smiled, obviously pleasantly surprised to hear that. "Oh! That's great! Wonderful. Yes, it's always better to be over prepared than under prepared. Especially in a town like this. You never know when disaster will strike and then suddenly you're having to take care of a dozen children while there's a bunch of monsters running amok or everything's frozen over."
"Yes, I think we all know Swynlake is like, thank you, doctor." Drakken couldn't help but to roll his eyes at the woman. Nyah, so dramatic! And for what? He decided to move on, whether they wanted to or not.
"Are there any other concerns you'd like to discuss before we get the initial proposal drafted? We can always cross any bridges as they pop up, because I'm sure they will, but anything that seems obvious and glaring?"
Dr. Garcia blew out a breath, spreading her hands. "Nothing that's coming to mind right now. I'll write anything down if it comes to me. What about you, Ms. Madrigal?"
Hiro just stared at the weapon, not out of fear even though that would have been the appropriate response in a situation, but curiosity.
He saw props all the time at work, overly exaggerated models built to look flashy with fake components that were meant to be eye catching but served no functional purpose. The weapon did look like it shouldn't have been real but it didn't look like some toy either, not even an expensive one.
How exactly did a science teacher have something like that if it was real?
Hiro might have shrugged a wand or some other magical means of defense, or even a sword given how half the population of the town seemed to think they should be out slaying dragons, but he really never saw things like that; something more in the realms of science and only theoretically possible.
"You have a laser gun," Hiro, once his brain had focused in on a detail, did not easily stray from it. Even when Drakken was staring at him with what he assumed was meant to be an intimidating glare but the guy didn't know practically anybody staring at him was equally uncomfortable for Hiro so that wasn't going to break his attention.
"I'll have it fixed," he replied in regards to the wall, which felt entirely uninteresting in comparison at the time, although the bot did rattle a bit and steal his focus for long enough to glance at it and mentally relay the power down command to make it instantly go motionless and the sensors go dark, before he was right back zeroed in on Drakken's hand.
Being threatened with a laser gun was, actually, one of the few times lately that Hiro had been genuinely curious about something. He was practically itching to have a closer look, to see if it was real; how was it pieced together? How did it convert energy to a focused form and from where? A dozen questions raced inside his skull and that was likely not the goal Drakken had in mind but threats fell a bit short in comparison to answered questions.
"Does it work?" At that point he had to ask, the impulse was chewing at his brain so intensely. "
That wasn't the answer Drakken had been wanting to hear– but it did confuse him enough to blink, brows furrowing, because there was none of the usual timid nature of fear in the kid's voice or demeanor. It just sounded like he had been pointing out the obvious with his statement. Which, he was, but didn't he understand he was being threatened with said weapon?
It nearly took the wind out of Drakken's villainous sails. Gah! He hated when people didn't follow the script. There was a back and forth to this that was an art! Did these younger people simply not understand the beauty of the dialogue?
No. Of course they didn't. Their attention spans had been thinned out to five seconds before they were looking for the next hit of chemical rush in their brains. They didn't understand the satisfaction in the build up.
It made Drakken all the more angry. How dismissive he was about the infrastructure and his wrong doings! He should have been apologizing by now, and yet all he could focus on was something Drakken had long since thought to be a trivial invention.
Fury roared through his veins, guiding his actions now rather than any rational thought.
"Let's find out, shall we?" he said, voice telegraphing his darkening mood. Drakken lifted the gun and pointed it down at the robot. Normally he would think this to be sacrilegious– he hated to waste a perfectly good machine that could easily be repaired. It wasn't the robot's fault, it was merely a tool. But the kid had asked.
Drakken pulled the trigger, a blue beam (which was both for his aesthetic and due to the nature of the higher energy being emitted) shot out to hit the robot. Upon impact, it cut a hole straight through the material. He moved his hand, dragging the laser through a few more inches, and then let go. He watched the pieces where the laser had touched glowed briefly from the diminishing heat and then turned to look at the kid, awaiting his assessment.
