Chapter 24: The Dynamic Duo
Brianna
Peace. Something I used to know, understand. Something I used to take for granted. Take for granted. Like my family? Like my friends? Yes. Something I didn't know I loved until I lost it. Something I'd do anything for to get back.
Footsteps echoed through the hall, coming closer to my room. Then, they stopped. And just as quickly they retreated.
"You're fine." I said.
Richie stopped halfway through the doorway, frozen with his back to me. "Are you ready?"
"More than I will ever be."
"Good."
Richie turned on his heel, revealing the colorful makeup on his face. Only, it wasn't his face.
"Not many are ready to die." The Jester said as she raised a gun and fired directly at my head.
That is until someone knocked.
My eyes flew open and I was back on my bed, sitting cross legged with my latest book face down in my sheets. Richie stared at me from the doorway with a worried expression. Worried by either the terrified look on my face or the objects hovering off the shelves. With the past few months we've had, I'll go with the first.
"This is a stupid question, but are you okay?" He asked carefully.
"Never better!" I said, putting on my best fake smile. With a single thought, all of the floating objects dropped to the floor.
"Could've fooled me." He responded sarcastically. He carefully made his way through the minefield of knick-knacks, taking a seat at the foot of my bunk. "I'll ask again, are you okay?"
I couldn't help but chuckle. "Define okay."
"Thinking. Formulating. Using that big, brilliant brain of yours."
"You know biology. I'm still breathing and pumping blood aren't I?"
"Yes. And you're still dodging questions" He said eyeing me.
I untangled myself, gingerly pushing my book to the side. "Nothing gets past you."
Richie flashed that annoyingly amazing smile. "Glad you've noticed. Now, since you aren't stupid, you'll cut the bullshit and tell me what's wrong."
I sat silently on the edge of the bed, refusing to even look at him.
"I see. Well, once you want to talk, I'll be in the kitchen getting our french fry stach."
He slowly pushed himself from the bed and began to make his way back to the door.
Before he could exit, I quietly asked, "How?"
He stopped in his tracked and turned. With an upturned eyebrow, he asked, "How what?"
"How are you like that?" I pushed, inching myself off the bed. "How are you so calm?!"
"Well-" he began.
"I don't understand how you can be so serious and relaxed with everything going on?!" I said, my tone growing increasingly angry.
"Brianna-" He tried again.
"There are three insane scientists on the loose, who just so happen to have our best friend captured and doing hell-knows-what to him, and you're calm?!"
I stormed toward him, kicking aside the various items littering my floor. I got into his face, holding back my instinct to punch him right in his unruffled expression. I substituted the punch to the face for a nice punch to the chest. "How?" Punch. "How!" Punch. "How?!" Punch. With every punch, I knocked him back a few inches. I kept punching, and punching, and punching until I backed him into the wall.
By this time, my rage had disappeared, tears were streaming down my eyes. Richie, still unchanged, embraced me, leaving me crying on his shoulder. We stood there silent for a few minutes, only my sniffles echoed through the room.
"How are you not falling apart?" I said quietly in between sniffles.
For a minute, he didn't answer. I could feel the gears turning in his head, even though his face didn't show it.
Then, he whispered either the most encouraging or the most depressing thing I've heard him say.
"I don't have the luxury of falling apart." I unwrapped my hands, backing away from him. Still, he leaned against the wall with the same cold face. "If I fall apart, the whole operation does. That is how I stay calm. Because if I fall apart, Mitchell stays lost forever, The Jester wins, and I lose you guys. I can't afford any of that, so I suck it up and keep my shit together."
I tried to process that. I sat quietly on the edge of my bed while Richie stood, no doubt thinking about my state of mind. He slowly began to peel away from the wall, making his way out of my room.
"You aren't a robot, Richie." I said, stopping him just before he could leave. "You can't bottle up all your stress and anger and act like it doesn't exist."
He turned, his face stuck in that obnoxious straight expression. "I know I'm not and I'm not bottling my emotions to hide them; I'm just waiting for the right time to unleash them."
In that single phrase, I saw every ounce of anger, sadness, and worry in his eyes, and it scared me more than The Jester.
"Get ready. We land in ten." He sternly said, and strode out the door.
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"So what exactly is the plan?" I yelled as I marched down the hall to the group gathered in front of the exit.
They all turned, Zach spoke up first. "We march in, rescue Mitchell, take out The Circus, and grab pizza."
Jenna and I looked at him with a questionable expression, causing him to throw his hands up in surrender.
"Fine. How about Chinese takeout?" He said. From his appetite, I couldn't tell if he was joking or not, but I'll let it slide.
"Since when do you assign the weird nicknames? And you couldn't think of anything better than The Circus?" Yelled Grease from the front.
"I'm more in the mood for Indian, but we can talk about dinner later." Richie said sternly.
I really hate serious Richie. He's actually quite terrifying, and that knife strapped to his side doesn't help, although Jenna has an extremely lethal lacrosse stick and I can move things with my mind.
The jet jerked as Grease set us down to land. I looked out the door window to see the cement of the building's roof rising rapidly toward us. She came running out of the cockpit, slipping a piece of paper into her pocket.
"Who's ready to kick some butt?" she asked excitedly.
With a hard, no doubt overly dramatic punch, she popped open the exit and we all climbed out into the warm and breezy air.
We strode to a small door at the other end of the roof, an access door to the top floor.
"Okay," Richie commanded, "Group 1:Grease and Brianna, go into the basement and see if you can find any sign of Mitchell or The Circus. Group 2: Zach, Jenna, and I will search the floors' rooms for them. Any questions?"
Zach raised his hand like a kid in a classroom.
Richie sighed, "What Zach?"
"So we are keeping The Circus?" he asked happily.
Jenna and I laughed.
Richie rolled his eyes, but I saw a faint smile creeping across his face. "Come on."
We disappeared one by one into the narrow stairwell which creepily led down into the horribly lit third floor. We piled out into a forked hallway, Richie motioning for Grease and I to go left. I gave him a thumbs up and we left to find the stairwell.
Seriously though. In one situation, can the evil villian be located in some place well lit and wrapped up with a bow on top? Of course not. The job is never that easy. And this is my first job!
Grease and I continued walking down the eerie hallways, waiting to find a door that said "Stairs". Just our luck, we had to make two right turns and walk down a hall full of doors to find it. Although, I will admit kicking open the doors was kind of fun, even if I half expected to get shot every time one opened. We descended to the second level, then to the first, and finally, the basement.
I've seen enough movies, even if I didn't pay for them, to know that the basement is always the secret lair. And yes, The Jester is a villain and so it is a lair. Don't argue with me.
It was a maze of molding tunnels, definitely not up to fancy building standards. We went through hallways of storage doors and forks, following the image of the map I had in my head. Now, the map didn't have in big bold letters "SECRET LAIR", but I had a few suspicions on where she could be hiding, especially that one dead end that I saw.
Honestly, the scariest thing about this place wasn't the danger or the peculiarity, but the confinement of the narrow halls. I'm not claustrophobic, it just reminds me too much of Ariel, too much of my failure to lead my friend to safety. I just hope history doesn't repeat itself...
After what felt like forever, we finally reached the dead end I saw on the map. Lone behold, it was actually a dead end!
"What now?" Grease asked.
There wasn't much, the endless line of dirty brown wall, a huge white boiler, and several evenly spaced lights lining the walls.
"There has to be a secret entrance or something around here. Check everything." I said as I dug my hand into the tops of the light bulb holders.
Grease and I ran our hands across the walls, hoping to find a loose stone or secret lever. I tapped all of the bricks and checked the wall fissures while Grease inspected the boiler.
"Maybe there's somewhere we haven't looked." Grease said as she carefully squeezed between the wall and boiler.
"Or maybe I'm wrong." I retorted.
Grease poked her head out from behind the boiler. "Yeah and my jet is ugly!" she snarkily responded. Her head quickly jumped back behind the boiler.
Of course I'm right! I told myself. The only time you've been wrong is with-. I stopped myself before I could say it. The only time I was wrong was when the only family I be known died in my arms. I was not going to let that happen again.
"There's another place they could be hiding. Let's check it out." I said, starting to walk away.
"Okay, lemme just check something." Grease said, still circling the boiler. She tapped it gently, making a funny face as the sound reverberated through the hall.
"This is ridiculous." I said angrily, storming towards Grease. I grabbed her arm and pulled her from the boiler which she was now pressing her ear against as she continued to tap on it.
"Hey!" She yelled, pulling her arm away. She ran back to the boiler, crouched down, and began tapping again.
"She's officially lost it" I said quietly.
"Quite the contrary!" She happily responded. Grease has surprisingly good ears for someone who listens to max volume radio and saws most of the day. "I'm just getting started."
She stood, pulling a slender silver tube from her magical fanny pack (don't tell her I called it that or else she'll probably hit me with it). Along with it came two steel helmets which had a small, rectangular plexiglass slit for eyes: blowtorch and helmets.
"What in the-" I began.
Grease shoved one helmet into my chest. "Put this on." She commanded.
I followed instructions, strapping the cold steel helmet to my face.
"What now?" I asked, having to talk louder than normal.
"I finally get to destroy something!" Grease yelled back.
She pushed me behind her and lit the torch, pushing it closer to the pristine white boiler. It began to sizzle and sparks started flying as the torch burned through the metal. It took a while, but Grease finally managed to cut a large enough piece from the boiler for us to enter through, which plopped into front of us with a loud clang.
Lone behold, hidden in that boiler was a rope ladder which descended into a strange lit cavern. I peeled the mask from my face, dropping it next to the broken boiler. I peered into the hole, contemplating if we should descend or not.
Grease beat me to it before I could even react. She pushed me aside and practically jumped down the hole, grabbing the last rung on the ladder and quietly landing on the bottom. She signaled for me to follow, but I knew better, in fact, I did the same thing a few months earlier. I also got my best friend killed a few months earlier.
I tapped my earpiece trying to contact Group 2. "Hello? Hello?!"
I rolled my eyes. Of course, nothing works the moment I need it to. I can't even get Zach to fix it! I quickly slid down the ladder, catching up with Grease who hid behind a wall.
She turned and smiled smugly at me. "Always with the hidden base."
A smile began to creep onto my face, but I forced it to recede. No Brianna. This is a serious mission that you cannot fail. I signaled her forward, checking each door as we came across them. Let me tell you, for a secret underground base, this place was huge! We must've come across at least ten rooms in the first hallway alone, each one different. I kicked open the doors, revealing table after table of science equipment. One room had a huge white table which oddly leaned vertically against the wall, had an operating tray attached to it, and was surrounded in bright colored liquids. The next looked like a scene from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, with it's huge wardrobe standing alone in the back of the room, except a huge splintering hole revealed a second, hidden room. This one looked old, like dirt coming from the walls old! Oddly, there were chains strapped to one wall and a lone chair lying on its side close by.
Grease looked at me worriedly. I shook my head in response. "Mitchell is close." I whispered, and we continued on.
Door after door, I kicked in, revealing only more laboratories and no Mitchell. We came to our final door, only this one I couldn't kick in. There was a giant iron door with an enormous wheel blocking our path.
"You ready?" I asked Grease.
She looked at me with an expression of stone. "I've always hated boss fights."
I'll take that as a yes. I grabbed a spoke and pulled hard, making little progress. I stepped back breathing heavily.
"Maybe we can both turn it." Grease said confidently, pulling a monkey wrench from her wonder pouch.
Think Brianna, think!
I tapped my head, only I hit the metallic covering of my headband. Brianna, how can you be so stupid?!
I focused on one of the spokes, imagining it turning and the door opening. Sure enough, it did. It was slow, so slow that Grease had to help, but it was working. My head began to ache and I felt myself beginning to sweat, but I powered through. I knew Mitchell was on the other side of that door and whoever was with him was in for it, no matter how much of a migraine I had. Within a few minutes, the door popped open with a loud squeal. I dropped to my knees, utterly exhausted. I waved Grease off as she tried to help me up, and pushed our way into the strangest room of them all.
There were tubes everywhere, not the tubes we saw in every other room that were the size of my finger and held small amounts of bright liquid. These were almost twice as big as me and only three held actual contents. In the closest one, was a girl who floated aimlessly, her head down so she couldn't see me. Her long brown hair floated around her in a vat of clear liquid like tentacles. Directly across from her was a boy who was instead, frozen, like literally frozen! He floated in the center of the tube, crystals making the glass seem slightly opaque. Although his long brown hair covered his face, I could tell there was a reason he was frozen. Finally, and to both of our dismay, floated Mitchell, frozen and clearly tortured. His shirt and jacket were nearly torn to shreds and his face and arms were covered in dried blood and scars. His eyes were closed, but I knew he was absolutely terrified.
Grease ran to the control panel, trying to disassemble and reverse engineer it, while I tried my best to break the tube. I concentrated on that glass cracking, the entire tube exploding, but nothing happened. Frustrated, I banged on an empty tube next to me. Grease was still attempting to dissemble that control panel when I heard it. It sounded like someone knocking but it was faint. I looked at Grease, still bent over the wires. She was going at it with a screwdriver, but that definitely couldn't make that sound.
It started again, a series of faint, short knocks. This time, I heard it coming from behind me. I turned to find the girl was awake, and trying with all her strength to get my attention. I ran over, running my hands along the glass to try to find a weakness, but the girl didn't care. I scoured the tube for anything that could be a clue, I found two things: a nametag that read "Nicole" and no escape route.She was still banging on the glass, and didn't stop until I looked her in the eyes. She opened her mouth to talk, but through the water and the tube, I couldn't hear a thing. She kept pointing at a silver tiara on her head, then at Mitchell, then at me.
I nodded in response, pointing to my headband.
She shook her head violently, well as violently as you can in a vat of water, and repeated the action. I signaled for her to give me a minute, and walked back to Grease who was still transfixed on the damn control panel.
"Grease?" I asked.
"Hmm?"
"The girl is awake."
"Wonderful" she nonchalantly responded.
"All of our friends are dead." I said, testing to see if she was paying attention.
"Brilliant! I'm almost done." She answered, making my assumption correct.
I walked around Mitchell's cell, trying to make out details through the frost as best as I could. He wasn't situated like the boy, instead of standing, it looked like he was floating in a pool: stomach and face up. Funny enough, he too had one of the silver tiaras and there is no way Mitchell would be caught dead with a tiara. Maybe the tiaras had something to do with the tubes? Maybe that's why the girl was pointing at Mitchell?
I walked back over to the girl's tube, hoping to ask her more questions through our weird game of sign language. She looked at me as I walked over, the fear in her eyes obvious. I pointed at the tiara again, signing a curious look on my face. She understood: I was asking what it does. She put her hand to her mouth and it slowly moved away, coming toward me. She repeated the motion over and over. Then, she began to open and close her mouth, as if she was trying to say something. That's it! It's a communication device!
I began searching for another tiara. If it was a communication device, that means there has to be two. You can't talk on the phone without a person on the receiving end. Well, you can, but you'd look incredibly stupid.
There were none! I checked every inch of the walls, around the control panel in front of every tube, even around the backs of the tubes! I was just checking behind the boy's tube when disaster struck, and of course it did. We didn't even hear her coming, but she must've seen Grease from down the hall because Harlequin sprinted into the room and grabbed Grease by the neck. She proceeded to lift her off the ground.
"You're a sneaky bunch aren't you?" she said happily as she began walking to an empty cell next to Mitchell.
"I'm guessing your friends are around here somewhere." she said as she pressed several buttons on the keypad and the glass parted. She grabbed a piece of the silver lining on top of the tube and wrapped it around Grease's head. Grease tried to struggle, but it was futile; Harlequin had done something to make herself stronger. "Don't worry," she said happily, "your friends will meet my friends very soon."
She dumped Grease into the tube and the glass closed. To my dismay, it began to fill with liquid quickly surrounding and lifting Grease. In seconds, her head went under and she clawed at her throat. I watched as she took one huge breath from the last of the oxygen and began diving to find some way to disrupt the current. I watched in horror as she desperately pounded on the glass and finally ran out of air. Her mouth opened, releasing the bubbles she tried so hard to hold onto.
Then, nothing happened. I know, super anticlimactic, right? But to both of our shock, breathing was no problem. She continued to try to escape, this time not worrying about oxygen. Harlequin merely stood next to her tube and laughed. She placed the silver tiara on her head.
"Now you're part of the collection!" She joyfully exclaimed. She began to happily dance around Grease's tube, following Grease as she continued to attempt an escape. "You'll be my prized possession!"
I carefully inched around the back of Nicole's tube, trying to get a better vantage point and hopefully, find a way to rescue Grease and everyone else. I scooted around the pipes and wires until I reached the other side. Grease's tools were still on the floor: a screwdriver, a wrench, and a pair of scissors, however, her fanny pack was still wrapped around her side. She too noticed this just as I did, and began desperately grabbing inside the pack. To both of our regret, her hand came back empty several times; it appears that Grease's Wonder Bag isn't waterproof.
I peeked out from behind the tube, just in time for Grease to spot me. Her eyes went wide with joy, then returned to their previously angry state. Harlequin was still jumping around and laughing, when I finally slid behind enough tubes to cross Mitchell.
Maybe I can release someone, I just need Harlequin to leave!
I focused on Grease's pair of wire scissors and carefully began levitating them. Then, I threw them as hard as I could out the door. My migraine was beginning to return, but there was nothing I could do now.
Harlequin chased the noise, running into the hallway. I quickly slammed the door shut and locked it, running back to Grease's pod. I slammed on different combinations of keys, hoping to hit the correct set. No such luck.
I heard the gears of the door, beginning to turn as Harlequin began to unlock the door again. I focused on the knobs again, turning the door the other way. My head began to wrack with pain. There was no way I could hold Harlequin like this and free everyone; I just needed the passcode. Luckily, Richie isn't the only that can come up with rescue plans.
I released my lock on the door and ducked behind the tubes again, just before the door could fly open and Harlequin stormed in. She romped around the room, trying to find what locked the door (me). She angrily marched to Grease, who tried to look tough, but I knew better.
"What are you looking at?!" she yelled. She punched in a series of letters: C, R, Y, O.
Seriously?! For a bunch of evil geniuses, they suck at making passwords! With enough time, I could've guessed that!
Regardless, Grease's pod began to freeze, cold icicles slowly creeping from the base of the pod. They started to surround Grease, whose eyes were wide with fear, until she was completely encased in ice.
I saw Harlequin sneer and punch in another series of letters: H, Y, D, R, O. Grease's pod began to defrost, returning to its previously liquid state. But, just after it liquified, Harlequin quickly typed in a final series of letters: D, R, A, I, N.
The liquid was silently sucked from the tube, leaving Grease soaked and sprawled on the tube floor, coughing and gagging. She dragged herself to her feet and stood defiantly before Harlequin.
"Let me go!" she seemed to mouth.
Furthering my prediction, Harlequin responded out loud and probably in her head, "Only after the tests!"
Harlequin punched in her final command: HYDRO and watched happily, and the waters returned.
I decided now was the perfect time, with Harlequin thinking it was over. I concentrated on the screwdriver and sent it flying at Harlequin's back. However, I miss calculated, only catching her in her shoulder. She cried out in pain, and carefully removed it as I stepped in the light.
"Ah, the bookworm has come to save her friend? How sweet." She mocked, clutching her shoulder. We circled each other, sizing up what one another could do. "You think you're so heroic, coming to save your friend. Too bad you can't save the other three."
We continued in our Mexican standoff, Harlequin throwing taunts at me while I stared back coldly. "My friends will take care of your's very quickly." she said snidely.
I don't know what came over me, but I flew at her, sprinting for her hideously painted face. We traded punches: left and right, she'd dodge, then me. It was slow going at first. I landed a few good hits to her face and abdomen, but that didn't stop her. I started going on the defensive, dodging each of her attacks, until I could come up with a plan. The only problem: that's exactly what she taught us to do and Harlequin recognized it. She caught me with a solid kick to the face as I went to dodge behind a tube.
I slammed into the adjacent tube, my face throbbing. Harlequin stood over me, confidently smiling. "You're lucky I'm not allowed to kill you."
I felt exhausted and my head was killing me, but I looked around for something to get me out of this. My eyes locked onto the last of Grease's tools: her wrench.
I turned back to Harlequin who stooped in front of me. Just as I was about to say a really good one liner, she grabbed me by the throat and lifted me into the air. Nevermind the super awesome movie line then. She began walking in the opposite direction of Grease's tools and Mitchell's cell. Good thing I can move things with my mind! I focused on the steel wrench until I saw it beginning to levitate off the ground. I flung it at Harlequin's back, hitting her in the back of the neck.
Harlequin stumbled and dropped me to the floor. I took no time, although I don't recommend running with very little breath. I made it to Grease's panel in which I quickly typed HYDRO. I watched as the ice began to melt and Grease started to float again. I took no time to type DRAIN as well, but I was rudely interrupted.
Just before I could hit the N key, Harlequin grabbed the back of my shirt and threw me backwards. My body jolted as I landed hard on my side. Just as I looked up to find where Harlequin was, her fist connected with my face. My head snapped sideways, pain exploding in my face again. I drearily I looked up again, seeing three Harlequins spinning above me. I could faintly hear her maniacal laugh, but everything was out of focus.
My head lol