My first attempt at a Mysterious Benedict Society fanfiction so any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thank you very much for reading! :)
Milligan lent against the tree trunk, hat perched jauntily on his head, the darkness the night provided ensuring that he would not be seen. He stared out towards the gate with his piercing blue eyes assessing any movement that the light night breeze caused. Nothing suspicious, Milligan sighed. It had been nearly a year since Mr. Curtain had escaped or, more accurately, had been broken out of the high security prison in which he had been incarcerated for the best part of five years. Despite the evil genius being at large for a year, he had made no attempt to contact Mr. Benedict, in fact, none of the agents looking for him had found anything they could use to track him down, he had disappeared without a trace.
Milligan sighed again and scanned the length of the hedge. So much had changed due to Mr. Curtain's escape; Mr. Benedict had had to install trusted government agents to stand guard around the Washington's house and the old mansion day and night, Reynie, Sticky and Constance who had been at university and school respectively, had been forced to abandon their institutions and continue with their education in Mr. Benedict's mansion where they could be provided with the necessary protection. The same went for for Miss Perumal and Mr. and Mrs. Washington, who had all been forced to leave their jobs. Milligan himself had been forced out of his retirement from the secret service and was now employed as both a senior agent in the search for Mr. Curtain and night guard for Mr. Benedict's house and it's occupants. Milligan knew that these jobs were very important, but so far they had been much less exciting than Milligan had anticipated. With the search going nowhere and nothing interesting happening while on guard, Milligan found his concentration slipping.
He sighed for the third time and stretched before leaning back into his original position against the tree and his thoughts turned to his daughter. Where Reynie and Sticky had raced through their high school education and started university courses a year early (two in Sticky's case), Kate had struggled. It wasn't that she had found the material overly hard, she had understood it all, she just couldn't concentrate when it came to revising and sitting in exams. Milligan recalled fondly the time he had been called into the school because Kate had climbed onto the roof of the sports hall to get Madge to come to her.
'She wouldn't come down with all the other children surrounding her in the playground!' said Kate as if it was obvious to the shocked teachers who were staring at the falcon perched happily on the young girl's arm. Milligan had fought very hard to keep the grin off his face when the concerned headmistress had sat both the Wetherall's down in her office, explained what had happened to Milligan and then explained to Kate that climbing school buildings was reckless, dangerous and simply 'not acceptable in a school environment' in a squeaky voice. Milligan had never thought that Kate would want to follow Reynie and Sticky into university and he was right, but when she had turned eighteen and told Milligan that she had been enrolled into a secret service training programme, he had been furious. He hadn't wanted that kind of life for his daughter, but after she had finished her first term at the programme and seen how happy she was, his fury had lessened. Now, two years later Kate was a junior agent assigned to a surveillance mission in Magadan, Russia.
'I'm so proud of you Katie-Cat' Milligan whispered to himself as he checked his luminous watch, 3:34 am. Suddenly the sharp snap of a twig breaking at the end of the hedge broke the silence. Milligan stood stock still, fully alert, his senses heightened by adrenaline.
'Jameson, you see anything?' Milligan breathed into the radio on his sleeve cuff.
'Nothing from my side of the roof Milligan' came the reply into Milligan's earpiece.
'Okay, I'm going to patrol down the hedge just in case, keep eyes on the gate' whispered Milligan.
'Affirmative' replied Jameson.
Milligan walked silently, peering into the dark hedge, looking for any signs of people on the other side. He reached the spot where he heard the twig snap and carefully scanned the hedge from top to bottom. Nothing.
'Anything?' he asked again to his sleeve.
'Nothing, no movement aside from the breeze' said Jameson.
Milligan walked back to his spot by the tree and resumed looking at the gate. Although he had found nothing, he couldn't help but feel tense, something now seemed off. He glanced around at the front door of the house, the cellar door, the hedge and then back to the gate. Nothing had changed. Milligan took a deep breath, his imagination was clearly getting the better of him. He lifted his arm to check the time again but before he could read the number, something extremely large and extremely heavy fell out of the tree branches above him and knocked him out cold.
Sticky woke suddenly to a crash followed by a loud yelp. Disorientated, he fumbled for his glasses and then stumbled slowly to the window and looked across the street to a most extraordinary sight. The grounds around Mr. Benedict's mansion were shrouded in a faint mist (most unusual for May Sticky thought)that all the guards were desperately trying to avoid. Sticky watched in horror as a guard tripped over his own feet and the mist swept over him. Two seconds later the mist cleared, revealing the guard curled up in a fetal position, fast asleep.
'Oh no, oh no no no' Sticky murmured whipping his spectacles off his face to polish them.
'Sticky! Sticky what's going on?' Mrs Washington shouted from her bedroom downstairs (she too had been woken up from the chaos unfolding opposite).
'I-I'm not sure Mum' he replied as he ran down the stairs to his parents room.
'What are those men doing?' Mrs Washington asked, using a crutch to point to a tall man in a black suit wearing a respirator mask and carrying a briefcase walking through the garden gate. Sticky's stomach felt like it would jump out of his throat.
'Ten Men' he croaked, his throat constricting in fear. Mr Washington put a comforting hand on his wife's shoulder and wiped his head with his handkerchief, worry etched on his face.
'Ten Men? But, but what do they want?' said Mrs Washington in shock as tears formed in her eyes.
As Sticky replied that it was most likely Mr Benedict the Ten Men were here for, lights from inside the mansion turned on, illuminating the windows in yellow. Sticky could see the silhouettes of Reynie, Miss Perumal and her mother as they appeared in one window, disappeared, then reappeared by the landing window on the second floor where they were joined by Mr. Benedict, a slowly moving Constance who was rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Rhonda and Number Two. It was like he was watching a silent film Sticky thought as Mr. Benedict started talking firmly and urgently to Miss Perumal and Mrs Perumal who both nodded and then grabbed Constance and Reynie by their arms, dragging them out of sight. Mr. Benedict now appeared to be arguing with Rhonda and Number Two who had both folded their arms and were shaking their heads in disagreement. Suddenly all three stiffened and turned to face where Sticky knew the stairs to be. The Washington's watched in horror as the silhouettes of five Ten Men wearing masks appeared one after another on the landing. Mr. Benedict stepped forward towards the Ten Men and appeared to be trying to negotiate with them, but as far as Sticky could tell, the Ten Men made no verbal response. Instead three a them lifted what looked like a can of spray paint. Rhonda lunged at the can but two Ten Men stepped into her path, knocking her back. The Ten Men with the spray-cans lifted them high above their headsand then pressed the nozzle. Immediately, the landing began to fill with the faint mist that had incapacitated the guards, obscuring Mr. Benedict, Rhonda, Number Two and the Ten Men from view.
Sticky was out of the front door before his brain had caught up with what his body was doing. Ignoring his parents shouts for him to come back in the house to safety, he ran through the gate into Mr. Benedict's front garden. As soon as Mr. Benedict had disappeared into a cloud of mist on the landing, Sticky had realised that he couldn't just stand there and observe as his friends faced the Ten Men without him even trying to help. The mist had cleared from the garden and he came across the unnerving sight of five guards fast asleep on the lawn. His heart pounding Sticky turned his attention to an odd looking log at the base of the tree. Taking a step closer, he realise that in actual fact it wasn't a log, but a hat. Milligan's hat. Sticky felt a surge of hope coarse through him, if Milligan hadn't succumbed to the mist then maybe he was inside, helping Mr. Benedict and everyone else. Sticky walked forward to pick up Milligan's hat and stepped in something wet (in his haste he had forgotten to put any shoes on). Muttering, he lifted his foot towards the light from a nearby window and immediately recoiled when he saw that his foot was covered in a deep red substance. Blood.
'Oh no, Milligan!' Sticky yelled as he furiously wiped Milligan's blood off of his foot on the grass. Sticky took a deep breath and looked up at the imposing house which had fallen strangely silent. Milligan was obviously severely injured somewhere and with all the guards asleep, there was no one else to help. Now it wasn't that Sticky had magically obtained some of Kate's reckless confidence or Reynie's bravery to always do the right thing. He was still a very anxious person and didn't pretend to be otherwise, but he was now nineteen and nearly six and a half feet tall so he thought that he could handle the Ten Men with more success and confidence than he had when he was thirteen. Also, he knew that if he was the one being attacked by Ten Men, then none of his friends would even hesitate to come to his rescue, not even ten year old Constance.
Most unfortunately for Sticky before he could take so much as a step nearer the house, before he even knew what was happening, a Ten Man leapt out of the tree and sprayed nearly a full can of the 'sleep mist' straight into Sticky's face. Shocked, Sticky stumbled back as the mist condensed on his glasses lens, taking a deep breath out of surprise as he did so. Instantly Sticky felt his vision blur and his thoughts swirl confusedly until the velvety blackness overpowered him. He was asleep before he hit the ground.