The nighttime draped its dark cloak over the sky of Manchester. A handful of stars spotted the sky as if trying to make up for the absence of a moon. On the horizon, the geometric silhouettes of buildings were barely distinguishable in the dim light. There was, however, a peculiarly shaped shadow skipping over the many roofs. The darkness made it hard to identify the agile man's short stature or the boxy TV set that hovered where his head should have been. His screen glowed with a TV test pattern grin, dripping saturated colors. In his left gloved hand he held a skinny cane and on his head wore a snappy boater hat.
At one house he paused on the roof, and stared at the shingles beneath his dressy shoes. While brushing imaginary dust off his bright red and blue blazer sleeves he glanced at the edge of the roof. He strolled over, peeked down, and hopped to the ground.
"There must be a window around somewhere…" RGB muttered to himself until he found what he was looking for, sitting in the middle of the brick wall. "Aha!"
Grinning, he peered through the glass into a child's bedroom. Leaning against the opposite wall was a hockey stick and equipment, small enough for a kid to use. The walls sported a deep blue paint job and multiple posters of professional hockey players. A bed sat in the middle of this sporty bedroom, occupied by a small person-a ten year old boy with ruby red hair.
Tiny flowers flickered above his sleeping head like fireworks; the signs of dreaming. Exactly what RGB was looking for.
The smooth TV man cautiously pushed the window, pleasantly surprised to find it unlocked. He crawled through the opening and crept to the boy's bedside. After straightening out his posture and bowtie, he cleared his invisible throat.
"I say…"
The boy remained quiet, locked away in dreamland.
"I said, I say…" RGB repeated, louder.
Still no luck. The boy turned over beneath the sheets, occupied by some deep dream.
"A-HEM. I say…I said, I say…" RGB's antennae twitched impatiently as his colorful mouth dropped to an irritated frown.
"Oh, for goodness sake…" Time bring in the big guns. He reached out to the boy's shoulder and shook gently.
"Wake up."
"…mmf."
"Ah, it's working!" RGB shook again, hopeful. "Hey, wake up. It's time to wake up."
When the boy began to come around, the man jumped back and resumed his gentlemanly posture. The child's grass green eyes blinked blearily at RGB's screen.
"I say…" RGB purred with a voice smooth as silk. "Would you like to be a hero?"
The redhead stared blankly back silently.
"…Well?"
"…five more minutes, Mom…" He mumbled and buried his face into the pillow.
RGB nearly dropped his cane. "What?!" He thought, "Is he serious?" The man flinched, remembering the child had fallen back asleep…or was at least trying to. Panicking, he shook the boy's shoulder again.
"Hey, wake up! Don't go back to sleep!"
"C'mon, Mom, practice isn't 'till tomorrow…"
"I am not your mother! Just wake up already!"
"Then jus' let me sleep…" He moaned before sleepily tossing his pillow at RGB's screen. With a muffled "Oof!" he clumsily fell on his backside. When he pulled the pillow away from his face, he found it stained with his rainbow drool in a disgusting pattern.
"Eugh…" He flung it away with unpalatable distaste and glared at the boy with a sigh.
"Fine, you win. I'll find someone else to be the Hero."
RGB twisted the door knob as quietly as he could, and slowly opened the door. Inside he found a bedroom evolving around horses. A cowgirl hat dangling from a rocking chair, horseshoe prints on the rug, and horse figurines scattered about. Buried under a western styled quilt slept a girl with straw blond hair draping over her pillow. RGB walked closer, noting her freckles and fair skin. She couldn't have been more than seven years old. Just like the last potential Hero, however, were those floating, dreamy flowers over her head. Perfect.
"A-hem…I say…"
She stirred. Hopefully this meant she wasn't as deep of a sleeper as the last one.
"I said, I s-"
An ominous hiss cut him off. He looked at the foot of her bed, discovering a shorthaired tabby with grey fur glaring at him with its hazel eyes. The cat let out another hiss, baring its porcelain white fangs.
Uh-oh…
"E-er…n-nice kitty…" He stuttered. The 'nice kitty' wasn't in an affable mood and arched its back while flaring its now bushy tail.
"E-easy, kitty…I'm not here for you-"
RGB's feet suddenly stumbled over a plastic horse, and he fell to the ground with a yelp. Before he could sit up, the protective tabby pounced onto his face.
"ACK! G-get off, you stupid animal-OW! Hey, not the antennas!"
The cat refused to leave this stalking stranger alone who dared to try to take her beloved owner away. It pawed aggressively at his clothes, screen, and hands.
"Oh, god, what if it touches my knobs?!" He thought while attempting to pull the house pet away. If the tabby turned his TV switch on to where he would be that and only that, then he'd be stuck here, and caught by the girl-and her parents, who would likely call the local police.
That was it, he had to scram. Clumsily making his way over the various horse toys while being ambushed by the ferocious feline, his hands found a window. He hastily undid the latch, thrust the window up, and crammed his body through. After crashing into some empty metal trash cans, he grabbed the cat by the scruff and roughly tossed it back into the room.
"Okay, okay, I give up! I'm out, see?"
The cat sneezed, as if mocking him, and pranced back to the bed with its tail high in the air. It leaped back up and cuddled under the sleeping girl's arms, purring. How she slept through that whole show was a mystery to RGB.
Not that he cared about that at this moment. RGB leaned against the house, slightly embarrassed. He'd been chased out by dogs before, but a housecat? That was a little humiliating.
Like he always said, never work with children or animals. Of course he didn't have much of a choice for the first half.
RGB tossed his cane to the sky, and it spun in the air until it latched onto a high window sill, four stories up. With a snap of his fingers, the magic magnetism between him and the cane hoisted him up. Trying not to look down, he grabbed onto the sill and pulled his body up to the slightly ajar window. He carefully climbed inside and landed in the middle of a room painted with rose pink walls. The bedroom's design was nearly symmetrical, with a bed and chest of drawers on each side. On his left RGB saw red rose prints on the bedspread and ruby colored decorations. To his right the accents flashed purple instead with brazen star symbols.
A girl of about twelve, maybe thirteen, snoozed quietly under the rose patterned bed. Her jet black curls bunched around her dark face with little flowers blooming in the air around her.
"A-hem. I say…" RGB took off his hat, hoping the girl would awaken. To his delightful surprise, her coal colored eyes opened and carefully focused on him.
"…Would you like to be a-"
"SIS!" She screamed as she sat upright in a flash. "SIS!"
Before RGB could react to her outburst, the bedroom door slammed open. Behind it stood a girl with a strong resemblance to the alarmed other, but a year older.
And clad in nothing but a damp bath towel.
"Sis, what's wr-AAAAHHHHH!"
RGB scrambled back to the window in a fit of embarrassment and jumped out just as the older sister tossed a heavy shoe at him. As it hit the back of his head with a dull bonk, she shouted, "Get lost, you peeping Tom! And don't ever show your ugly mug around here again!" With that, the window slammed shut with such force RGB was surprised it didn't cause the entire building to crumble.
He held his hat to his head and jogged away with a million thoughts running through his electric system. Well, three, to be more precise.
One, he had been called a peeping Tom. He knew he was a monster and a liar (although he didn't openly admit the latter), but being mistaken as a perverted stalker was degrading. It made the housecat ordeal look insignificant.
Two, the older girl had called his face an 'ugly mug'. Yes, he wasn't human, but that didn't mean he was hideous. Why he had seen humans that looked worse. However, the most ironic thing was that he didn't technically have a 'mug' to begin with. Just a TV screen with a test pattern mouth.
Three, he knew there was no way he could win that younger girl over to be a Hero. Going back would be useless, and maybe suicidal, judging by the elder sister's determination. He'd have to start the search all over again.
"Oh goody." He muttered under his breath.
RGB sighed, letting his legs dangle over the edge of another house. Dawn would be breaching the sky soon, and the Manchester city skyline began to take shape more clearly. Besides him smoked a skinny chimney, sending a stream of pale grey smoke into the atmosphere, like the other buildings in the distance.
Finding a suitable child to be the Hero wasn't what you'd call the easiest thing to do in the world. Forget trying to find a needle in a haystack; fishing a speck of dust out of a fish bowl looked like a piece of cake compared to this. Not only had his past three tries struck out, but had failed quite distastefully. First getting creamed by a pillow, then attacked by a cat, and finally earning the title of peeping Tom. Nothing but a tour de force of disaster for this week.
Still, as RGB got back to his feet and smoothed out his blazer, he knew he shouldn't give up. He couldn't afford to. He needed a Hero. Everyone he knew back home did, too. Opening up the skylight to the home, he silently leapt in and shut the window. He tip toed smoothly towards a half open door, and peeked inside.
The small bedroom held a dresser below a window and a bunk bed besides it. Only the top bunk was occupied, however. A small child, probably about eight years old, with a chocolate brown bowl cut, slept soundly with dreamlike flowers blossoming above. The kid looked ambiguous, but hanging on the wall between the window and the bunk was a flowery picture, so he made the temporary assumption it was a girl.
"Please, please say yes." RGB prayed in his mind. "I swear, if I get another disaster thrown at me, I'll…"
He shook his head to clear his mind; it's hard to appear charming otherwise, and first impressions were vital in this business. So he perched himself on the drawers, took off his hat, and stared at the sleeping girl.
"I say…"
She shifted slightly.
"I said, I say…"
This time she turned her head around to look at his glowing, grinning TV screen.
"…Would you like to be a Hero?"
AN: Did I mention writing about RGB is surprisingly entertaining? XD