Hi, I'm going to post Chapter 8 of Bounty very soon, but I had an inspiration, and the result is:

A Tale of Two Cities

Disclaimer: I do not own Jimmy Neutron or any related characters, I also do not own the title of my story, it belongs to Charles Dickens' relatives or heirs or whatever. I also do not own any songs I include.

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to someone, however I am not sure whom.

Fate

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. Cindy and Jimmy were going out, and had been for three months, Libby and Sheen were, Libby and Sheen, Carl was, predictably, single. Life was looking up, as the five friends enjoyed what would prove to be a bittersweet summer. It was August, and Jimmy and his friends were pumped for their junior year of high school, but fate, had other plans.

"Cogito ergo sum. Dean Cogito ergo sum." (That is a famous quote by the way. Admittedly in Latin, but let's see who knows what it means, give me your guess in a review and the first one to get it right, well, I dunno, I'll make their name a character or something, well, see who can guess the Latin sayings first.) An average sized teenager repeated exasperatedly to the complete idiot who had asked for his help in his Latin summer school work. "You know what, forget it. It's hopeless, take your single-digit IQ somewhere else." Jimmy Neutron declared, throwing down Nick's textbook and walking away, taking with him his copy of Paradise Lost, and any remaining hope Nick had of passing his remedial Latin summer school test.

As Jimmy walked away from Nick's table in the candy bar he was joined by his girlfriend. "Hey James, what happened, Nick to stupid?" She asked, grinning at the look on his face at hearing his first name.

"Hey, don't call me that, but yeah unfortunately so, I can't believe I spent two hours trying to tutor that moron." He told her, smiling. His smile widened as he felt her warm, soft lips touch his gently, and he pulled her into the kind of kiss that people dream about. As they slowly broke apart Jimmy whispered in her ear. "You know, we only have a month left of summer vacation."

"Yeah, I know, but high school isn't that bad." She said.

"I guess, but if it weren't for Sheen's comments in class and the college level courses I take, it would be extremely boring."

She smiled, remembering how, in freshman year, he had walked into the head of school's office and requested to be put in every AP class available, he had been taking them for about a month, when he got bored and was now doing Graduate School work, instead of homework, yet still staying in his friends' classes so he wouldn't be alone.

"Want to go somewhere?" He asked. "Maybe, with the others too, we've got plenty of time to be together, but we can have an adventure, like old times." In around their freshman year, Earth seemed to be in less peril, admittedly, they did have to save various countries, and sometimes the planet around once a month, but not as frequently as their elementary school adventures.

She grinned at him a wave of nostalgia sweeping over her as she remembered their last adventure; they had saved the planet from destruction, when Earth was exposed to an extraterrestrial element that turned crude oil into volatile radioactive gas. It was only by combating a species of destructive beings did he manage to reverse the process. However, the fight had destroyed his only rockets capable of supporting more that two people, so the car companies had rewarded them all with brand new cars, which Jimmy souped up with every gadget imaginable. She snapped out her reverie at the sound of her best friends voice.

"Girlfriend, are you still here. We're planning our little trip." Libby said, snapping her fingers in front of Cindy's face.

"Wha…oh, sorry, just thinking about last time we did this kind of thing." She apologized. Looking around, she saw Jimmy, hard at work with a welding mask, a laser blowtorch and what appeared to be an organized pile of electrical components and high pressure energy cells. He winced as he heard something break behind her. Sheen stepped forward, holding what appeared to be a large black box with glass shards on top.

"Sheen, that's our stuff. Did you break the box or just the glass case it was in?" He asked exasperatedly.

"Ummm, I think just the case, yeah, just the case." He told Jimmy, after looking at the box curiously.

"Jim, what's in there?" Carl asked confusedly.

"In a second Carl." He told him busily, "There, done, have a look, how do you like em?" He had just finished working on five vehicles concealed by holo-curtains. "Carl, I give you, your knew car." The curtain faded from the middle theatrically, revealing, not a car, but an RV. It was one of those two-story RVs that are like motorcoaches (For those who don't know what that is it's like a big RV, I mean Big.) Carl gasped with, something very happy and promptly fell over, after use of his inhaler he stood looking at it.

"You'll get to go inside in a minute Carl." He told his friend, inwardly wondering why he had chosen a huge RV as his choice of any car, but being thankful he had. "Sheen, I give you, your knew sports car." He waved and the curtain disappeared revealing a Red Ferrari with the slogan Eat My Dust on the back windshield and the license plate customized with the name Ultralord on it, he still liked his superhero idol. As of late, Sheen had become in love with speed and he had asked for his new Ferrari hardtop convertible to be decked out with the fastest engine possible.

"Libby, here's your knew car." He revealed a sparkling purple Cadillac stretch limo with automatic solid hologram Chauffeur. Libby had loved the idea of being driven around in a funky limo with hugely powerful speakers, a soda minibar, and every other party thing you could think of. She gaped at the comfortable form-fitting leather seats, with a touchpad speaker control that was blasting Greystar, while a 60-inch plasma screen that functioned as the divider as well showed a live broadcast from their concert. "Oh, its so, totally AWESOME." She yelled uncharacteristically, and was going to get in and take in the surround sound and soda bar, when Jimmy spoke.

"Hey, don't you want to see Cindy's car?" He said, stopping her as she agreed, and returned to her best friend's side.

"Hey, we could have some serious party stuff in there." Cindy whispered in her ear, bringing the smile back to her friend's face. Cindy liked luxury and cool cars at the same time, so when she saw her sexy new Lexus hardtop convertible she flipped. As they all laughed, Jimmy's mother's face appeared on his monitor.

"Jimmy, dear, we have something to tell you, could you come up to the house?" She asked in a nice voice.

"Umm, sure mom, coming." He said in a preoccupied tone, but stepping into his elevator just the same. As he walked in the back door he saw his parents sitting on the couch waiting for him.

"Son."

"Jimbo."

"We have something to tell you. I'm really sorry, but, at the end of the summer, we're moving." Jimmy stood there, dumbstruck, before a blinding rage seized him; he grabbed the nearest thing, a lamp and ripped it out of its cable, throwing it furiously through the nearest doors window. He promptly turned and walked back out of the door, pausing for a moment to glare at his parents and say in a furious rage. "Why do you have to do this, you have to go and ruin my whole FUCKING LIFE huh, why? Did you ever think about me? No, nobody cares about MY FUCKING OPINION do they? You can just go and FUCKING FUCK UP MY WHOLE DAMN LIFE HIH? Well, FUCK THAT, IF YOU WANT TO MAKE ME LEAVE, YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE TO FUCKING KILL ME!" He screamed, pausing only to hit the wall as hard as he could leaving a dent, before running away from the people who he thought cared about him. His fury subsided as he cried into his hands, leaning on a tree. His parents, put into shock by their son's sudden furious cursing, he normally didn't use profanity, simply sat there for a while before standing up.

"I'd better go talk to Jimmy." His mom said to her husband, you tell Jimmy's friends that he's going to busy for a few minutes and to go look around in their new cars. Sheen, Carl and Libby shrugged it off and began checking out their new rides, only Cindy, worried, debated over whether or not to see what was going on.

Outside, Jimmy's mom approached him cautiously. "Jimmy, I'm really sorry, we don't have much of a choice, your father was transferred to the company's other location and he already signed a contract to work for the company until two years from now.

"It doesn't matter why…my life is fucking ruined anyway." He said softly, tears dripping silently down his agonized face. "I'm going to talk to Cindy, maybe…" He told her, standing up, wiping his face, and walking away from the parent who had now helped turn his life into shattered pieces. Fate was cruel he reflected, but it wasn't getting him without a fight! He resolved. Silently he vowed not to leave until they dragged him away from the people who meant the world to him. He was going on that trip and then, he was staying right here. He told himself. They can try all they fucking want he thought. This settled he walked back into his lab and, seeing Cindy coming towards him, pulled her into a passionate kiss that resounded in his soul, with pure bliss. She pulled him deeper and, after a long while they pulled apart, Jimmy's face smiling, but inwardly, he was determined to show them his parents just who they were dealing with.

Jimmy grimaced, as he told everyone what his parents had told him, but reassured a horrified Sheen and Carl that he wasn't planning on going anywhere. With this knowledge, everybody continued to prepare for their trip.

"Oh Jimmy, you didn't show us your car." Libby reminded him.

"Oh, well its right over here." He told them pointing to his newly installed garage that held the Strato XL, another two man rocket and a gleaming Bugatti Veyron (I really like that car.)

"Wicked!" Sheen yelled.

"Okay guys, we're going in Carl's RV/motorcoach, because it's the biggest and we can live in it for the duration of our trip. Now, where do we want to go?" He asked, smiling.

"How about the Alpha Centauri star system (Like a solar system, the star and it's planets, Alpha Centauri is a real star!)." Cindy suggested. Everyone immediately voted for it and it was decided, Alpha Centauri it is. The gang all went to go pack clothes and things for the trip, while, Jimmy, squaring his shoulders, walked over to his teleporter and went up to his room.

When he stepped out of his closet, he put the exit there after pulling three successive all-nighters with Carl and Sheen in late June he looked around. Good, he thought to himself, nobody's been here, but I guess they want so move in September so there's some time to go, around four weeks. He looked around for things he would need in the trip. Pulling out all of his clothes he put them into a tough backpack that used hypercube technology, as he piled them up, they were sucked into the flat, elongated hypercube that served as a bottom on the inside of the backpack, with enough clothes packed for two or three weeks, he piled the rest on the teleport pad, and sent them down to the lab. After this, he looked around. Hmm, clothes, check, sleeping bag for emergencies, he was planning on sleeping on one of the beds in the RV, check. Climbing equipment, check. He walked over to a seemingly blank spot of wall and stared into the eyes of a poster there, the scanner checked his brain to make sure he was Jimmy and locked the door and sealed off the windows, before the wall section slid apart, revealing a glass case. There was a touchpad on its cover, covered by a thin sheet of bulletproof glass, like the case. He spoke, opening the pad and typed in a code, the scanner analyzed his fingerprints, and the case slid open cleanly; in it were five high-powered laser rifles for emergencies, as well as five pistols and a selection of other small arms. He regretted having made these, but had learned that the universe was an extremely dangerous place. He put them in his backpack and picking up his high-powered, customized, voice controlled tablet laptop, stepped back into the teleport pad. The wall closing seamlessly behind him.

Jimmy stepped into his lab and walked over to Carl's RV, he walked inside and up the ladder to the second floor, where he found where he was sleeping, at the front, above the driver's area and slinging the backpack off his shoulder, put the clothes and things into the small drawers underneath the bed, finally stowing the weapons in the bag, he put it in a locked drawer and reflected on his life.