Chapter 2
she wrote back dude! we're on 4 tonite! 2 more hours!
rad. good luck bro, came the reply.
Ambient all but danced happily about. But now was not the time to lose his cool! He had planning to do. Two hours would pass by before he knew it, and he needed to make that time count. Step one: get Hiltz out of the house for as long as possible. It was time to arrange for some errands.
He hurried over to the home office off of the den, furthermore known as "the secret lab," and knocked.
"Yeee-eee-eees?" came the gleefully evil reply.
Ambient nudged the door open with his nose. "Raagrgghh!" he announced, as emphatically as possible.
"A foolproof plan for defeating the Guardian Force, you say?!" Hiltz shrieked joyfully. "Tell me at once! What do we need to do?"
Ambient spread a poster-size sheet of paper out on Hiltz's desk. It was covered in official-looking schematics, diagrams, and figures, none of which made sense, not that that particular detail mattered in the slightest. "Raaiigghrrhh," he explained, pointing to one shapeless mass of rectangles, arrows, and lines. He then swept his paw grandly over to another section of the poster, with similarly indecipherable contents, and tapped this area significantly with one claw. "Riiooorrraggh."
Hiltz nodded eagerly. "Yes, yes, I see! And then?"
"Reeaarraarrgggh!" Ambient concluded triumphantly, pointing to the center of the poster, which contained the only intelligible illustration of the entire document: a cartoon-like Ultrasaurus lying on its back with Xs for eyes and its tongue hanging out.
"IT'S BRILLIANT!" Hiltz thundered, practically beside himself. "Ambient, you're a genius! As a reward for your incredible intellect, when we finally declare victory I will see to it that your boosters are upgraded posthaste!" He continued to stare at the poster, shaking his head in awe and wonderment. "You know what the most amazing part of all is? You didn't even need pumpkin pie to pull off a plot so perniciously perfect!"
Ambient handed him a lengthy shopping list that he had prepared, designed to keep Hiltz occupied for as long as possible by including no more than two items available at any given shop, as well as a large number of goods that Hiltz would not be able to afford. Hiltz looked over the list, nodding. "A rusty barrel, three fine-mesh tea strainers, a ten-gallon bucket of cobwebs, a sixteen-carat diamond, a few German-Zoidian bilingual dictionaries, and an outdated globe of Zi for phase one. Yes, yes. Excellent!" He gazed blissfully into Ambient's shining emerald eyes. "You...are a wonder, Ambient." He touched his hand reverently to Ambient's red cheek. "A wonder." He then turned and dashed out of the room, clutching the list securely in his hand. "I will begin acquiring our supplies right away! For today marks the beginning of the end of the detested Guardian Force!"
Ambient heard the front door slam and walked out into the den, waiting and listening. Hiltz's old beater coupe wheezed to life and roared off down the street. Could it possibly have been this easy?
-.-.-.-
Specular was staring at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her sheet metal was freshly polished, and her yellow eyes shone like gemstones. She raised one claw to brush a minute bit of schmutz off of one of her mandible horns. She was a very impressive and intimidating organoid, she had to admit.
"SPECULAR!" Reese bellowed suddenly, slamming the bathroom door open and frightening her blue companion nearly out of her wits. Specular's cell phone clattered noisily to the tiled floor. "You're not wasting your time attempting to improve upon perfection for some pathetic man, are you?"
"Riiagh," Specular retorted testily.
"Alright, alright, I will cede the point. THIS TIME!" And with that, Reese faded eerily into the darkened hallway from whence she'd abruptly come. Specular sighed and retrieved her phone from the floor. She held it up, cocked her head just so, opened her mouth a bit to bare her teeth threateningly, and snapped a selfie. Firing it off to her friend, she added: How do I look?
girl, you are a vision! you sure you want to be dealing with this guy tho? after what he did?
It has to have been some kind of misunderstanding, Specular wrote. He did kind of apologize a few days later. And besides, why else would he have invited me over?
No response was forthcoming. Specular shrugged and put her phone down, then ran the buffing cloth over her needle-like snout one more time, deep in thought. Surely Ambient hadn't meant to be so rude that night a few weeks ago?
It had been at one of Death Saurer's most epic parties yet. Specular had had her eye on Ambient all night, admiring the handsome red organoid from across the room, wanting desperately to talk to him, but being too afraid to. He seemed to be looking at her sometimes, too, but even this was not enough to help her overcome her fear. She could always simply mind-control him into agreeing to a date, of course, but Specular didn't wish to live her life like Reese did. She didn't want Ambient's companionship if psychically possessing him were the only way it could be accomplished. If he didn't like her, he didn't like her.
It had taken not only plenty of encouragement, but a handful of outright threats from her friend before Specular finally mustered the courage to go over to him. He was standing in the corner with a drink in his paw, laughing with a couple of his mates.
"Righ!" she greeted him with a friendly smile.
"Rogh. Reargh," Ambient replied coolly, not quite meeting her gaze. He seemed instead to be looking somewhere over her shoulder. His two friends simply stared at her, and not in a very friendly manner, either.
She blinked. This wasn't at all going how she'd thought it would. Specular swallowed and took a deep breath. Just stay calm, make easy conversation. Ask how he's doing. "Riagh...reegh rarrighagh?"
Ambient's paw, the one holding his red Solo cup, was shaking slightly, but in response to her brave query, he simply shrugged. "Rooraigh."
Okay? He guessed? That was all he had to say? That was it? Not even a polite continuation of the conversation by asking how she was doing in response? This kept getting worse and worse. Her tail switched back and forth and she had to consciously summon the means to keep it still so that her level of humiliation would not be so evident.
Reese came to mind just then, her scary, vacant eyes blazing blue, and Specular recalled one of the billion times she had been instructed to undertake swift and devastating revenge on any man who treated her with disrespect - the way Ambient was treating her right now. Or maybe it wasn't so much a recollection of something Reese had said in the past, but Reese invading her mind right at this very moment to demand a response to such repugnant and inexcusable male behavior. Specular was never entirely sure where her own consciousness ended and the larger void into which Reese often intruded began.
But no, she knew this was not how she wanted to handle the situation. Pyrrhic victories were ultimately, if not immediately, meaningless.
Specular dejectedly wished him a good time at the party and turned away swiftly before the tears filling her eyes became visible. She made the long trek back across the room and took her friend's gunmetal gray paw. "Reeiorgh," she told her miserably, then headed straight for the front door.