While I know that I had announced on my profile that Through Diamond Eyes was on a hiatus, I was able to get some work done on it and considering that it had been some time since the last update, I figured that posting the next chapter would be just fine so here it is, my apologies for the long wait.
Chapter Four
It was around early afternoon as the CDA was working on collecting any evidence possible within the smaller Toadwort Industries. Agents were looking over security footage, searching through the stolen car, and examining the now dead door. Roz was so stressed by all of this, it was bad enough that close to a month ago three teenage monsters escaped to the human world and now this? One of her agents came running up to her, she asked, "Well? How did Scourge know about this place?"
"According to his records, he actually used to work here when he first started off as a scarer."
"For how long?"
"About a year and a half, give or take a month. According to his files, he had quit here and started working at MI within the next week or so. His previous employer wasn't happy about it but then again, Scourge wasn't the only one to do that. Out of all of MI's rivals in the scaring industry, Toadwort is one of the ones who just could never keep up with them and losing their workforce really dealt a heavy blow."
"So setting up agents at MI proved to be useless then." she remarked.
"Yeah, Number One, it would seem that way." the agent answered her.
"Get in contact with Mr. Sullivan, considering that he was one of the ones who helped us capture Scourge, I'm sure he will want to hear about this."
"Yes Ma'am." remarked the agent.
While daylight had already dawned upon the city, one was still out and about despite the hour. Randall, now camouflaged, was carefully searching through the city of West Port as he used the roofs of the buildings as his way. Since he had noticed that the little set of troublemakers stuck to their activities at night, he figured that during the day would be the time that they would be back within the place they were using as a refuge. Hoping that he could locate their place would make getting to them at night much easier. After seeing the type of personality that Leo displayed, it was clear to Randall that being discovered by humans didn't frighten the young teen. If his little gang persisted on causing trouble, it would only be a matter of time before one of them was discovered by humans or even worse, all of them. Then there was the issue of why they were here, Randall had a feeling that these kids may not have been just banished monsters. If they were in fact monsters that had intentionally escaped here then why and for what reason were they here? If they were going to meet up with someone then who were they supposed to be meeting up with? Whomever was their boss, Randall needed to take care of the juvenile delinquents before this boss of theirs made it to the city.
As far as the little gang was concerned, right now they were still asleep within the old West Port Zoo. The only one who was awake was Trixie, the only girl of the group. After they had made it back home late last night, she decided to head straight to bed as the guys spent the rest of their night playing some expensive videogame that they had stolen. Sure enough by seven or so in the morning, the guys had fallen asleep from their hours of playing. She went over towards the large television, another little personal gift that they had stolen as she turned it on. It was nothing more but some boring talk show involving two women accusing one man of being the father of both their babies, same as everything else that humans had on their networks. Most of the time, this was what Trixie did during the day, watch whatever stuff that humans seemed to find entertaining. From what she could tell, humans enjoyed watching talk shows, reality television, and soap operas amongst other things. It almost reminded her a little of what kind of shows that the monster world had. Then she heard a loud yawn as Leo came walking near her chair, sounding half asleep.
"Hey Leo." she told him. He didn't say much to her, he just mumbled a bit before making his way over to a cooler and digging his hands around for a soda. After he finally found one, he opened the top and took a long drink.
"You awake now?" Trixie asked him.
He burped, wiped his mouth with his arm and finally answered her, "Yeah, I'm awake now, why the hell you up and all good morning sunshine anyway?"
"First off, vato, it's not even morning anymore and second, I actually got some hours of sleep last night unlike you two so I'm in a much better mood, obviously."
"Hey, sometimes it takes long hours in the night to show Dobs that I'm better at gaming, even if they're human games."
"So, that monster from last night? Is he the same one that the boss was talking about?" she asked him.
"He said that bastard's name was Randall Boggs so, yeah, that must be him. He's the one that we have to take care of."
"And when are we supposed to do that exactly?"
Leo took another long gulp of his soda, crushing the can after he finished, "We're supposed to wait til the boss gets here, he said that this Randall isn't some monster that you take lightly."
Then slowly stumbling towards them came Dobs, he didn't seem to be any more awake then Leo was. "Man, what freaking time is it?" he lazily asked.
"Time to wake up!" Leo told him.
"So, what's the plan when night falls?" Trixie asked.
Grabbing himself another, "I don't know, we got a few hours until then, I'm sure we'll figure something out."
As the hours had passed, Randall clearly didn't make it very far so when time was getting closer for Lillian to be getting out of school, he decided to head back towards his house before it got any later. He slowly snuck in through the back door and reappeared once he was inside. Sighing to himself, he made his way over to the music room and curled up onto the piano. He peered over at the clock, there still was about a half hour before school let out. Yawning, he decided to take himself a short nap before Lillian and Morgana were here.
Almost as if time had passed within seconds, school was out for the day and Lillian was seen walking out hand in hand with Mark. Morgana followed behind the two, looking like she was an odd addition to their little circle.
"Hey Lillian, don't forget that we're walking home together, remember?" she reminded her friend.
"Oh, yeah", she turned to Mark,
"Sorry, I did promise her this time, okay?"
"Hey, no worries baby, it's cool."
After the two kissed, Mark took off to get his bike as the girls started the way towards the old mansion. They walked for a little way until Morgana started conversation, "So, it's been like what, a month? Are you going to tell Randall now?"
"Well, I guess that I can." Lillian answered her.
"You guess that you can? You do realize that I've been the only one who's been seeing him after school, right? I've been coming up with one excuse after another as to why you haven't been showing up. I get that you love Mark and all but seriously, Randall was your friend first!"
Lillian sensed the anger in her voice, "Sheesh, what's your problem? Unless Randall's told you about how angry he is for not seeing me, sounds more like you're mad about me going out with Mark too!"
"I'm not, I'm glad that you're going out with the guy of your dreams but it's just unfair to Randall that you've been ignoring him!"
"Look, Randall will be fine, he's an adult, he'll understand. Besides, he's kind of used to it, when you and I were first friends, I was spending a lot of time with you and less with him. He was fine then, he'll be fine now!"
"Whatever." Morgana remarked.
The two were in front of the old mansion, entering inside the building as the door seemed to creek loudly. They walked down the hallway towards the music room and as usual, they didn't see Randall at first.
"Hey lizard boy, we're here."
Randall reappeared there upon the piano, he was so thrilled to see Lillian had finally come over to the house. "Lillian has something to tell you, don't you Lillian." Morgana remarked. Shooting a glance to Morgana, she decided to try and take the conversation towards a positive direction.
"So what did you want to tell me?" Randall asked.
Lillian cleared her throat before she started to explain, "Well…I have a boyfriend." Randall's expression changed once he heard that word, there seemed to be a change in attitude since he already had a suspicion as to whom the boyfriend was.
Candi was walking home by herself, it was kind of tiring to walk to and from school each day but since Brendan was dating Heather, she wasn't allowed to tag along. Not because Brendan said she couldn't but more like Heather was the reason. It didn't take long for Candi to realize that Heather didn't like her and made it clear that Candi wasn't allowed to hang with them when Heather was present. While to Candi it was maybe a little childish, she really didn't care, it wasn't like Brendan would cheat on the girl. As she walked past the park, she then noticed that there were three strange humans sitting on a bench. When she looked at the three, it soon became clear of who they were. The three looked like a young woman in her twenties, a sixteen year old boy and a fifth teen year old girl. Smiling, she walked over to the bench, "Hey, what's up?"
"Well, long time no see…where's the boyfriend at?" spoke the woman.
"He's not my boyfriend anymore, Chris."
Chris cocked an eyebrow, "Really? That's something different."
Candi laughed a little bit, "So when did you three get here?"
"Around last night, wasn't easy considering that you guys seem to have a bit of a problem with gang activity." Candi looked around before continuing, "I wouldn't say too much about that here, maybe we should go over to my place and then we can talk about it further." The three got up as they decided to walk alongside Candi towards the old coliseum near the pier.
Randall was pacing around the piano as Lillian and Morgana stood near the wall, watching him. "Randall, you're making a big deal out of this, don't you think?" Lillian asked him.
He stopped for a minute, "It's just…I find it a tad bit strange that not long after Heather broke up with him that he then starts going out with you."
Lillian glared at him, "What is that supposed to mean?"
He sensed the immediate tension, clearly that was a dumb move on his part, "No, I don't mean anything by it but Lillian, Mark is that one guy who never remembers your name, he was with Heather for two years. Even if the relationship wasn't real to her, it doesn't change the fact that it was very real to him. I find it just a slight bit odd that he found a way to move on so quickly because from what you guys told me, he took the breakup very hard."
"You know, it could just mean that he's finally realized just how shallow and empty Heather is and that I'm clearly a better girlfriend then her!" Lillian shot back.
In an attempt to lighten the mood, Randall tried to be more positive about the situation, "So how long have the two of you been seeing each other?"
"For about a month." she sternly explained.
"Hey Randall, so how have you been during the time?" Morgana asked, trying to change the subject. Relieved at Morgana's attempt, he decided to go ahead and tell her, "Well, I've been on the hunt for a few trouble makers here in West Port."
"Wait, you're hunting down for the little gang that's been causing all of the craziness? Randall, that's more of a job for the police." Lillian answered him.
"It would be…if they were human."
This caught the attention of the girls, Morgana decided to ask, "So, we're talking about monster trouble makers? Then how old are these monsters, some of the stuff that has been on the news sounds kind of like…well, like something a teenager would do."
"Judging from their appearance, that's more or less the age that I think they could be….teenage monsters pretty much."
Lillian ran the word through her mind, the basic word of teenager, it made her start to wonder about how monster teenagers were like compared to human teenagers. Were they rebellious, were they capable of being just as snappy, did being monsters be the only difference between the two? Then she started to wonder about this group of monsters that Randall was talking about, she asked, "Do you have any idea of who these monsters are?"
"It's a group of three monsters. A large doglike monster called Dobs, a human like monster called Trixie and then there's the leader…he's a monster that's the same species of monster like me, he calls himself Leo."
"Leo? So…if he's the same species as you then does that mean that he's capable of the same abilities as you?"
"Naturally he would, certain monster like abilities and traits pertain to only certain monsters. My species of monster naturally blends into our surroundings and can climb walls, it's just traits that we're born with. I'm sure that by his age, he's already mastered these abilities which will make him a big problem."
"Were you going to go hunting for them tonight?" Lillian asked him.
"Well, that's what I've been doing a little earlier, probably will definitely need to continue that tonight…why were you asking?" The girls exchanged glances before Lillian answered, "Well, if you need some extra help then we can come with you tonight and try to find them."
Randall's gaze shifted to the girls, "As much as I appreciate that, I think that hunting these three is best if I handle it on my own."
"Randall, come on! We're not little kids, we can help you." Morgana told him.
"Yeah, besides, if worse comes to worse then we can run for it." Lillian told him. He still didn't like the sound of this, he didn't like the idea of endangering them in this at all but then again…maybe if these young monsters weren't too smart and didn't know much about humans then maybe they could have some possible fear of the girls. Despite the years of the use of laugh energy, he knew that for some monsters, overcoming the fear of humans was not the easiest thing to do. These teenagers weren't Scourge, they probably hadn't been here that long so as far as their knowledge of humans was concerned, they probably didn't know anything. Then again, maybe it would be okay, he was a strong monster himself, he could handle these three if they tried to do anything to the girls.
He finally agreed, "Alright then, meet me here around late midnight or so, we'll head out after that." The girls nodded to show that they understood, "Sure, we'll meet you here", Lillian answered as they headed for the door.
The four humanoids were laughing and enjoying themselves sitting in the old bleachers of the coliseum. Candi couldn't believe some of the stuff that Chris and them had experienced while they would travel. "I can't believe that you messed with the owner of that motel like that, changing into dogs before he came in. He probably thought that he was losing it!" Candi told them, nearly laughing about the whole thing.
"Well that's one upside to transforming, it can fool humans nearly every time." Chris answered with a smirk. Eli decided to shift the conversation, "So, what's going on here in West Port, word on the street is that you guys have a little problem in relation to gang activity…never thought that West Port would have a problem like that."
"Yeah, it's been going on for some time now…but I'm thinking that it's not humans."
"You mean outsiders?" Leann asked, sounding a little worried.
"Leann, you don't need to use that word." Candi told her.
"Why not, that's what the other monsters are?" Chris questioned.
"I'm just not comfortable about using that word, that's all." Candi explained. Chris sighed,
"Whatever, back to what you were saying, what about your gang problem here?"
"Weeeellll, a few nights ago, I was just hanging out near the rooftops of the downtown area and I witnessed three monsters leaving a broken in building! One of them looked kind of like Randall."
"So the reptile is stealing now?" Chris retorted. Candi glared, "I said that it LOOKED like Randall, not that it was! This monster was black with some markings of red running down his back to the tip of his tail and the tips of his fronds. He also looked younger than Randall so like I said, I knew it wasn't him but I think the monster and his buddies have been causing all the trouble that I've heard about on the news."
Eli smirked, "So what do these out…I mean other monsters think that they're accomplishing? All of the stunts that they're pulling is very noticeable and it won't be long before the humans find them…they sound like they're pretty stupid to me."
Candi thought about that, "If they're teenagers then they're probably doing this more to get their kicks."
"Huh", Chris wondered, "If I remember, the monster world outlawed banishing teen monsters a few years ago, so clearly this trio you're talking about aren't here due to anything they've done punishment wise. They could be runaways but we know from our own experience of escaping the other world that it's not easy getting here. Them being here is probably no accident, that's for sure."
"Well that's only part of the weirdness about them, the other part is that I think they're the ones who wrote that message on the high school wall."
"What did that message say?"
"Two words, he's back. What I would like to know is who he is and back from where?" Candi asked. Leann shuddered at the thought, "Maybe they mean he as in that very scary wolf monster that you guys were dealing with."
"That's impossible, Leann. Scourge is locked up in Monstropolis, that would be pretty crazy for that message to refer to him." Candi told her.
"So, what's the reptile planning to do about the juvenile delinquents?" Chris interrupted.
"Well, I'm not sure what Randall is planning to do but I'm sure that he can handle them, he's older than they are."
"Older doesn't mean smarter when it comes to outsiders." Chris replied. Candi sighed, it seems that some habits you can't really break, "Well, were you guys planning on going out or something. If you want, you can spend the night here, my place has room to spare."
"Sure, that's fine", Chris answered her, "Saves us the trouble of finding a place to stay for the night."
A gas station sat so quietly, the lone cashier minding his business when suddenly he saw a strange woman walk in the door, she looked like she just came back from a costume party.
"Hey, where do you keep the drinks?" she asked.
The cashier stared at her funny until he pointed towards the back of the store. Turning to where he was pointing, she went towards the back freezers and grabbed herself about two six pack of beers. When she came back to the front and placed the beer cans on the counter, the cashier asked, "I'm going to need to see some ID please?"
"I forgot it at home." she answered him.
"Then you can't buy any beer until I see it."
He heard the bell on the door ring but he didn't even give whomever entered a second glance but then suddenly, he felt something scaly grab his neck and started squeezing very tight. He glanced over to see Leo, his blood red eyes staring so coldly into the man's face as he struggled to pry off whatever was around his neck. Leo's tail was wrapped around pretty tight, he only remarked, "That's okay, we've got the fine finger discount."
Without a second thought, Leo used his tail to launch the human over the counter and crashing into a potato chips display. Trixie couldn't help but start laughing as Leo, as cocky as he was, jumped over the counter and leaned against it.
"Should we grab more?" she asked.
"Hell yeah, everyday in this world is a party and it's time to see if what they have can match up to our stuff back home!" Leo told her.
Trixie grabbed the two six packs as Leo headed towards the back to grab a few more. The two monsters left the man pretty much stunned as he laid there and watched them in fear, afraid to move in case the large lizard tried to do anything else to him. Outside, Dobs was bored until he saw Trixie and Leo return, "That was noisy, what happened?"
"Man refused Trixie customer service so I filed a complaint." Leo told him. The three monsters decided to head back to their place a little early, they got what they came for.
Just as their night was ending, Randall's was just beginning. He waited for the girls inside and when he saw them coming up the sidewalk, he opened the door and disappeared. "Okay", he spoke to them, "We'll head to the edge of the city, from there we can go by rooftop."
"Randall, no offense but how are you going to manage carrying both of us?" Lillian whispered out loud.
"You need to give me some credit, I'll find some way to manage, we'll walk the way there first, okay? The whole point of us going out scouting is so we can find the little troublemakers and their nest. Don't worry, alright?"
The girls exchanged glances, they might as well leave it to Randall, he would figure something out. As they started to walk down the neighborhood road and soon made their way towards the street, Morgana asked, "Wonder how we'll know where they hit next?"
Then suddenly police sirens could be heard as a cop car came around the corner and quickly sped down the road. "Guess that answers your question." Lillian told her.
The two girls quickly ran in the direction that they saw the cop car go, Randall in camouflage following right behind them. When they made it to the gas station, the girls kept themselves out of sight in case the police would start to ask them why they were out so late. Randall reappeared right behind them, they stared as the cashier was being wheeled out in a stretcher and the police were looking the place over.
"Damn, were they robbing the place?" Morgana asked.
Then they heard the man randomly yelling at the paramedics about the giant lizard and the freaky lady who was with him. "It's worse than that, Leo and his little friends allowed a human to actually see them! This is bad, this is very, very bad!" Randall stammered.
"Wait, if Leo can do what you can then why would he allow himself to be seen? Wouldn't it have been easier for him to go in there camouflaged and get whatever he was after?" Lillian asked. Randall realized that she made a good point but then again, if Leo didn't care then he probably wouldn't have bothered. Right now, he knew that this meant that finding where Leo stayed was going to be top priority. The fact that one human saw Leo was bad enough, he had to stop this brat before he would try to pull another stunt like this again.