Drex was furious as he left the Man Cave, he couldn't believe that Ray's concern for his new sidekick trumped the history the hero had with him. 'I'm doing this for Henry..' Drex snorted, shaking his head as he remembered the look on Ray's face as he said the words. How could some clueless child become so close to Ray in such a short amount of time? Drex steamed as he snuck up and down different backroads to Brad's house, by the time he got to the front door he'd revised his master plan of thwarting Captain Man and taking over Swellview to include destroying Kid Danger as well.
"You're back." Brad said as he opened the door, he'd been waiting for Drex to get back for a little while now. "How'd it go after I left?" He asked, following the man to the kitchen. Drex grabbed an orange soda out of the fridge and popped the top before turning around to lean against the counter.
"Well, Jeff didn't screw things up at the hardware store like I thought he would, and I don't think Captain Man caught on that you were there. Technically speaking, everything went according to plan." Drex shrugged, acting like he didn't care. "None of it matters anyway though, Ray loves his little blonde nuisance more than I gave him credit for." Brad watched as the can Drex was holding started to take on the imprints of the man's fingers.
"So what does that mean?" Brad asked, trying to learn a little more about how Drex felt about this before he offered up his own opinions. Drex thought about it for a moment even though he already knew exactly what he was going to say, he'd thought about it the entire trip back to Brad's house.
"It means we need to up our game if we're going to have any chance of our plan working." Drex looked up, somehow knowing where Brad was standing even though he couldn't see the man. "If you're going to become Captain Man's sidekick we're going to have to try harder. A lot harder."
…
"Henry!" Ms. Shapen yelled as the boy tried to sneak into class unnoticed the next morning. "I see you didn't learn your lesson last night in detention. You're late."
"I know…" Henry answered through a stifled yawned, trying not to make eye contact with his teacher as he found his way to his seat. Charlotte frowned when she saw the bags under his eyes, it was obvious the boy hadn't slept again the night before. She was starting to worry about him.
"You know?" Ms. Shapen repeated back to him. Henry chewed on his bottom lip, watching as the woman crossed her arms and scowled at him. Charlotte knew that Henry was about to find himself stuck in detention again that afternoon if someone didn't do something, so she raised her hand and called out to the teacher.
"Ms. Shapen I have a question!" She shouted a little louder than she intended to. Ms. Shapen rolled her eyes, but turned her attention over to Charlotte and away from Henry. Henry smiled at Charlotte, silently thanking her for saving him from enduring another trip to the detention room. Charlotte nodded once in response, looking up at her teacher now.
"What?" The teacher asked, still bent out of shape because Henry had come in late and disturbed her lesson.
"I was just wondering…" Charlotte scanned the room, her eyes falling on the copy of Hamlet that was sitting on Jasper's desk. "Uh… if The Lion King is just another version of the story, Hamlet, are there other children's movies that compare to Shakespeare's other works?"
"Excellent question!" Ms. Shapen praised, clapping her hands together as she forgot all about Henry and got ready to give the class a long winded explanation to Charlotte's question. Lucky for the students, the bell signaling the end of class rang and they were spared.
"Henry!" Charlotte hurried and grabbed all her things up in her arms, nodding to the door once Henry looked at her. The boy caught on, slipping out the door while Ms. Shapen was yelling that 'the bell didn't dismiss them, she did'.
"Thanks for that." Henry said once he and Charlotte were safely out of Ms. Shapen's sight at Henry's locker. Charlotte nodded, leaning against one of the neighboring lockers.
"So why were you late again?" She asked. Henry opened his locker, placing his backpack on the ground while he switched out the books he needed for his next couple of classes.
"Because my alarm didn't go off again this morning!" He shook his head. "I wouldn't mind, but I double checked like four different times!" He threw his arms up in disbelief. "I couldn't sleep and I just… I'm tired Char." Henry closed his locker door and leaned his head against the cool metal. Charlotte frowned slightly, she felt bad for Henry.
"Yeah… I guess this hasn't been your week. I mean first there was that whole thing about Drex, then you twisted your ankle, not to mention what happened last night. Captain Man didn't seem to happy in that interview with Evelyn Hall…"
"He wasn't." Henry answered sourly as he turned to glare at her, he didn't really want to be reminded of the misery he'd gone through over the past couple of days. He frowned when he saw the girl's face fall. "I'm sorry… I didn't mean it. I just don't know how much more of this I can take."
"I get it." Charlotte answered, a smile lighting up her face as she got an idea. "Hey, I'm going to the mall after school today to pick out a birthday present for my Uncle Rosco, why don't you come with me? We'll be done with plenty of time to get to work on time and it'll get your mind off of… everything."
"Sounds good. I'm up for just about anything right now."
"Cool!" Charlotte smiled. "We should probably start heading to our classes though… I can't distract your teachers with Hamlet questions when we're in different classes." She laughed a little. Henry smiled and shook his head.
"No, I don't think you can. I'll see you after school."
…
"Alright guys, listen up. Today we're playing dodgeball." The teacher said, gesturing to the line of cones dividing the gymnasium in half. "I don't think I should have to go over the rules of the game at this point in the year, but I know none of you remember what anyone says to you so here we go. You get hit, you're out. If you catch a ball someone throws at you, the thrower is out." The teacher turned and looked at Mitch Bilsky as he went over the next portion of the rules. "There will be no balls being thrown in other people's faces, there will be no low-blows, and there will be no ball hoarding. If you're hit, you're hit… this is PE, not the Olympics." The teacher looked around at the bored looking students. "Now, if we all understand, divide yourselves into two teams and we'll start." After giving the kids a chance to break up into the yellow team and the red team the teacher blew his whistle and the game started.
"You're all going down!" Mitch screamed, eyeing Henry. "I'm coming for you Hart! You better watch yourself."
"Yeah, whatever." Henry answered, rolling his eyes as he picked one of the balls up. Dodgeball was one of Henry's favorite games to play in gym class and he wasn't about to let Mitch ruin his good time.
As the game went on Henry managed to get a few yellow team players out, and his team had managed to keep at least some of their players alive as well. Normally the teacher would have had to reset another game by now, but for the moment this round was going strong. The red team had two other players beside Henry and three members of the yellow team were keeping them plenty busy, that meant Mitch would finally get the one-on-one match up against Henry he wanted. The older boy whipped a ball past Henry's head to get his attention, it slammed into the wall behind the younger boy and bounced, rolling back over to Mitch.
"You ready to lose?" Mitch asked, raising an eyebrow as he smirked at the boy.
"Come on Mitch! It's just a game!" Henry called back, jumping out of the way just as Mitch lobbed another ball his way. Henry shook his head, picking the ball up as it rolled past him on it's way back to Mitch.
"Come on Hart!" Mitch closed his eyes, taunting Henry. "I'll give you a freebie! Hit me!" Henry narrowed his eyes at Mitch, he wasn't going to miss an opportunity to put him in his place. After tossing a ball up and down in his palm Henry threw a purple sphere towards Mitch, aiming at his knees. At the same time, a bright blue ball whizzed by, smashing into Mitch's face.
"Uh oh…" Henry frowned when Mitch Bilsky's eyes flew open and locked onto Henry's face.
"Oh you think you're real cute don't you!?" Mitch growled, stepping forward. Henry looked around him and noticed that the rest of his teammates were using the floor further to the right than he was, there was no way one of them threw that ball based on the angle it was thrown at. Henry backed up a few steps, his heart starting to race as Mitch stalked towards him. The boy turned to try and get away, but Mitch grabbed him by the back of his shirt and slammed him face first into the wall.
"I swear it wasn't me!" Henry cried, squirming as he tried to get away.
"There wasn't even anyone near you! Who else could've thrown it!?" Mitch asked, turning Henry so he was face to face with him. The other students watched, too afraid to do or say anything when Mitch grabbed the front of Henry's red shirt and twisted it, keeping him in place.
"The ball I threw was purple!" Henry tried, desperate to get Mitch to believe him. "The ball that hit you was blue!"
"Blue, purple..." Mitch said, tilting his head to either side as he toyed with Henry. "How about both?" Mitch asked, as he pulled back his arm and swung, connecting with the bone just under Henry's left eye. Henry cried out in pain, holding both hands over his eye once he was dropped and left on the floor.
"Bilsky!" The teacher's voice boomed as he stepped out of his office and noticed what was going on. Mitch smiled and held his hands up in surrender.
"Don't worry, I know my way to the office pretty well."
…
"Henry!" Charlotte called, walking over to the table at the food court her friend was sitting at. Her face quickly fell when he lifted his sunglasses up and looked at her. A deep purplish blue bruise was a painful looking beacon pulling her attention to the left side of Henry's face. "What happened to you!?" She asked, watching as the boy lowered the glasses back into place.
"Mitch Bilsky happened." Henry spat, taking an angry sip of the vanilla milkshake that sat in front of him. His pushed a strawberry one towards Charlotte and waited for her to sit down before he told her about the mishap during gym.
"Wait…" Charlotte stopped him, taking another sip of her drink. "If you didn't throw the ball, who did?"
"I have no idea, all I know is that I didn't throw it." Henry sighed. "Look, I don't mean to ruin your shopping or anything, but can we just find a gift for your uncle and get out of here? I just want this day to be over."
"Yeah." Charlotte smiled sympathetically and patted Henry's hand. "There's a shop down at the other end of the mall that we can look in, come on." The girl got up, tossing both of their cups away before she started walking through the mall, leading the way to the store she'd been referring to. Henry tiredly shuffled a few feet behind her listening to the ideas she had for different gifts she might get for her uncle's birthday. Charlotte went on talking, not bothering to look back at Henry until she heard a yell followed by a loud splash. When she turned around, Henry was face down in the penny wishing fountain and a skateboard was overturned next to one of the potted plants, one of it's wheels was just starting to come to a stop.
"Come on!" Henry screamed, splashing angrily. "Why!? Why, why, why, why?!"
"Where did this even come from?" Charlotte asked, ignoring Henry as she looked around for the skateboard's owner. Even though there was a decent crowd starting to form due to the scene Henry was making, nobody seemed like they were looking for the board. Charlotte frowned slightly, narrowing her eyes as she looked from the skateboard to Henry, things just didn't seem to be adding up. "Henry, come on." Charlotte said, pushing her way through the crowd of people taking videos on their cellphones so she could grab Henry by his arm. She hauled him out of the fountain, daring anyone to get in her way. Without another word, she picked up the skateboard and hurried towards the mall exit with Henry.
…
"So he's not coming?" Ray asked, pinching the bridge of his nose. Charlotte had just finished explaining how Henry had ended up in the fountain at the mall and how Mitch had given him a black eye in gym class. Ray had not wanted to get news like this, in fact he'd been worrying about Henry ever since he'd dropped him off at his house the night before. After the little chat he'd had with Drex, Ray felt even more compelled than he usually did to protect his sidekick, and now Charlotte was here telling him that trouble had managed to find Henry again today.
"I wouldn't bet on it. He wouldn't even talk to me after we made it out of the mall." Charlotte sighed, pursing her lips. "I'm really starting to worry about him. It seems like he's had nothing but bad luck ever since… well, ever since you told him about Drex." Charlotte frowned slightly, this information made her even more suspicious about what was going on. "Kinda strange if you ask me…"
"Yeah… it is strange now that you mention it" Ray nodded, agreeing with her. The man narrowed his eyes and took a moment to think about what his next move should be, ultimately he decided that he needed to find Henry. "Look, I'm going to go check on Henry and make sure he's okay. You stay here and watch the crime light. You know the drill by now, call me if there are any emergencies."
"Will do." Charlotte nodded, taking her seat at the Control Panel.
While Ray was out checking on Henry, Charlotte used the time to try to get some answers to the questions she had about the skateboard. It didn't take her long to hack into the mall security database and find the footage of Henry falling into the fountain, as she had suspected the skateboard had tripped him. Charlotte backed up the video in slow motion, watching the skateboard roll backwards and stand itself up to lean against the wall.
"What?" Charlotte asked, scrunching her face up in confusion at what she'd just seen. She frowned, replaying the video a couple of times. There was simply no way that the board had fallen and rolled itself under Henry's feet on it's own. "I wonder if…" Charlotte started to say before trailing off so she could pull up the feed from the hardware store. The girl was about to look up the video from when Kid Danger had fallen chasing Jeff across the shelves, but an alert flashed across the screen, interrupting her. A break in at some sort of factory used to manufacture tools put Charlotte's investigation on hold so she could call Ray and let him know that Captain Man was needed.
A/N: So there's chapter four! I think I cut it off a little bit before I wanted to because it felt like it was getting long. I'm on vacation for the week so I don't know if I'll be updating until next week sometime, but there will be another chapter coming soon. For now, thank you all for reading, reviewing, and adding this story to your favorites/follow lists! See you next chapter!