The title's after a Metallica song, NOT the slide song. I just felt I had to make that abundantly clear. Feel free to leave feedback, and thank you for reading!
Even when the electrical burst subsided, the dog was hesitant to let go of either the boy or the cat. It was only when Sherman wriggled out of his grasp that he allowed himself to let go of either of them, and he shakily stood alongside them, now dressed in a brown suit coat, vest, shirt, and bowler hat. Rigby was in a white lace dress with a high collar, and Sherman in a newsboy cap, blue shirt, tweed trousers, and brown shoes. They fit in perfectly with the dusty Victorian workshop around them.
"Nikola, it would seem as though your experiment had one of those… What's the phrase…? Unexpected reactions," they heard in an amused, Southern-dripped chuckle. "Why you've created not one, but three varieties of life, friend! Not bad at all for someone who's too busy for the likes of women."
A middle-aged man, who had been wearing a pair of goggles, pulled these up and rose up from the chair he'd been sitting in, rushing over to the three.
"It's that guy who sells fried chicken…" said Rigby with a daze as she shakily rose and laid eyes upon the old southerner in the white suit.
"Mr. Peabody!" the younger man exclaimed with a smile, embracing his dizzy friend. "It's been much too long, much too long. This surely cannot be Sherman!"
"Hi, Mr. Telsa!" Sherman waved to the inventor.
"Peabody! You rascal, there you are! You still owe me three dollars from that last gambling trip we took down the Mississippi!" the Southern man laughed.
"Who might this lady be?" he reached out a hand to the cat, who accepted it.
"That's my mom!" Sherman exclaimed before Peabody could properly introduce Rigby. "I've got a mom now! She's an artist!"
"Well your family just gets more curious!" laughed the man.
"A cat. Cats are one of the very reasons I grew to love science," said Tesla gently. "One of my best friends in the world growing up was my cat."
"Really now?" Rigby cleared her throat and straightened the fur atop her head. Peabody, in response, stepped quickly in between the two.
"Mrs. Peabody, this is Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain, respectively," said Peabody, emphasis placed upon the "Mrs.".
"Is time mixing itself up again?" Rigby whispered worried.
"No, they're great friends!" Sherman giggled, and Twain nodded in agreement.
"We may be a little unlikely, but America's full of unlikely surprises," said Twain, scanning the small family before him.
"Nikola, I'm afraid I have to ask you if you've noticed anything unusual lately. A man, perhaps goes by the name Kensey," Peabody followed Tesla around inside his lab, while Tesla rushed about, making adjustments to the large machine before them.
"Kensey… I think I may have heard this name… I believe he is somewhere closer to town, if my memory serves me. He moved in about a month ago."
"A month?!" the dog exclaimed, and then slapped his forehead and moaned.
"Fellow did you wrong somehow, Peabody?" asked Twain.
"I'm afraid so, Samuel. Nikola, would you at all mind giving us directions?"
"Or taking us there!" Rigby chimed in.
"We don't really—S-Sherman, wait, don't touch that!" Peabody called out, rushing over to his boy.
"I wasn't," Sherman quickly placed both of his hands behind his back, but it had been obvious to the dog that the boy was inching towards a large humming electrical coil.
"Let's go," Peabody sighed, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses.
"It's a shame Mr. Tesla couldn't come with us!" Sherman stuck his head out the window of the carriage to get a better look at the city, placing a hand atop his tweed newsboy cap.
"Such a shame…" Peabody murmured, adjusting his own bowler cap.
"…You're not jealous, are you?" Rigby chuckled.
"Me, jealous? Hardly," Peabody snorted, his arms folded.
"You are!" Rigby chuckled with disbelief. "I thought I'd never see the day!"
"I'm more concerned with the WABAC," Peabody answered, waving out the window of the cab to the driver as they approached the house that Tesla had described.
"What is it with these rich guys and big houses?" Rigby stood across the street from the red and white brick structure that was guarded by a wrought-iron fence. After hopping out of the cab, she had hid behind a tree in a nearby park along with Sherman and Peabody.
"I don't hear you complaining about the golf course," Peabody replied, taking off his glasses and squinting.
"Why're we here instead of going up and knocking the door?" Sherman glanced out from behind the tree, and quickly ducked back behind the tree. Peabody answered this by lowering the cap on the boy's head.
"I thought about doing the very thing, Sherman, but Mr. Kensey has made it abundantly clear he wants no visitors. That fence is barbwire, and electrified on top of it. Fortunately I found a weak spot, of course. Besides that, I feel as though the presence of us might only make him run off again. So we're going to go with an alternative idea which, while not exactly legal, is probably our best means of locating the WABAC."
"Why do I feel like you could have been lot more morally gray if you'd had the wrong influence growing up?" Rigby murmured, watching as the dog pulled out a can of brown powder and unscrewed it after tossing off the coat and shirt he'd been wearing. Within moments, the pure white dog had been transformed into an unsuspecting-looking brown and white spotted one.
"All right—Sherman, as I had it told to me, Mr. Kensey will return promptly at three o' clock luncheon at this time. You're going to run up to him in tears and tell him about your missing companion. You'll appeal to his sympathies and begin the hunt for me. I, meanwhile, will scale up the weak spot in the fence and into the home. That will give me time to look about for the WABAC, and when he eventually returns home, he'll find the missing dog in question, and everyone will be pleased!"
"Here, give me that," Rigby took the powder from Peabody, and started to unbutton the high-collar dress she'd been wearing. Peabody reached up to place a paw over Sherman's eyes, and Rigby rolled her eyes and begin to pat the powder on herself, giving the appearance of a calico cat by the end of it.
"Oh no you don't. I know what you're planning and I'm absolutely against it. I won't risk a cat-astrophe!" Peabody snapped, his eyes narrowed.
"I'm over here, Hector," she set down the powder and sighed, watching as Peabody instigated a fight with the tree. "…Is… That vision genetic?"
"Hehe, Hector," Sherman giggled to himself.
"Shermannn…." Peabody snapped.
"I'll go in and look around! There's an open window, I can squeeze in!" Rigby replied, holding her hands to her waist. Even without glasses, he could tell she'd changed. Peabody glanced at the rounder stomach, and she glared.
"It's just how mass works!" he exclaimed after a chilled silence between them. "Only so much can displace!"
"You two get a move on. I'll be fine," Rigby whispered, beginning her run to the house.
"Wait!" Peabody hissed. "Rigby! Rigby! Kim! Kimberly Bat Sheva Peabody-Rigby!"
"Mr. Peabody… That's a fire hydrant you're shouting at…"
The dog took a step back, and reached out to feel the metal, "Oh. So it is. All right, Sherman. Are you ready?"
"Kinda I guess…" Sherman murmured, and Mr. Peabody then took off running as soon as he saw Kensey walking towards his home, coffee and newspaper in hand. Peabody ran out in front of him, nearly tripping over Kensey, and Sherman followed afterward, bumping into Kensey and causing the man to drop and spill the pages of his newspaper everywhere.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Sherman gasped. "Mister! Mister, my dog! He ran away!"
Kensey sighed with disdain, "Didn't you have it on a leash, kid?"
"I… I couldn't afford one!" Sherman explained, glancing briefly behind Kensey to watch Rigby squeeze through the ajar window. "Please, Mister! Help!"
"…All right," Kensey sighed and crouched down, "Which way did he run off to?"
"Down here!" Sherman tugged Kensey by the hand, and the man allowed himself to be pulled by the young boy. "Here boy! Come on!"
"What's his name?"
"Hector."
"Hec—"
"I. I mean it's Spot. Here Spot! Come here!"
Rigby could hear as Kensey join in the shouting, and finished her descent into what appeared to be a living room. And she let out a hiss as she saw she wasn't alone.
The figure in question turned, and she saw it was only Peabody, admiring a painting hung on a wall and inlayed with a thick brass frame.
"W-What are you doing here?!" she reared up on two feet and stomped over to him. "I had this!"
"That's not all you have," Peabody replied, walking over to her. "You remember "not reckless"? Well this is incredibly reckless! This is the definition of reckless!"
"….This painting's new…" Rigby said as she stepped forward, her attention completely away from their argument. "It's acrylic, and no one used that until 1934."
"Exactly… Even with my vision lacking I could make out something unique about this."
"Here, Rigby sighed and lifted up the glasses she'd carried with her and placed them on Peabody's face. "Better?"
"You brought these?"
"I figured you'd follow me."
"…You know, you make a lovely calico…"
"Down, boy," Rigby giggled, nudging him a bit and then wandering around the parlor. "…There's a lot of paintings of the same girl."
"Daughter or niece, I'm willing to bet."
"What makes you think that?"
"Well, for one, they possess the very same zygomatic arch, denoting some genetic relation," he replied, pointing to the cheekbones of the brunette girl in the blue dress as he and Rigby stood in front of another painting. "…And it tends to be a parent thing. I carry a photograph of Sherman everywhere. If he's living here, he'd more than likely want pictures up."
"It's… New, but it's not that new…"
"Hrm?"
"Well, there's some chipping, and it looks like it was left in a sunny room—At least this picture. I'm guessing thirty years old?"
"So his daughter's older. Well, he is an older man."
"Why no new pictures, then?" asked Rigby. The knob to the heavy wooden door of the parlor started to turn, and both the cat and dog began to scramble, choosing to pose amongst the taxidermied animals that cluttered the room.
"Such a mess…" murmured the maid who entered the parlor, feather duster in hand. Rigby and Peabody exchanged glances from across the room as the woman wandered the room, idly dusting. She inched closer to Rigby with the duster, while the cat was frozen in an attack pose against a stuffed quail, and Peabody shuddered, knowing what was coming.
He allowed himself to relax as the maid passed over Rigby with her duster, and the cat managed to hold in her sneeze. It was when a single feather fell from the duster and landed on Rigby's nose that the cat found a struggle, and gave way to a sneeze. This went ignored, as it happened the same time as a bark. The maid spun around and gasped as the presence of the barking beagle. While the shrieking maid's attention was taken up by Peabody, Rigby slipped out and down the hallway.
A few whacks with the feather duster didn't seem to deter Peabody—He rushed out after Rigby, deftly dodging the harried maid as he turned into an ajar door, which turned out to be a library.
He barely had enough time to regain his composure when he noticed that he wasn't alone in the room.
In front of him stood Kensey—Who was gripping onto Sherman's arm tightly with his right hand and Rigby's with his left. Sherman struggled in the grip while Rigby stood still, her claws drawn and the a frown across her face.
"Oh, hello, Spot," hissed the tall man, who shoved both Rigby and Sherman towards Peabody. "I found your boy and kitty for you."