Chapter 10
Agony
I don't own Into the Woods… still.
Takes place during "Pork Chopped".
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Whenever Dustin was working on a bike, he felt like he was at the top of his game, focusing so intently on his work that he tended to blur everything else out until he was in his own little world, where it was just him and the bike and sheer awesomeness.
He got a lot of good thinking done that way.
And that was why he didn't immediately catch on when Hunter came up and started a conversation with him. At least, Dustin assumed there was a conversation going on; like he said, he wasn't too sure. The brunette had only noticed the other ranger when he reached over to grab a certain tool and was blocked by a solid clothed wall. A solid, clothed, warm wall that felt a lot like a person. With abs.
Startled, the earth ninja pulled his hand back and looked over to see that Hunter had been leaning against the table right beside him, and was giving him an incredulous look.
"Did you catch any of that?" the crimson ranger asked, quirking an eyebrow.
"…No?" Dustin replied, wracking his brain in case he might have caught something.
Yeah, he had nothing.
Hunter nodded slowly, looking over the pieces that lay scattered around the broken bike.
"I get that way too," he said suddenly, sharp eyes turning back to Dustin. "When I work on bikes."
"Really?" Because that would be seriously awesome if Dustin wasn't like the lone-doofus who couldn't pay attention to his surroundings.
Not that Hunter was a doofus or anything.
"Sure," Hunter replied, willing to go along with it. He blinked a couple of times before gesturing hesitantly towards Dustin's face. "You got something…"
"Where?" the yellow ranger asked, looking wildly around for a mirror. Nertz, he must have gotten some oil on his face. He wished he kept more reflective things in the shop so he could see for sure.
"Eyebrow," Hunter said, sounding just the tiniest bit amused.
Sure, laugh at Dustin's pain. See how you felt about it when it happened to you.
Except it wouldn't happen to him, because he was Hunter, and he actually thought about what he did before he did it.
"Oh…" Dustin mumbled, searching for a rag. He spotted one tucked into his tool kit and yanked it out so he could get rid of the mess as fast as he could. It was halfway to his face before Hunter lunged at him suddenly, grabbing the rag and pulling it out of Dustin hand.
"Don't!" he shouted, and Dustin was about to ask him in which of the past few seconds he had lost his mind when Hunter turned the rag over (the part Dustin had been going to use) to reveal a gigantic blotch of oil.
See, there was that thinking-before-doing-stuff thing again.
Dustin just didn't have the hang of it yet.
"Here," Hunter began more calmly; tossing aside the dirty cloth and locating a clean one. "Let me get it."
Dustin was about to protest (because he wasn't that incapable) but Hunter had already grabbed his face with one hand and began the process of wiping whatever mess Dustin managed to get on himself away. During the process, the mechanic couldn't help but think about how surprisingly gentle Hunter was being. Dustin would have thought the crimson ranger would be a lot rougher about it, being the gruffest of the rangers. Maybe he was kind of like Cam. Or a Nestle Drumstick. He was all hard and covered with nuts on the outside but on the inside he was all soft and sweet and stuff.
And incredibly delicious.
Hunter pulled the rag away delicately, giving Dustin's eyebrow one last look over to make sure he had gotten everything before casually tossing the rag aside and resuming his old position of leaning against the table, acting as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Then again, they did fight an evil space ninja on a day-to-day basis, so Dustin supposed it was nothing out of the ordinary.
It was all about perspective.
"Thanks," Dustin replied cheerfully, rubbing the spot where the other teen's hand had been as the heat climbed up to his face. He turned back to his work quickly in an attempt to hide it and missed Hunter's smirk.
"You're welcome," the other ranger replied, beginning to sound more like his smug self.
Well, that wasn't fair; Hunter wasn't smug all the time. The crimson ranger had just gotten a terrible first impression with the others because of the whole "being-lied-to" thing, so Dustin just had the tendency to think he was always smug. But he wasn't. He was actually a pretty chill guy.
Dustin cleared his throat awkwardly, keeping his eyes on the table. "How long have you been…?"
"Only a few minutes," Hunter confirmed as the tool Dustin had originally been reaching for slid into his view on the table, coming to a rest by his hand.
Dustin grimaced and accepted the tool, mumbling, "Nuts."
Well, a few minutes wasn't too bad.
"It's okay," Hunter assured, patting Dustin on the arm hesitantly before pulling back, like he was afraid the mechanic was going to wig out on him or something, which Dustin wasn't, but he could understand where the blond was coming from.
Finally composed, Dustin chanced looking back over to him, wondering what Hunter had been talking about in the first place.
The crimson ranger caught his confusion and backpedaled, easily restarting the conversation. "Blake and I got tickets to see Fists of Fire 2 at the Martial Arts Film Festival, and I was wondering if you wanted to come."
Pure joy was Dustin's immediate response to the invitation.
"Fists of Fire 2! I love that movie!"
He did; he had seen it with Shane at least a dozen times, and it was easily one of his top ten favorite movies. He had missed it when it had come to theaters (something he was incredibly disappointed about) and had only seen it on a television screen. To go see it at an actually theater would be so cool.
"That a yes?" Hunter asked, victorious look on his face.
Dustin didn't know what the crimson ranger was happy about; he was the one that just got a free ticket to one of the greatest movies of all time.
"Sure!" the yellow ranger replied, good mood returning. "When is it?"
"Tomorrow," the other teen said, pointing off to the side as though there was an invisible calendar. "Three o'clock at Hollywood Cinema."
This would be awesome, Dustin couldn't wait to-
Wait, what was tomorrow?
Saturday.
Saturday.
There was something about that Dustin was supposed to remember, something he was supposed to do.
"Saturday?" he asked, trying to get clarification. Maybe it was Thursday and he had just gotten confused.
But Hunter nodded his head to confirm it. "Yeah."
Saturday. Saturday. Saturday. What was-
The demo. Shane's Skate Competition was on Saturday and he had been talking about it all week. While Dustin hadn't promised he was going to be there, his presence was pretty much guaranteed. Shane went to every one of his races and Dustin always returned the favor. Except you don't race in skateboarding, but a demo was pretty much the same thing. Shane was scheduled to compete at three, the exact same time the movie started, so there was no way Dustin could do both. He would have to turn Hunter down.
It was such a shame; he had really wanted to go.
The brunette's shoulders sagged dejectedly. "I can't go," he sighed, fiddling with a stray bike part. "Shane's got a demo I promised to go to."
Wait, no, Dustin was not going to be sad about missing this. Shane had probably missed plenty of cool stuff for him; the least he could do was return the favor.
"That's cool." Hunter didn't look too upset about it (not in a, "oh-I-didn't-really-want-you-to-come" kind of way, Dustin assured himself). "Maybe some other time," the blond finished casually, reaching over and squeezing Dustin's shoulder to confirm his not-angry state.
Dustin was mildly surprised by this. "Really?"
So maybe he wouldn't get to see Fists of Fire 2 in a theater, but any movie was good for him as long as he had good company. He wasn't all that picky.
Dustin waited expectantly. It was okay if this was only a one time offer; Hunter didn't have to humor him.
He had maintained his casual appearance but Hunter's eyes had this funny look in them, like he was searching for something.
"Yeah," he replied.
The excitement came back. "Awesome, I'll even buy the tickets next time."
Hunter waved at him no. "Don't sweat it man, I got this."
Dustin was a little miffed about his rejected gift but the movie thing was still on so he didn't comment on it, settling for happily agreeing. "Okay."
Hunter smirked again and gave Dustin one last arm pat before turning to leave. "Later man."
Hunter Bradley, coolness incarnate.
"Later," Dustin called after him, waving at his back.
Maybe he could convince him to go on Monday, when they get off work early.
Yes, Monday would be good.
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180 Fakie to Backside Rail slide.
She was a fickle beast; delicate, feisty, and difficult. If you could tame her, you clearly took a step forward in skill level, unquestionably noting yourself as one of the best of the best.
Shane had yet to land one.
He thought (under Dustin's suggestion because these kinds of things tended to work for him) that the pressure of an audience would be enough to get Shane that extra "umf" he needed to complete the move triumphantly, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind that he was a person with mad skills. Unfortunately, this had not been the case, and just like every time he had ever attempted it, he ate it big time.
Ironically enough Tori congratulated him on this accomplishment.
Shane knew she wasn't very educated in the ways of skateboarding, but he had thought he had spoken about it enough for her to understand that falling was bad. Maybe she was just trying to stay optimistic, or make him feel better, or some girl-mind trick he didn't understand and didn't want to bother trying to understand. Anyway, even if it made no sense he was willing to ignore any negative feelings he had about it.
And then he had watched her ninja streak off into the distance after she insisted on getting them drinks they didn't need and he decided it would be okay to be just the tiniest bit mad at her. He entertained the idea that she was leaving because of his "wipeout" (Cam got him in the habit of thinking it) for about two seconds (he was allowed to be a little self conscious) when Shane got smart and realized that her earlier reaction only made sense if she hadn't seen his run. He put two and two together and figured out that this hadn't been her first streak away, and he couldn't help but wonder what she had that was so important she needed to keep secret and couldn't possibly miss.
And then Shane got a little bit more than slightly mad at her.
Luckily (or unluckily because it did stop him from chasing her down and demanding answers) there was a swarm of Kelzaks that happily presented themselves (courtesy of Marah) so Shane took out all his anger on those, smacking them with random lawn chairs and thanking whatever power it was that kept people from wandering in on their slugfest because he didn't particularly feel like morphing at the moment (it would be like putting a boxing glove on, the hits wouldn't be nearly as satisfying).
Between Dustin and himself the herd had been thinned down significantly, only leaving what Shane had dubbed as the "Straggler Kelzaks". While Kelzaks were always easy to beat, the last few at the end of every fight tended to be just especially pathetic (at fighting, at ducking, at everything), so much so that they tended to be the most fun to deal with, letting the rangers experiment with their fighting styles and ninja powers. Many a new combo had come from Straggler Kelzaks. Shane was in the middle of grappling one into another that seemed to be frantically attacking the leg of a pop-up Gazebo when a chair whizzed by him and smacked into his intended target, leaving it flailing on the ground miserably.
Poor, poor straggler, it never stood a chance.
Shane chucked his Kelzak on top of the other one anyway (his grapples were a little rusty and he was kind of committed by that point) and looked over his shoulder to see Dustin wave at him apologetically and shrug (something that Shane interpreted as a "I couldn't help it, I caught the lawn chair fever" sort of motion). The red ranger smiled back at him because he knew how addictive using the plastic seats as weapons was.
Marah, seeing that she'd been beat, made a hasty withdrawal, leaving the two rangers alone and surrounded by toppled cheap furniture, lying haphazardly on the ground in positions they were never intended to be in. It looked a little like a drunken artist's attempt at modern art, assuming the artist had a repressed hatred for lawn chairs.
Dustin offered his fist and Shane bumped it, pleased with their work, and then the red ranger recalled why they had run over there in the first place and the anger started building up again.
Thankfully Dustin started the conversation so he didn't get a chance to say anything stupid.
"Where do you think Kapri is?"
That was a pretty good question. Usually Marah and Kapri attacked together. In fact (now that Shane thought about it), they had always fought together. Even when the team was split up, they usually attacked one of the groups as one, playing as back up for one another. Having them apart now was just…odd.
So where was Kapri?
Shane could only think of one answer.
"With the others most likely," he replied, allowing himself one last kick to an idle lawn chair (because he was the leader and he couldn't waste any more time pouting) before he tried to figure out what the endgame was here.
Dustin's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Tori, or Hunter and Blake?" he asked, staring at the chair as though it should divulge great secrets.
"Maybe Tori's with Hunter and Blake?" Shane groused absentmindedly, focusing on Kapri's whereabouts so intensely that he almost missed Dustin's reaction.
"Really?" the yellow ranger asked, scratching his chin, thoughful. "Maybe they gave her my ticket."
Now it was Shane's turn to be confused. "What?"
"What ticket?" and "Ticket to what?" were the next questions he wanted to ask but Shane held them back when he realized that yes, Tori was with Hunter and Blake, and secondly (and far less important but he thought about it anyway), Tori wasn't their first choice to go to whatever it was, Dustin was. And in a way this made sense; Dustin was the first person to try and befriend the Bradleys back when they were the new guys (they still were, just not as new) so they were just trying to return the favor and that sat okay with Shane, which brought up his spirits somewhat.
"Fists of Fire 2," the other teen continued, smiling fondly in memory of the movie. "Hunter asked if I wanted to go see it with them today, but it started at the same time as your demo."
Shane nodded, figuring how this played out. Dustin couldn't go so Blake had asked Tori (because, even though they wouldn't admit it, they were dating) and she decided she could be in two places at once and said yes.
"And that's where Tori is," Shane finished, sharing his conclusion with Dustin, who kicked weakly at the ground, upset.
It wasn't really lying, but any kind of deceit bothered the yellow ranger. He valued honesty above all else.
"Weak," the Dustin mumbled, combing his hands through his hair.
Shane reached over and gave his back a comforting pat. "Yeah."
The feeling didn't pass, but the skater knew they had wasted enough time here. If Marah was just on decoy duty, the real attack had to be with Kapri and the others.
"Where's the theater?"
"Hollywood Cinema," Dustin replied, slightly more confident, and Shane nodded in confirmation before turning and streaking off in the direction of the cinema, not bothering to worry about the rule breaking (Sensei might as well dole out the punishments to all of them if he was going to get on Tori's case) and Dustin followed his lead eagerly.
Get there, find Kapri, take her out.
There, plan ready.
Sometimes you just have to keep it simple.
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So Dustin wasn't the smartest guy; he knew this, his team knew this, his teachers knew this (and he'd become pretty okay with it because he liked to think he made up for this with his cheerful personality), but somehow, someway, he managed to make the right choice when Tori hadn't. Seriously Tor, bros before…other bros (he couldn't call Blake a ho, even in his mind). It was the rules. Dustin had really (multiply that by infinity) wanted to go see Fist's of Fire 2 and he hadn't gone, so why hadn't she made the same choice? Blake would have understood.
Probably.
Shane, being far less upset than Dustin had thought he would be (but that was mostly because he'd gone into ranger mode; the feelings would come back later), brought them to a halt just outside the movie theater, signaling that now was the time for sneaking. They crept into the building slowly. Hollywood Cinema was one of the older, smaller theaters around town that only showed old favorites and foreign films, so it didn't usually have a lot of people. Still, with this Film Festival there could be a lot of civilians around, so Shane's main goal was to get the rest of the team out as quickly and quietly as possible so they could have the fight outside. The lobby, as Dustin had thought it was going to be, was empty, no signs of any suspicious people, weapons, or objects, and Shane waved him forward into the only theater and was slightly startled to find…nothing.
Well, nothing out of the ordinary (unless the theater not being packed was out of the ordinary, which Dustin would argue it was if he wasn't so busy being stealthy).
Oh and there was a guy in a chicken suit holding a tray full of popcorn.
Dustin was not going to question the marketing ploy on that one.
Shane was already halfway down the aisle, checking both sides of the room for the others, when chicken man halted his distribution of popcorn. Dustin thought he was about to blow the red ranger's cover to ask if he wanted to partake in the popcorn goodness when chicken man's eyes began to glow this evil kind of red, and Dustin was already jump-kicking him hard before evil-chicken man could commit whatever evil-chicken deeds he'd planned in that twisted evil-chicken mind of his.
The earth ninja was lucky (by this Dustin meant that he hadn't just imaginde the glow and attacked some poor schmuck in a chicken suit) and when his foot connected with chicken-man's chest it felt distinctly not human, and then chicken-man was flying backwards into an audience of what now appeared to be Kelzaks. Then Evil-chicken man took off the suit and revealed himself to really be evil-pig man (which didn't have as nice a ring to it so Dustin understood why he went with the suit).
He heard the others move into action behind him, attacking Kelzaks, leaving Dustin and evil-pig man to fight one-on-one; at least, Dustin tried to fight one-on-one with evil-pig man but then evil-pig man decided that he didn't appreciate Dustin's jump kick and hurled the brunette across the room, leaving him in the upper far corner. He didn't have time to morph before he was surrounded by his very own group of Kelzaks who seemed very intent on…throwing popcorn at him?
What, did they want him to eat it? Was it poisoned?
After a few blocks, Dustin jumped down a row and figured out that they were not trying to throw popcorn at him, only one of them was, and it wasn't really trying to throw the popcorn so much as it was just happening because it kept trying to hit Dustin with this futuristic looking popcorn container-thing that looked like it tried to be a spaceship and failed.
Man, Kelzaks were dumb.
Seriously? A popcorn container?
That's your weapon of choice?
Dustin was in the middle of rolling over a couple of seats (and an odd straw hat) when it dawned on him that he'd never seen a Kelzak fight with any kind of weapon before. Why would they start to now? He decided for safety's sake to simply avoid the container thing and darted out of the Kelzaks reach, hopping down a few rows to team-up with Blake (who was also unmorphed) who had not had popcorn thrown on him. Another look around told Dustin that no one else had either.
He must be special.
"Did it get to the part where they're fighting by the cars?" he asked, flipping a Kelzak over the row in front of them and watching it tumble unceremoniously to the ground.
"Yeah," Blake grunted in return, and Dustin heard him land a good punch that was followed by another Kelzak meeting the floor. "It was awesome."
You don't have to rub it in.
But Dustin had asked for it, so he wasn't too mad about it. Or, if he was, he channeled it into his fighting so he hadn't really noticed.
"Hey," the yellow ranger started again, pausing to duck a wild swing before returning the favor. "Avoid the popcorn bowl."
A startled noise came from Blake's direction but Dustin didn't bother worrying over it because he had his hands full, and across the room he saw Shane and Hunter tag teaming evil-pig man, using their newly found teamwork to the max.
"What?" Blake called back and Dustin had to tear his eyes away from that fight (because he couldn't focus on his fight and their fight and talking to Blake at once) so that he could think of a proper response.
"The popcorn thing, they kept trying to hit me with it. Don't touch it," he warned, and he had to jump over another seat just so he could get into Blake's field of vision to point to the Kelzak that was throwing popcorn at him earlier, who was steadily making his way across the room and getting close to Tori.
Too close.
"You sure?" Blake asked nervously, noting its distance from his unofficial girlfriend, and he tried to fight his way closer to her but was blocked by five new Kelzaks that seemed to have dropped down from the ceiling.
Well, they were ninjas, so it kind of made sense.
"Better safe than…popcorned?" Dustin replied, hurling one of his attackers into another before making the choice to be proactive.
He threw an odd salute to the navy ranger that he wasn't sure Blake caught and leapt onto the seat backs, hopping from row to row and dodging falling Kelzaks, making his way towards the Kelzak with the container that'd begun hurling popcorn on Tori. Now that Dustin could see it at a distance, it looked like the Kelzak wasn't just trying to hit her with the container, he was trying to hit her with the very top of it, not bothering to try and smack her with its sides. Holding it must not hurt you; it was what was on the inside that must be bad.
Situation evaluated, the yellow ranger leapt over the seats and barreled into his target, knocking the container to the ground. He gave the Kelzak a quick jab to the head to make sure it didn't get up before he scrambled across the ground and grabbed the container triumphantly. Dustin rolled to his feet and was about to use it on one of the Kelzaks (to see if it was really a weapon or just a stupid popcorn container) when a stray kick came out of nowhere and knocked it out of his hands.
In his mind the container flew through the air in slow motion, arcing dramatically over the mob of Kelzaks.
Another kick (probably from the same place as before) threw Dustin across the seats, and he pushed his head back so he could see where the container fell, hoping that it would hit evil-pig man so they could call it a day.
Dustin shoved the stray Kelzak that was hitting him away carelessly, never taking his eyes off the container and time seemed to freeze as it fell (top down) to where an unsuspecting Shane was helping Hunter off the ground. Dustin yelled just as the container hit the skater's back, and the two red rangers were suddenly no more, vanished into thin air. Evil-pig man laughed and snatched the container up off the ground before Dustin could barrel his way across the room and make him give back their friends, and suddenly he was gone too, leaving Dustin, Blake, and Tori in an empty theater with popcorn strewn all over the place.
His best friend was gone because of him, (they'd get them back, because that was what they did), but that didn't change the fact it had happened and that was when the real agony kicked in.
When Dustin woke up this morning, he never would have thought he'd want to swear off popcorn.
But right now he kind of did.
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Endnotes:
On "Nertz":
Rogue: "Nertz?"
Me: "Yeah, it's my brother's alternative to cussing whenever we're with our parents."
Rogue: "Do I sense an attempt at making a new slang word? It might catch on…" *thinks* "Nertz. What you say when you're out of awesomesauce."
Me: "…"
Me: "I heart you so much."
Best definition of Nertz ever.
On "Nuts":
Rogue: "Not Nertz?"
Me: "Gotta use it sparingly."
On Mind Tricks:
Rogue: "Girl-mind trick; far more powerful than a Jedi mind trick."
Me: "And don't you forget it."
*crazy eye* "Years of training man, years of training."
Rogue: "…I will keep this in mind."
*hides under bed*
On "Hoes" vs. "Hos":
Rogue: *stares* "I'm pretty sure that the 'ho' from the rhyme doesn't have an e, but I could be wrong."
Me: *stops, thinks about this* "To Google!"
*Urban dictionary* "…Yes, yes it would appear you're right."
Rogue: *happy dance* "Yay! I win! I just knew you weren't referring to farm tools!"
*stops, very thoughtful* "Because using your bros to till the ground before actual tools is just wrong."
On "The other" count:
Rogue: "I counted more. What rule were you following again?"
Me: "The rule was that I used the phrase "the other" without completing it. For example, "He stared at the other, and then threw his shoe at the window."
*continues* "In this instance I should finish the phrase with something like, "The other teen" or "The other guy" or "the other ranger."
Rogue: "…or the other shoe."
Me: "…"
Me: "Heart."
Me: "So much."
"The other" count (chapter): 2
"The other" cont (cumulative): 16
Until next time.