Pseudotree's fanfic
Disclaimer –I do not own ROD the TV
Summary –(Slight AU) Junior, due to his power of intangibility, ends up in many, MANY embarrassing mishaps throughout the series. And by "mishaps", I mean that the poor boy goes through things when he... shouldn't.
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Chapter 14
The scary stories.
Story One- Tohru at the Age of Seven
An hour has passed since the sun went down, but the boy still lingered. They say the abandoned building was over forty years old, with many corridors seeming to stretch on for miles. Everything within was creaky, even the abandoned rubber mats, and half of the rooms and halls were cluttered with heaps of junk that might have once been luggages for moving, left behind in a rush. It was the perfect maze for main characters to get lost in, and so reminiscent of the creepy mansions in one of those episodes that practically all long-running mystery series seems to have- complete with a generic horror back-story that undoubtedly has an explanation behind it to be eventually uncovered by the protagonist.
Tohru is proud to proclaim that unlike the other protagonists, he has merely temporarily misplaced himself (big words!).
Grunt.
With no small amount of struggle, the boy's little arms managed to push open the heavy door under the stair case with its knobs all misshapen. Because apparently that is what protagonists did when they're "temporarily misplaced" in a haunted-looking mansion- they go to the source of the ungodly, muffled scream of terror. Jeez, how they reverberated within his tiny ears!
"What the... hey, did you hear that?" came a gruff voice from the dimly lit basement below, and the brave little adventurer wet his pan- err, calmly ducked against the dark corner that was conveniently available, which also allowed him a good view of the happenings of the cold, damp room.
"Mmmph! Mmm mph!" said the funny looking man with what seems to be ketchup all over him, wrapped against a rickety chair and mouth heavily taped up. A slim man with an eye-patch punched him.
"Must be the wind or something." replied a moustached hired goon, even though it never was just 'the wind or something' in any story.
Tohru then for some reason chose this time to lose all fear and began to evaluate the situation, not worried about getting caught. Okay, so about a dozen, smartly dressed adults are surrounding a blue-and-purple-all-over tied-up man with what should be red condiments spilling out from his orifices, occasionally beating him, spitting on him, and being verbally abusive toward his mama. This would mean that...?
"Where is the ARTIFACT?!" shouted the eye-patched one, smashing his fist against the captive man's face. More "ketchup" spurted out from his nose.
'Aha!' Tohru shouted mentally, a gesture of which wasn't of much use for anything except to let the audience know that he had it all figured out. 'This must surely be... that funny adult stuff, like the things in the weird movies dad keeps hiding from mom!'
A sudden crash that everyone should have been expecting by now was produced from the shattering, ground-level small window, quite possibly caused by the woman who came through it. Landing effortlessly, she straightened her body that miraculously was not slashed up by the broken glass, brushed her long, raven hair, adjusted her thick, squarish glasses, fanned her face with sheets of paper, and doing many other things which should have provided enough details for the readers to figure out that she is, in fact-
"STOP!" she shouted, after settling down on the pointing gesture. Then, perhaps thinking that she was coming off as impolite, the woman restated herself with "Please STOP! And hand over the-"
The hail of bullets were unrealistic in their sheer quantity. And somehow, the dozen or so goons who were huddled together on one side of the room pulled out their many guns cleanly without bumping against each other, indicating that they either spent countless hours practising this very manoeuvre in anticipation of this specific style of intrusion by their enemies, or professionalism. The latter just couldn't be true, however, as every single one of them were horrible marksmen- none of the shots hit the lone intruder, who did not even had to use the strange, papery-looking shield she pulled out from nowhere (it was left in disuse, and was abandoned four minutes into the fight).
Of course, what was more amazing was the fact that little Tohru was completely free of trauma in the aftermath of this event, as if witnessing a gun fight at the age of seven wasn't enough for him to grow up into a troubled and maladjusted member of society. And considering the bangs generated by the hundreds of shots fired, why haven't the kid's hearing been damaged?
"Just where is the Artifact?!" a goon asked the intruder amidst the storm of bullets. "Seriously, where? We're not getting anything out of this bozo."
"Hey, maybe we should try taking the tape off his mouth so that he can talk?"
"That's crazy talk! And stop calling it the Artifact, people! Every one knows that its referred to as the Treasure."
"The Artifact? Treasure?" wondered the strange woman out loud, beating on the moustached man with a paper fan. "But they told me that it was called the Tome! Unless... oh. Ugh!"
There were better ways to motivate her, you know!
It was only after the intruder finished all of them off that reinforcements for her arrived. Donning masks and non-descriptive combat outfits to be as unmemorable as possible, they came in from the same small window that the woman used to barge in instead of the doorway that Tohru used, leaving the child undiscovered.
"Heh. You weren't too bad." muttered the now cuffed and apprehended goon (who was beaten up the most) to the bespectacled reader, who pulled out a paperback and started reading since half way into the fight. "It would have been pretty cool if you were one of us."
The woman looked up from her book, confusion evident on her face. "Me? Go against Mr. Joker and the others?" she tried imagining it. "...No, that will never happen."
And they left, forgetting about the Artifact/Treasure/Tome/Whatever completely. Nobody cared, as the focus was on the bookworm kicking the asses of incompetent goons.
Her worst adventure ever!
"My best adventure ever!" Tohru exclaimed for himself to hear. And of course he easily found his way out of the horrifying mansion afterwards.
"Ring, ring! Tohru! Hey I'm just calling to let you know that, if you missed the Lasertron Marathon that was on TV just a while ago, you're a loser."
"Aw, fudge cakes!"
"...And then I punched the Monster in the face and then she thanked me for saving her and I told her it was no problem and then we laughed heartily at the end. The end." Tohru finished, getting himself excited with the terribly distorted version of the already ridiculous actual event. "What do you think?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Tohru, that was... err..." Natsume started, trying to find a euphemistic variation for 'Hellishly Torturous Assault Equivalent to Crap Sliding Down Our Ears' and failing.
Junior, although generally easily impressed due to not knowing what the standards are, felt his brain melting from sheer stupidity. Looking at Anita, he noticed that she started to turn an interesting shade of green which amused him many times more than Tohru's tale, despite his aversion to that colour induced by an unfortunate accident with Wendy's salad when he was a baby. (S-so cold and sticky and GREEN and... No, Ms. Wendy! Not the PEPPER! NOT THE PEP-)
"Alright, lets move onto Stalker-san's story!" Hisami suddenly exclaimed cheerfully. Overly cheerfully.
"Huh? Hey, I said what do you all think about-"
"Shut up, Tohru."
"Wha...?" He couldn't believe what he just heard. "Hisami, did you just tell me to-"
"I said SHUT UP TOHRU!" Hisa yelped as she covered her ears, tears streaming down her eyes.
"W-why is everyone picking on me?!"
'Me? Scary stories?' Junior pondered for a moment. "Well, there was that day when..."
Story Two- Junior During Last Summer
Junior stared at the note in his hand.
His guardian -um, let's call her Mandy for now- told him to run a simple errand. All he had to do was pick up some disks full of blackmail materials, lists of politicians to bribe, and some notes on the questionable parts of the Gentleman Boo- (Oh, wait! They told him that the Books are supposed to be a secret.) ...err, yeah! Gentleman Boo, which should be in the office of Mr. Carpent- um, Gardener! Mr. Gardener.
The boy started walking briskly, as that office was quite far from the side of the underground secret bas- ("Remember, Junior." Mr. Carpenter told him one day after having too much to drink. "Don't you be tellin' anyone else about how we had to set up our base down in this rrrat-hole.") ...eh, the side of the regular secret base he was at. The travel across the corridor was pleasant as his shoes kept making crisp clopping sounds against the floor, and Junior felt calmness washing over him.
"SHUT THAT CLOP CLOP ALREADY YA WUBUSUCU-" Yelled Edward the Crazy Accountant, suddenly blocking the boy's way and gibbering incoherently. He flailed his arms, flailed his legs, flailed his tongue and head, as if to over emphasize his mental instability. Junior merely blinked as the madman broke the ruler in his hand and swung a big shard around, trying to aim for the boy.
(They say that he just wasn't the same after the big fire at the British Library destroyed his stamp collection)
So our dear Junior decided that it would be in his best interest to phase through the- ("Juuuuuniorrrrr...") ...um, passed by. He passed by him.
"AAAH RACKING FROGGIN-" the man shouted, tearing his hair in frustration as he had no way to silence someone with the power of... passing by stuff.
And of course, he met more eccentric co-workers on his way to Mr. Gardener, including...
"I'll rip you to PIECES, little-"
George the Human Shredding Machine, all out of misprints to shred.
...Pass.
"Burn! Be cleansed!"
Molly the Pyro-Janitor, who never quite forgave him for that Gum Incident.
...Pass.
"Gonna Ra-Ta-Ta your arse, squirt!"
Hugh the Heavily Armed Secretary. Hi! How's your daughter? "Fine!", he replied.
...Pass.
"This time, it'll be different!"
Linda the Rival Agent From Another Organization in Detroit. Not a co-worker, but she's around often enough, trying to kill him with that bloody bloody axe.
...Pass.
"And finally, ME! Say your prayers!"
Oh, its Anti-Junior! Rude as alwa- Yikes! Is that an Impotency-Ray Output Device?!
...With some difficulty, pass. Whew, that was close! Having arrived at the office, Junior opened the door...
"...then Mr. Carpent- um, Mr. Gardener, thinking I was Mandy, jumped out from his hiding spot and yelled 'BOO!' really loudly." Junior shuddered in fear. "It was scary."
"..."
Silence.
The boy was thrown in to a state of confusion as Hisami suddenly hugged him again, followed by Anita, Natsume, and the rest of the school children around him (Tohru was last, as he did not want to seem eager), all of them making several gestures of comfort that he didn't quite recognize. He did however felt pretty warm thanks to their body heat, so he left them be.
Story Three- The Break From Terror-Inducing Tales That Wasn't
After buying enough for the others, he opened his can for a drink. Smack smack. Ughh, the aftertaste...
"Hey." Hisami asked the boy. "Did you get my grape soda?"
Merely nodding in reply, Tohru took another sip as if uninterested until his curiosity got the better of him. "Hey, do you know what's up with that Junior guy? Is his family in the Mafia or something?"
Hisa shrugged, honestly not knowing much and feeling quite bothered because of it. "I don't know. Well, since he's a stalker, maybe he supplies them with pictures?"
Diet Cola gushed from his nose from the shock. It stung. "Wh... A STALKER?! Is that why you call him Stalker-san?"
"Yeah. Apparently, he secretly took some pictures of Anita's sister." she replied. They must have been some heck of a nice collection of images for that girl to have been so angry!
"Whoa." Tohru murmured, wiping his face.
It was some minutes later when he stopped dawdling around the vending machine and made eye contact with her. The boy decided to stop stalling.
"Alright, out with it." he said to her with a sigh, crossing his arms.
"Eh? You noticed?" She responded, reddening.
Tohru scoffed. "Psh! We've known each other for how many years now? I know when you want to talk to me about something."
"Ah, you're right. You're not that dense. ("Hey!") Well, um, you see..."
Tohru leaned in closer.
"That is... I really... really like..."
He took a deep breath. The boy had a feeling that he knew where this was going.
"I.. like..." gulp. Here goes! "You see, I really, really want to Nibble on Anita's Ears!"
"..."
"..."
"...H-huh?!" He didn't knew after all.
"Augh... A-Anita's so..." she gushed, shaking and blushing. "...So CUTE and ENERGETIC and TOMBOYISH...! I-I want to touch her and hug her and get her flustered and steal her undies and-"
Tohru, looking hurt, slumped his head toward the earth. "I... I see. I thought that..."
Hisami suddenly stopped herself and looked at the downtrodden boy. "Tohru? Hey, what's wrong?"
"Nuthin." Sniffle.
"Come on, what do you mean, 'I thought that...'? What were you going to say?"
"...Well, that is... Its just that I thought you were... going to confess how you liked me and stuff."
Hisa's face went blank. "...Tohru?"
"Yeah?"
SMACK. "OW!"
"Of course I like you! In that way!" she shouted in a exasperated manner. "I mean, DUH, I thought it was already established that we were lovey-dovey and stuff!"
"What? We are?" he asked confusedly. Perhaps he was dense.
"Oh, come on! Isn't it really obvious? I mean, everyone in our class can see that I wanna-"
She then graphically described what she wanted to do to him, which involved a jar of jelly, her tongue, and his nipples.
"Wuh?" he replied intelligibly, blushing terribly. "B-but what was that stuff about Anita?!"
Hisami reddened again, giggling nervously. "Err, well, it's just that I've been having these fantasies lately and... I mean, just look at her! She's cute as hell!"
The boy's eyes bulged as she flipped her cellphone open, and showed him a picture that looked like it was taken in the locker room. Holy fudge-cakes she's bending down and... are those Natsume's curves in the background?!
Shut. "Anyway, the point is that I like you, so I want to be honest about how I'm having suggestive dreams with my best friend in it lately." Then, parallelling herself from ROD the TV right down to the embarrassed look on her face, she asked him. "Is it weird?"
"Yes!" he said sharply, disturbed beyond belief. "Yes, it feels really weird for you, a girl, to tell me, a boy you apparently like, that you are having suggestive dreams with your best friend in it lately! I mean, w-what am I supposed to say?!"
Hisami didn't know either. But sensing that he was in need of some words of comfort, she replied. "Well, we can talk about it after you give it some thought. And just so you know, I wouldn't mind it if you had fantasies about Stalker-san. He's pretty cute too, after all."
Tohru sputtered. Like, oh my god, Hisami! You're scaring me!
"Hey, Tohru." Anita called. The boy kept staring at her ever since he came back with Hisa. "What are you looking at?"
"...Nuthin." blush.
Come to think of it, he's been staring at Junior and Natsume, too. Eh, whatever.
If she had eyes on the back of her head, the girl would have noticed him staring at her hips again as she walked away. Daaamnnn...
The children shared their horror tales deep into the night, until it was determined that Natsume's was the scariest as she recounted a psychological horror-thriller that involved her on a camping trip, guns to people's heads, and a shape-shifting man. "But that must have been some kind of a trick! I mean, there's no way that a man who can look like other people as if he's a mirror or something exist, right?" Junior coughed. Could he have been...?
"Aaanitaaaa!"
"Sis, please quiet down."
Anita rubbed the back of her head. "Ah, darnit. They came after all."
The older paper sisters greeted and was greeted by Anita's classmates, and secretly felt at ease to see that they were all okay. Crazy kids and their silly adventu- Oh, wait. We work for Dokusensha.
"Junior!" Michelle exclaimed, putting down the picnic basket to bear-hug the boy. ("Oof!" Breast breast breast.) "I haven't seen you in a while! How have you been?"
"Mmmmfffmmm..."
"I think you're suffocating him, sis."
As the other children helped themselves to some snacks and Maggie found a good tree to read under, Michelle and Junior chatted the night away. Well, Michelle did most of the chatting, and Junior listened. It felt nice to have someone who would talk enthusiastically with him.
"...and Anita was all embarrassed about it, so she didn't tell anyone until next morning!"
Eyes glittering with curiosity, he asked her innocently. "...What's a perio-"
"Nnnngh! So cute!" she gushed, ruffling his long, silky hair. "You're officially our fourth sister!"
"Um, brother. I'm a boy." he reminded her again.
"Sister." she insisted. "You can be a brother after I have some fun dressing you up a couple of times."
(Not knowing of the stigma against cross-dressing, he agreed to let her when he had the time.)
'She's very nice to me.' the young agent thought as the woman shared another embarrassing story involving Anita. 'She's unconditionally warm, open, and kind. A close friend... Family...? I wonder if...'
The boy smiled, feeling quite happy as she grinned at him. 'I wonder if... this is what it feels like to have a mother...'
Some kilometres away, Wendy suddenly stopped what she was doing and gaped. Her Librarian Senses told her that a certain male in her life is being slowly but surely taken away by another blond.
"...I better call Mr. Capenter."
Beep beep boop boop bop.
Ring, ring...
"Blip! Is this on? Ah, here it goes! Hi, this is Joe Carpenter. I'm not at my office at the moment to take the call, so please leave me a message after the-"
Wendy's grip tightened. The phone didn't work quite so well after that, and was replaced by a new one that wasn't split in half.
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IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE
Sorry for the long delay. And just so you know, I'm thinking of releasing the next one near the end of this month.
So how was the chapter? If you see any problems, please feel free to point it out.