.:Chapter Twenty Eight – Big Time Revenge:.
"So what's going on with the CD sales?" Rhuben questioned as she pulled her legs up into her lap and twirled around in her computer chair. Ronan smiled and reached a hand out, placing it on her head to get her to stop spinning. "It must be important if you wanted us to come in today."
"It's not that bad if that's what you're worried about." Julius commented from where he was sitting at the end of the table, holding his feet on the end of the table. He looked sort of bored as he held a lollipop in his mouth and was playing with his hands.
"That's not what we're worried about," he siblings commented in unison, causing Ronan and Julius to laugh.
And it was the truth, but they were all worried about something in their own head. Riley never liked the idea of having to go into the meeting room, because you never knew whether or not your band would be getting the book from the record company. Rhuben was worrying over whether or not their fan base had changed. Patrick and Noah were worried that they might have to do some sort of publicity stunt that they didn't want to do, and in the music industry, that happened a lot. And Sydney…well, Sydney was worried about an experiment that he was working on back at home. He had to leave before it eas even finished and he wasn't sure what would happen to it.
"Right," Ronan smirked, knowing his kids better than they knew themselves, before sitting in the chair that was at the opposite end of the table. "Anyway, your guys' last CD Broken Walls, as you know, ended up winning an ARIA and sold a lot of copies."
"Yeah, we already knew that." Patrick replied with a small smirk as he ran his fingers through his hair. "I mean, the influx on our website didn't give us a hint." Wordlessly, Noah, who was sitting next to him, reached up a hand and slapped his brother on the back of the head. Patrick's smile didn't wane as he ignored his brother.
"So what's this about then?" Riley questioned as she raised an eyebrow. "Shouldn't we be working in the studio today?"
"That's what this is about," Ronan replied as he pointed to her and she raised her eyebrows as she listened. "Your new CD is great, but from the sales on your last CD and one the ones that you had before, Julius and I noticed that all of your music that was darker has been getting more of a response out of your fans."
"Meaning," Julius broke into the conversation. "That we think that it would be a good idea if we," he nervously rubbed his forehead. "And by we, I mean you guys, should hold off on the dancier CD and go ahead and make another dark one."
"What?" Sydney stated after a second, voicing everyone's thoughts. He looked confused as he stuck a pen in his mouth and started to chew on the cap. "You are aware of the fact that the only reason that we had made dark CDs was because we were being abused at the time and that we wanted to vent that frustration out somewhere."
"We're not all smart like you, Syd, but we're not stupid either." Ronan pointed out. Sydney smiled sheepishly and waited for them to continue. "Think about it," He continued as he sat up and looked at his kids. "If something good is happening, you might as well continue with it."
"But we let pretty much the whole world know that the only reason out songs were so dark was because of the fact that we were abused." Rhuben pointed out as she rubbed her chin. She wasn't agreeing or disagreeing with the idea, she just wanted to hear them out. "So, wouldn't that kind of be defeating the purpose?"
"Gustavo and Kelly think that it's a good idea," Julius continued to stick with the idea. "And we think that it's a good idea too." He scratched his neck. "And personally I think that those songs that you had written back then were some of the best ones that you had ever written."
"Plus, you guys are probably the only ones that can make up a dance routine to a rock song that people usually would never be able to make routines to." Ronan added.
"You're pretty much just going to keep pitching this idea until we go ahead and agree aren't you?" Patrick questioned as he raised an eyebrow and the two men nodded. Patrick sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Well, you guys know the statistics about not following what the fans want and we always want our fans to be happy."
"Trust me you guys, this is going to be good for you and for Big Time Rush." Julius stated and smirked as his brothers and sisters looked interested.
"What do you mean for us and for Big Time Rush?" Sydney asked as his eyes narrowed slowly. Suddenly his eyes flew open wide and he let out a gasp so loud that his brothers and sisters turned to him with wide eyes, wondering if he had just been hit by something. "They're going on tour with us?" his eyes grew even wider. "They're going to be our opening band?"
"You're too smart for your own good," Ronan commented dryly. "Because it would have taken them much longer to figure that out." He added with a teasing smile as he motioned over to his other kids, who let out cries of outrage. Ronan ignored him and went on to his next topic. "So what we need to go over is-"
Before he could finish the door to the conference room burst open and everyone turned around to see Kendall, James, Logan, and Carlos shoving each other at the door and shouting about being their opening band for their tour.
"So," Julius held out the word for about six syllables. "I'm assuming that Gustavo just told you guys the good news."
"Duh!" Carlos cried his eyes wide with excitement. "I mean, the first tour was cool, but this one is going to be awesome!" He skipped over to the Jacksons and crushed Patrick and Noah in a hug. "We're going to be touring with you guys! Now we can stay up late every day and tell ghost stories, and eat junk food, and-"
"It's not like we don't do that already." Sydney pointed out with a giggle.
"Yeah," Carlos let go of the twin boys and laughed. "But we get to do it on a tour bus and that's the only excuse that time."
"Good point." Noah remarked with a smirk.
"What's wrong?" Kendall asked when noticed the expression on Riley's and Rhuben's faces. "Something's bothering you."
Riley looked over at Rhuben, who was looking back at her and the two seemed to have a silent conversation with each other. It was something that all six of them were able to do since they were very young and at times it proved to be very helpful. Riley raised an eyebrow at Rhuben, and she twisted her mouth to the side before closing her eyes briefly and the twin girls turned back to him.
"It's nothing." They replied in unison.
"Mom, this is probably the best news ever!" Kendall cried as he grabbed onto his mother's shoulders when the boys had gotten back to the Palm Woods. He started to shake her. "Not only are we going on a tour around the US and Australia. But we're going on tour around the US and Australia with our best friends!"
"And with all of the publicity, I'll be able to sell lots of Big Time Rush and DarkElements' t-shirts and other stuff too." Katie added with a smile. "Just think, I won't have to go to college with all of the money that I'm going to make."
"No, you're going to college sweetie," Mrs. Knight replied sternly. "Because you're going to study to become a lawyer."
"A lawyer?" Katie looked interested. "Really?" she wrinkled her nose at the thought and Kendall nodded in agreement, standing next to his mom. "Making a lot of money just to lie." She smiled. "I like it."
"When does the tour start?" Mrs. Knight asked as she started to pull things out of the pantry to make for lunch, knowing that the guys were going to be hungry soon.
"In the next few weeks," Logan spoke up from where he, James, and Carlos were sitting on the couch quietly. They were still shocked that they were going to be going on a major tour, much bigger than the one that they had just gotten off of. "We're going to go from the West Coast to the East Coast and then fly out to Australia and tour around there, and then end the tour with one last concert here in LA."
"I can't believe it," James was smiling as if he had just proposed to Nicole Scherzinger and she agreed to it. "My dreams are finally coming true. Touring with a band so big that we'd be playing sold out concerts and be in venues so big that I can't see everyone at the back." He sighed wistfully. "I don't think I could be any happier."
"I could," Carlos smiled as he looked at the ceiling, as if he could see his daydream up there. "If my dressing room was filled with cheese." Logan and James made a face as they lifted their heads and looked at their spacey friend. "What?" Carlos looked defensive. "You can't tell me that you've never wanted a dressing room full of cheese."
"No," Kendall shook his head. "But I've always wanted a pool full of jello."
"Try belly flopping onto that." Katie agreed, she turned when there was a knock on the door and smiled when she saw Noah push open the door and stick his head inside. "Hey Noah," she greeted cheerfully. "What's up?"
"Hey everyone," he gave a small smile and a wave. "I was just wondering if you guys wanted to come to dinner with us tonight." He looked embarrassed. "Kind of like what we did the last time that we got news of the tour." He looked over at Mrs. Knight. "You're invited too, Mama Knight. Everyone is going."
"Thanks for the invitation, Noah," Mrs. Knight smiled and nodded. "That means that I won't have to make dinner tonight." She wiped her hands off on her pants. "And that also means that this is probably the best that we're going to be eating for a while."
"Most likely." Noah agreed with a laugh. "We're going to meet down in the Palm Woods lobby before we leave. The reservation is a 7, so we're going to be leaving her at like 5:45 or so, just in case we can get to our table early." His laughter faded and he looked a little nervous. "Kendall, can I talk to you for a minute?"
Kendall looked surprised but gave a small anyway. "Yeah, sure." He followed Noah out of the apartment, closing the door behind him. "What's up, man?"
"Well, uh," Noah stammered as he rubbed his arm. "I'm not sure if you noticed or anything, um," he suddenly felt extremely shy, the same way that he felt whenever he met someone new, and he hated it because Kendal laws one of his friends that he has gotten to know after a while and felt that he shouldn't be nervous or shy around him anymore. "Well, I-"
"Noah, are you ok?" Kendall interrupted, looking concerned. "You look like you're going to pass out or something." That was true, as Noah's face had turned a slight shade of red. "What's up?"
"Um, I just wanted to let you know," Noah took a breath and finally got out what he wanted to say. "That Katie and I…we're sort of dating…" he swallowed hard and rushed through the rest of his sentence. "I just wanted to let you know, just in case you weren't ok with it..and, yeah." He smiled lamely.
"Yeah, I already knew that." Kendall laughed as he rubbed his forehead.
"You did?" Noah asked with a small nod. "Riles told you didn't she?" he asked in his quiet voice and then looked annoyed. "I knew that she would-"
"No, she didn't tell me." Kendall laughed and placed his hand on Noah's shoulder. "I noticed that she was acting different, because she was all smiley instead of planning stuff." He explained. "That and you two had been acting weird for a while. And I knew that it wasn't Patrick that was dating her because he was acting like he normally was." He slapped Noah's shoulder encouragingly. "But hey, have fun, do whatever. But if you ever-"
"Yeah, I know that line." Noah held up a hand, getting Kendall to stop. "I used it on Ri-Ri's and Rhu-Rhu's old boyfriends." He blushed as he looked at the floor. "I promise I won't hurt her."
"I know you won't." Kendall replied and opened the door to the apartment again and walked into the room, watching as Logan and Carlos were making faces and doing things in front of James' face, trying to get him to stop smiling the stupid smile that was still on his face. "Now the only thing I'm wondering is what happened to sanity of all of us since we had come to California."
"Yeah, I had been wondering the same thing ever since we got here," Noah agreed as he crossed his arms over his chest. "What's up with James?" he snickered. "Let me guess, he finally got the perfect Cuda product?"
"No, he's just happy that we're going on tour again." Kendall replied as if this happened every day, walking over to James and doing the same thing that Logan and Carlos were.
"Oh," Noah still looked confused. He reached his hand into his pocket as his cell phone rang. He read whatever text he had gotten and turned to his friends, looking amused. "We need to go down to the lobby. Apparently Bitters is going on a rule rampage."
"Then we better go see what's going on," Logan sighed, although he was smiling as he turned to Noah. "I'm not sure why, but I have a feeling that Rhuben is the one that's behind Bitters being mad."
"Good guess." Noah replied with a half smile.
"I'm in," Katie announced as she jumped down from the stool that she was sitting on and walked over to Noah to stand next to him. "Anything that has to do with getting on Bitters' nerves I'm there." She smiled mischievously.
"Let's get James down there then." Kendall commented and he, Logan, and Carlos grabbed James by the arms and legs and easily lifted him off of the couch and went down to the Palm Woods lobby, where the rest of their friends were sitting in chairs, looking annoyed. Well, they weren't sure about WayneWayne, because he had his sunglasses on again.
Ever since they had helped WayneWayne break into Miss. Collins' grade book, the boys and WayneWayne had figured out that they actually had a lot in common and that WayneWayne wasn't as mean as they thought he was. But they decided to just keep calling him WayneWayne as the name Wally wasn't much of a name that was taken seriously. (At least, that's what Logan said.)
"What's going on?" Carlos asked as he dropped James to the ground and gave Stephanie a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "What's Bitters done to make you guys so annoyed?"
"Well, you know how it's almost Halloween?" Jo questioned, completely ignoring the fact that her boyfriend was lying down on the ground after having been dropped by his friends. "Bitters has made it a rule that if you want to go trick or treating half of the candy has to go to him and you can't do pranks at all, and you can't dress up in something scary."
"And that's what you're mad about?" Logan questioned as he turned to his girlfriend, eyebrows raised. Rhuben glared over at him and he rubbed his chin in thought. "Then again, you two were always the ones that were always so excited whenever Halloween rolled around." He sighed and squeezed into the chair next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. "C'mon Bells, I know you, you're not going to let Bitters just get away with it."
Rhuben snorted. "Of course not," she looked a little offended. "We just need all of your guys' help." She added as she motioned in between herself, Riley, Patrick, and Sydney.
"And that's what I like about you," Logan commented as he kissed her on the cheek. "Always wanting to stand up for what you believe in." he blinked slowly. "Even if it has to do with the fact that all you want is a bunch of peanut butter flavored Halloween candy."
"Nice try," Rhuben smirked as she turned her head and looked at her boyfriend with a raised eyebrow. "But you're not getting out of this one."
"Darn it!" Logan whined as he moved his arm to his lap, causing Jo, Camille, Stephanie, Katie, and Riley to laugh at him. That was something that they were going to have to get used to, when someone had a plan, everyone was expected to help finish the plan.
"So what's the plan?" Kendall asked eagerly as they all huddled together.
"First, what's up with James?" Patrick asked as he peered over at his friend, who still hasn't moved from the ground. "He's not dead is he?"
"No, he's just really happy with the news of the tour." Katie replied casually.
"Congratulation on that, by the way." Camille replied with a bright smile. "You guys must be excited."
"Very excited," Riley agreed, not sounding very convinced. Then again, she was staring at James, looking concerned herself. "Doesn't he realized that he's messing up his hair?" At that statement, James leapt off of the ground with a shriek and started to frantically move his hands over his hair.
"Wow," WayneWayne stated, looking appalled. "You guys weren't kidding when you said that he had an unnatural obsessing with his hair." He made a face. "That's kind of creepy."
"Anyway, back to the plan." Stephanie brought everyone's attention back to Rhuben. "What plan do you have for revenge?"
Rhuben grinned evilly as she rubbed her hands together. "Everyone gather 'round" she stated as everyone leaned forward, to make sure that no one behind them would be able to hear what they were saying. "This is the plan…"
Stephanie smiled as Rhuben explained the plan to everyone. This was going to use everything she knew about making people scared, and that was something that she was an expert at. Add in the fact that it was against Bitters and that everyone loved a good prank every once in a while, this was going to be a piece of cake to get done.
Bitters was minding his own business in his office when it happened. He wa sitting in his chair, eating a basket of fries, and glaring at the two posters on the wall of his office. They were posters of Big Time Rush and the DarkElements. But they were more like wanted signs from the way that he was glaring at them. He has made the posters into dartboards and had also drawn mustaches on everyone's faces. The day that the Jacksons had moved out was one of the best days of his life, but all he had to do now was wait for Big Time Rush to leave too.
"I've got my eyes on you punks," he muttered to himself, eyes narrowing even further. "There's nothing that you can do without me watching." He turned around in his chair to look at the video monitors behind him and screamed loudly when he saw the Jacksons standing behind him, dressed in black from head to toe. Complete with the black streaks on their cheeks. They were all grinning evilly at him. "What do you want?" he asked dangerously.
"Bitters, Bitters, Bitters," Patrick shook his head slowly as the five of them crowded around the man. "It's not what we want it's what we want to do." He smirked as Bitters' eyes narrowed even further as he paused. "To you."
"Using our faces as dartboards?" Rhuben added as she looked over at the posters. "That is just sick! It's sick and wrong!"
"Besides," Riley added as she placed her hands on her hips. "What did we ever do to you?"
"You mean besides drive him crazy?" Sydney asked and snickered a little bit. Noah raised an eyebrow and he and Sydney held out their hands pushing Bitters back down into his chair when he tried to stand up. "Ah, ah, ah, where do you think you're going?" The five of them crowded around Bitters again and pulled their hands out from behind their backs to reveal them holding onto rolls of duct tape.
"You're not going anywhere." Noah commented and the five of them surrounded him and duct taped his arms and legs to the chair as Sydney pulled a blindfold over his face.
"HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Bitters shouted as he desperately tried to get away. "GET OFF OF ME! HELP! HEL-"
Rhuben shoved a sock into his mouth to muffle his screams and the five of them grabbed onto the chair and pushed him out of the office, ignoring the confused looks that people were giving them as they went by. They didn't get stopped or were questioned about what they were doing, as weird things happened in the Palm Woods every day and this was just another one of the strange things that happened. (It wasn't the first time that Bitters had been kidnapped for some sort of movie.)
They pushed Bitters until they reached the Palm Woods pool, where they had dimmed the lights, and then left him there after quickly cutting the duct tape and pulling the blindfold off of his eyes. The Jacksons ran and jumped behind one of the rows of plants and sat with Stephanie, watching to see what would happen.
"Good job guys," Stephanie smiled as she held onto her video camera, watching the feed of Bitters as he struggled to get out of the chair. "Phase one is done." She lifted a walkie-talkie to her mouth. "On to phase two."
"Got it." Jo's voice came back through the walkie-talkie that she had.
"I don't know guys," Sydney sounded remorseful as he rubbed the black streak off of his cheeks, making a face as it was now stuck to his hands. "Should we really be doing this? What if we're making a big deal out of nothing." He frowned. "I feel bad."
There was a second of silence before they all started laughing again. Stephanie shushed them and the Jacksons watched as she stood up, out of Bitters' view and gave a thumbs up. Jo, Camille, and WayneWayne, who were sitting behind a row of plants on the other side of the Palm Woods pool stood up and gave a thumbs up back. They crouched low and looked at the controls that were sitting on the ground in front of them. They were using the control panel that Stephanie had used to make the film of the Palm Woods ghost and now she had rearranged it to have a more Halloween feel.
WayneWayne and Camille pushed and prodded a few buttons and he lights in the Palm Woods went out completely, but they could still see Bitters sitting in his chair, looking around warily. Jo pushed a button marked smoke as WayneWayne pushed a button marked spotlight one. As they watched, smoke poured into the Palm Woods pool as a spotlight appeared in the corner. Bitters made a whimpering sound and turned towards the spotlight, seeing something slowly moving towards him. To Bitters it looked like a zombie, but to everyone else, they knew that it was Logan under a lot of stage makeup that Jo and Camille had gotten a hold of.
"Bitters," Logan groaned as he slowly moved forward. "Bitters, why have you disturbed my sleep?"
"I didn't meant to," Bitters whimpered in reply, shaking so badly he dropped his basket of fries on the ground. "I was just minding my own business in my office when those…punks tied me up and-"
"SILENCE!" Logan commanded.
"It's your turn Kendall," Stephanie whispered into her walkie-talkie. "Go for it." She raised a hand above the bushes and gave another thumbs up as Jo pushed a button marked spotlight two.
Kendall, who was dressed up as a werewolf, moved out from another part of the Palm Woods lobby and walked on all fours towards Bitters, growling like a wolf. The makeup that was used on him made him look like an actually werewolf, complete with the yellow contacts that they used for the evil eyes. Bitters looked over at him and whimpered as he backed up even more.
"Don't hurt me!" he cried.
"We won't have to," James, who was dressed up as a vampire, stated as he 'flew' across the Palm Woods on a harness that the Jacksons were moving. "If you promise to leave Big Time Rush, the DarkElements, and their friends…" he paused and lost his fake accent. "Actually, if you could just leave everyone alone and get rid of your stupid rules, that would be great."
"Wait a minute," Bitters walked over to James, who was still suspended in mid air and hit James on the back of the head, popping out his fake teeth. "AHA!" he shouted and moved over to Kendall, ripping off some of the fake fur on his face, causing Kendall to scream in pain, and then over to Logan, who smiled sheepishly and lowered his arms. "I knew that something fishy was going on!" he sneered at them. "Did you think that a stunt like this would actually get me to change my rules?"
"We were hoping." Logan replied in a quiet tone.
"HA!" Bitters laughed loudly, his voice echoing across the pool. "I own this hotel and what I say goes!" he moved closer to the three boys and laughed at them. "And I'm saying that you, wait," he paused and counted them, looking confused. "There are three of you here, where's the fourth one?"
Suddenly there was the sound of a chain saw revving and a loud scream that echoed off of the pool walls. Jo and Camille came out from behind the bushes, screaming with pain and covered in fake blood and scars.
"RUN!" Jo screamed. "Run, get away!"
"HE'S AFTER US!" Camille added falling to her knees as blood fell out of her mouth, being as dramatic as possible. "Save yourselves." She and Jo fell to the ground, gasping as blood continued to spill out of their wounds and a tall figure dressed in black and holding a chainsaw slowly walked towards them.
"Oh like I believe that," Bitters rolled his eyes and walked over to the hooded person. "Like I'm dumb enough to think that this isn't your little friend." He reached up and pulled back the hood to reveal no head sitting there. Bitters' eyes opened wide and he screamed so loud that people a few blocks away could hear him. He turned and ran out of the Palm Woods pool as fast as he possibly could.
Katie laughed as she pulled the hood off of her head and jumped down from Carlos's shoulders as he turned off the chain saw. All of their friends came out from behind the bushes and laughed as they watched Bitters run out of the Palm Woods pool. They walked into the Palm Woods lobby and watched as Bitters erased some of the rules on his board and started to rewrite them.
"That should keep him busy and scared for a while." Riley laughed as she dusted off her hands on her pants.
"It's a good thing that we had all of that duct tape," Sydney remarked. "From all of our constant moving, I'm surprised that we didn't run out yet."
"Oh, I wish that I had a picture of Bitter's face." Katie sighed as she high-fived Carlos and the two burst out laughing again as everyone else joined in.
"A video is better," Stephanie replied as she held up her video camera, raising and lowering her eyebrows rapidly.
"Now I understand why you guys are always having fun all the time." WayneWayne declared as he shook his head. "I have to admit. That was really cool."
"Where did you get that thing anyway?" Logan asked as he looked over at Carlos who was still holding onto the chain saw, with a suspicious gaze. Carlos had once injured himself with brushing his teeth, so he was sort of afraid of what he could do with a power tool.
Carlos just shrugged in reply. "I met a guy." He replied camly.
"Hey dogs, when are we going to…din…ner?" Gustavo walked up and noticed that everybody was dressed up in Halloween clothes.
"I don't even want to know." Kelly stated, shaking her head.
"That's a good idea," Mrs. Knight agreed as she shook her head, hitching her purse up her shoulder. "I stopped wondering years ago and it made me so much saner than I was before. Trust me."
"I know the feeling." Ronan agreed.
A/N: So I found out by watching the season two premiere of BTR last night that Jo's last name is Taylor…I'm probably going to keep it as Tarver, but whatever. I hope you guys liked this chapter. There's one more, than the epilogue, and then the third story in the trilogy called With Friends Like These III: Here and Now. I hope you guys are excited for it. :) (Just so you know, in the sequel there's going to be a lot of Kiley, Lella, Carphanie, Jameo, and Wamille.)
-Riley
