"That's not true," whispered Dot. "That can't be true." She looked at Wakko.
Wakko sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Dot, but he's telling the truth."
Dot knew that Wakko knew when someone was telling the truth, but she still wanted a second opinion. "Yakko?" she asked.
Yakko sighed too and gave Dot a sad gaze. "Trust me, I would much rather believe Clarence than Victor. But… I remember this place. I can remember… getting beat up."
Wakko and Dot just stared at him with their mouths open. Finally Wakko said, "I knew you were hiding something."
"Why didn't you tell us?" demanded Dot angrily.
"I didn't want to shatter your false hopes," said Yakko, looking defeated. "I thought that we would never find out, anyway."
After all of this, Clarence finally spoke. "Victor, I fired you years ago." He sounded on the verge of blowing up from anger.
"Of course," said Victor, sounding angry himself. "You knew what we did. You knew that Steve and I were taking care of them, treating them like normal people and trying to raise them lovingly, when you would probably have killed them by now!"
Dot could feel herself getting aggressive. Thanks to the aggression that Victor put into me to save my life, thought Dot.
"You want to kill me, don't you?" she asked Clarence menacingly. She quietly, slowly stormed up to him. "You want to tear me apart into little itty bitty pieces, don't ya? Well, I dare ya. I dare ya ta even lay a finger on me. I'm indestructible."
Quite suddenly Clarence grabbed Dot by the collar of her shirt. Dot drew in her breath in fright, realizing how stupid and foolish she had been. "No, you're not," hissed Clarence.
"Stupid aggression…" Dot didn't know what to do. What she did next was simply impulse: she bit Clarence on the hand.
"Aaarrrggghhh!" screamed Clarence. Then he glared at Dot. "You haven't changed on bit, have you, you little mistake?" He then punted her right into the very same shelf that she had been punted into seven going on eight years ago. Dot crashed into the powders and chemicals on the shelf, then fell off in a heap. If she hadn't have been hurt she would've gotten back up and fought Clarence. But her whole body was aching in a way it never had before.
This was all that her brothers could stand. In a blind rage, Yakko and Wakko charged their creator. Wakko got to him first, and kicked him in the balls.
" OooooomphAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" cried Clarence in pain. He flew across the room and landed on the floor painfully. Yakko was standing over him, glaring at him. Clarence smiled. It wasn't an evil smile, either.
"You were the closest," he said, "the closest to what I originally had in mind. Not like the stupid reject or the mistake girl. We could be great together. I will someday, very soon, be powerful. I could make you my assistant. I would treat you wonderfully. What do you say?"
"No, I don't think so," said Yakko, and stepped on his face.
In a rage, Clarence jumped up and grabbed Yakko. Then he threw him over to the shelf where he had thrown Dot. Yakko recovered from the throw, though, and bounced off of the wall. It was more than the shelf could bear, though, so it fell. The long, narrow edge of it hit the ground, and hit precisely on Dot's stomach. No one noticed, however. Dot didn't cry out when it happened, since she was already so knocked out anyway, but the pain was even greater. When she tried to lift it up or move out of it, it hurt too much to move. But when she just laid there, that was extremely painful too.
At this time Clarence had managed to pin Yakko and Wakko to the wall. They struggled to get free but were unsuccessful. "You should have complied, you worthless chatterbox," he hissed to Yakko. "But I'll still be fair: You'll be the last to die!"
"Oh yes, very fair," hissed Yakko, his voice full of contempt. "Apparently you don't have siblings, or if you do you don't care about them as much as I do, because if you did you'd know that forcing me to watch would be the worst torture imaginable."
"They are not your siblings! If we called them 'siblings' then we could call this chair here your sibling also. I made it in high school carpentry class. And I made you here!"
He then got up to where Dot was trapped underneath the shelf. "I bet you knew that you'd be first, mistake," he hissed. He threw the shelf off of her.
Of course, the smart thing to do in this situation would be to either "fight or flee", but Dot, after being crushed underneath the shelf for so long, could do nothing but clutch her stomach and cough.
Clarence gave her no time to catch her breath. Grabbing Dot roughly by the shirt collar, he threw her bodily against the wall, breaking her ribcage if it wasn't already broken. Then he went to her face, and gave her about 6 black eyes, even though she only had 2 eyes.
Dot's vision became a blur. Finally I'm either falling unconscious, or I'm dying, she thought. At least the pain is gone.
Her vision continued to fade. So this is what dying is like, was her last thought before she slipped into unconsciousness.
…………
By that time Yakko and Wakko were on Clarence and were giving him all they had. Clarence was still beating up on poor little Dot, to make sure she was good and dead. After a few seconds, however, he turned his rage on the brothers.
Clarence roughly threw them off of him and scrambled to his desk. He reached into his drawer and pulled out…
"Wakko, he's got a KNIFE!" shrieked Yakko. "A butcher knife! He's gonna butcher us!"
In a mad rage, Clarence swung the knife at Wakko. Wakko ducked. Then he swung at Yakko. Yakko nimbly dodged him.
By now, Clarence was obviously insane, to put it lightly. He threw the knife, blade end first, not really aiming for anything. Unfortunately, from his viewpoint, he got positive results.
Yakko staggered back from a sudden pain, then realized that the knife had stabbed him in the stomach. He dumbly pulled the knife out. It was drenched in blood. His blood. That was when the full intensity of what had just happened hit Yakko.
He looked at his horrified brother. "Look, Wakko, that's my blood there…" His eyes glazed over and he fell backwards.
"Looks like I broke my promise," snarled Clarence. "I told him he'd be the last to die." He turned to Wakko, the only one still conscious. "But it looks like you have that privilege, reject."
Wakko was biting his tongue and his eyes were bulging. It almost looked like they were going to explode. Finally he screamed, "WHY YOU FILTHY, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING SON OF A BITCH!"
Ignoring the knife, Wakko lunged himself at Clarence. Never mind the knife; never mind that Wakko was only nine; never mind that Clarence was crazy and quite a big larger than Wakko was. He had very possibly just killed his siblings, the two most important people in Wakko's life, and now he was gonna—
"Clarence McCall, you're under arrest!"
Clarence stopped for just a second in shock. It was enough. The police, who Victor or Michael had obviously called during the commotion, rounded on Clarence, their guns pointed.
"I also called the ambulance," said Victor, with this icy look on his face, as though he couldn't believe and didn't want to believe what had just happened.
As the police handcuffed and lead Clarence away, he hissed to Wakko, "I'll get my hands on you later, you stupid reject."
"No you won't," said Wakko, sounding very brave. Then the police and Clarence left and the ambulance rescue crew arrived.
At that point Wakko completely broke down and cried. Not the tears rolling down his face cry that was the only way that he had ever cried before this, but a real sobbing, weeping cry where the tears just shot out of his eyes. It was the first time that he had ever cried like this.
Victor sat down by Wakko and hugged him. "I hope they'll be alright," he said.
"I hope so too," sobbed Wakko. "But they're hurt real bad…"
Victor took a deep breath and sighed. "Wakko, I could drive you to the hospital. If you don't mind, I'd like to talk with you."
Wakko became quiet for a moment. "Alright," he said, unshed tears still brimming in his eyes.
…………
The radio was turned off. The driver seemed hardly able to concentrate on his surroundings. And the passenger looked to be in a state of dumb shock.
Finally, Victor was able to speak.
"Wakko, you know that Steve and I loved you and your siblings like our own children. We hated to abandon you like that, but it was the only way." He paused for a moment. "Yakko did such a good job of raising you and Dot. I mean, think about it. He was only four years old, and he single handedly raised a two-year-old and a baby. A baby! People keep on talking about teen moms, how fourteen-year-olds can't take care of a baby, but a four-year-old! I just couldn't help thinking that you three had died."
"Sometimes we came awfully close," murmured Wakko, his voice hoarse and flat.
"When I saw a commercial for your show, I knew instantly that it was you three. And I knew that if Clarence saw it, he would get you back at any cost. That's why I came." He was quiet for a moment, and then he spoke again. "I was amazed at what you three looked like. Yakko's almost an adolescent, but if I hadn't have know his age, I would have placed him at about fourteen years old. And Dot is such a beautiful little girl. And you, Wakko, you have grown a lot too, and you can talk…"
Wakko sighed and looked out of the window. "I hope they don't die," he whispered. "I love them, and I don't wanna be an only child."
Victor grimaced, unable to say anything.