Author's note: I do not own the Christian song "If You Want Me To"; it is the sole property of Ginny Owens and Christian Music Media. Anyway, let us see who are the unlucky...er, "lucky" people to be cross-over with Red Witch's Misfits!
Justin: What did WE ever do to you?
CHAPTER 2: Bitter Sixteen
Justin woke up screaming as he sat upright in his bed until he realized...he was having another nightmare. It was just a nightmare, reflections of his past. He wasn't in the desert, he wasn't at the orphanage, and he wasn't in the back of the patrol car. Justin was safe, in his bed, under his blankets, in his room. Where he had always been for the past ten years. He was no longer that scared, little boy, but a teenager, slightly chubby, but with a broad frame, short brown hair, and hazel eyes. Yet, that man...that bearded man who always called him "half-breed" and threatened to kill him at his sixteenth year of age. The mysterious, enigmatic assassin. It was always the same in every nightmare. The man in white always threatened to kill him, always threatened to murder him with the wicked dark weapon. Justin never saw such a person in his life, so why would he even...?
The teenager's breaths were deep gasps, his lungs begging to be extinguished with cold, refreshing air. Sweat was already starting to bead on his pale neck and trickle down the collar of his white undershirt. Justin just shivered to himself as he drew his knees to his chest, hugging them close, shut his eyes, and whispered to himself in an unconvincing mantra, "It was just a dream, it was just a dream, it was just a dream..."
The light to his bedroom clicked open as the door slid to the left with a gentle "hrmmm", welcoming in the anthropomorphic dinosaur humanoid that towered over the adolescent by more than twice the human boy's height.
"Justin?" the dinosaur asked forwardly, his eyes full of worry and loving guardianship, "I heard you screaming again."
"It was just another nightmare, Dad," choked Justin in embarrassment.
"I know, son. C'mere," Allo said as he sat next to Justin on his bed and, in a relaxing gesture, started rubbing the teenager's back with one hand. Allo was a powerful warrior, being the leader of the Dinosaucers and a former advisor back at Reptilion, with steel, corded muscles, a bulky, strapping frame covered with hard, protective, dark-brown, leathery, pebbled skin, and sharp talons that could rip anyone or anything to shreds in a matter of seconds. If any outside stranger was watching, he or she would simply classify Allo as a humanistic, talking allosaurus, complete with the snout, the teeth, and the tail. But unlike the infamous dinosaur, Allo had perfectly humanistic long arms and legs, including five digits on his hands and feet. Yet despite his fearsome appearance, Allo also was sage, gentle, and kind-hearted when he wanted to be, yet cunning and devious when it came to matters of war and battle and strategy. Right now, Allo, being alarmed at his son's yells, had recently bolted out of bed to tend to Justin, and Justin could see that his adoptive father was wearing only light-fitting pajama trousers and no shirt, the bedroom light shining off his scaly skin stretched tightly over the muscles of his chest and back.
Allo just frowned thoughtfully as he continued rubbing Justin's back, feeling the light ridges of the scars left behind from Justin's previous encounters with the orphanage. This certainly wasn't the first time Justin had these night terrors. Ever since Justin was healing in their medical ward, Dimetro and Teryx concluded that Justin would probably experience trauma for the rest of his life, and even in his ten years at the Lavadome, they had only begun to scratch the surface. It deeply angered and saddened the dinosaur whenever he reflected back on how much abuse, verbal and physical, Justin had gone through. That was one of the reasons Allo willingly adopted Justin after the deaths of his wife and daughter to the wars on Reptilion with the Tyrannos a year shy of Justin's arrival. Allo had never been able to get over the crushing guilt and grief at the loss of his family, and when Justin came, Allo, for some reason, felt a huge surge of protectiveness and tenderness...something he thought he would never feel when he buried Vera and Alloette. Justin was like a second chance, a second chance for him to start another family, and it was a chance Allo desperately needed. Wanted, really. He wasn't so sure how much longer he could have lived with the pain of what was no more if Justin had not arrived in his life. Even though the Secret Scouts and Tricero and Dimetro objected, saying how Justin needed to be with human parents, needed to back with his own race, Allo stood firm. And when the Secret Scouts tried to bring Justin back to the city and had to rescue Justin from being killed by a mob who, for some reason, tried to overwhelm the boy the minute they set their eyes on him, it further supported Allo's argument that Justin would be safer under the Dinosaucers' guardianship. After all, they wouldn't be going back to Reptilion since it was now a barren wasteland from war, earthquakes and famine, and though new survivors were periodically being found and brought to Earth for recuperation and healing, there was hardly a chance of rebuilding the civilization that was lost. So since they were staying on Earth, Justin would always have a home at their headquarters.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Allo asked gently, Justin's breathing now being rhythmical and relaxed from the rubbing.
"What's the point?" sniffed Justin, shuddering, "I've talked it so many times, I think even Bonehead and Stego know my life and my past by heart now, and it still doesn't stop! It never ends! It's like I can't ever let this go, and I don't even know why! It's always so painful to see it over again and again and again!"
Allo could feel the barbed frustration and tiredness of it all in the adolescent's voice.
"Justin, it's never easy to forget about such travesties and unfair assaults you had received, even at that early of an age, but it would never do anyone any good for you to simply forget about it either. As much as you hate to admit it, those events have made you more cautious, and it taught you to always expect danger from the outside world. If you simply forgot about what those people had done to you for no reason at all, what the people have committed against you, a small, helpless boy, then you would just be allowing them to repeat those perversions on other innocent people and yourself, if you gave them the chance. But...you should try to remind yourself that they can't hurt you now, that you aren't in danger anymore. No matter how much these dreams come, it can't change the reality that you're safe now, that you have us and the Secret Scouts, and that you're at home here."
"But...but I just wish I..." Justin paused, catching himself. Despite all the time he spent with Allo and the rest of the Dinosaucers, he never told anyone about the mysterious man in white who swore Justin's death. Not even Allo himself, and the guilt of omission was crushing at times.
The rubbing stopped, and Allo asked with great curiosity, "You wish what?"
"Nothing what I haven't wished before," Justin quickly covered, "that I just wish I knew why everyone hated me so much, that no matter who I seem to meet, every person just wants to see me hurt...or dead."
Allo crinkled his brow, feeling that Justin wasn't telling him everything, but he let it be. The surrogate parent never forced Justin to pry his thoughts and opinions. If Justin wanted to trust Allo with his secrets, the child would do so when he was ready.
Allo then tried to act jovial, smoothly changing the subject by saying, "Well, there's no point in divulging in tragic thoughts of the past, son. You should get some rest for tomorrow. It'll be your egg day, the big turning point of sixteen years of age, and if I recall how much of a fuss Sarah, Ryan, Paul, and David put up on their respective birthdays, it will be a huge accomplishment and symbol of your coming of age tomorrow."
Allo then checked the white digital clock next to Justin's bed and saw it was actually 3:47 A.M. He corrected himself weakly, "Well, technically, it's today, but I guess it doesn't really make much of a difference."
He then forced Justin to look into his huge brown eyes by gently placing a claw on Justin's cheek as he said with loving care, "But it also a celebration for myself as well, Justin. I can honestly say your birthday has great significance to me, much more than any of the Dinosaucers here. It's because it was the day we found you in the desert, the day you came into our lives and gave me the chance to be a father again. It was the day I became alive again, after so many months of grieving and sorrow. And that is something I will always treasure, Justin. Don't ever forget that, all right, my son?"
Justin then gave a forced smile as Allo slowly hugged him, but inside he started to curdle and shiver. Though Justin had no idea what was his actual day of birth, the Dinosaucers made it on the day he was discovered and taken into their ward. Since there was no hope of ever finding his parents and discovering the actual truth, Allo decided that the day should really celebrate when Justin became one of the family. So it was made officially on June 3rd, and each year, the Dinosaucers commemorated the day with great care and joy. Yet, since it was his sixteenth day, Justin couldn't help but hear the words of cold hate and ice echoing in his head.
"A reckoning, half-breed! A reckoning on your sixteenth year of birth!"
Justin's breathing became a bit labored, and Justin tried not to shiver again. He didn't want to alarm Allo.
"I'm not so sure I can go back to sleep though, Dad. I'm...I'm still a bit edgy from the nightmare. And...and I just hope it's not a bad omen." That was the closest he would get to confessing the prophetic warning of doom to Allo.
"I'll stay with you, then. Just try to rest, son, all right?"
Justin just gave a small grunt of consent, and Allo turned off the bedroom light, letting the moon flood in through the blinds of the window, as he sat back on Justin's bed, and comfortingly ruffled the teen's hair, slowly and therapeutically. The intimate, fatherly touch was better than any security blanket or teddy bear to Justin, and he had to let out a small smile of peace, almost temporarily forgetting the horror as he just lay there, on his stomach and facing the dinosaur in the stillness of the dark, feeling the claws dance delicately across his head. This continued for a while, but neither Allo nor Justin complained. Allo then softly started singing in his deep voice, and Justin felt the fatigue crawl into his body again as he heard the familiar words. It was a song made from a Christian prayer, sung by Ginny Owens, one of Justin's favorite music artists, and he and Allo knew it by heart, making it their song of father-son bond.
It was the song, If You Want Me To, and Allo always managed to sing it so beautifully that the notes seemed to flow into Justin's soul with much needed warmth and love as Justin felt himself dozing off underneath his protective father's claws and the Dinosaucer's deep, fatherly voice.
In a few minutes, Allo reached the end of the song and heard Justin's soft snoring as he observed that his son was now asleep at last. Smiling, the dinosaur drew the quilt and covered his son with it up to the child's shoulders before leaving the bedroom to his own chambers, whispering over his shoulder, "Goodnight, son."
Yep, a thousand fan points to Sparky Genocide for pointing out that the cross-over was "Dinosaucers"! And it wasn't really cheating! Despite being on TV for only a year, it was one of my favorite 80 cartoons (do a Google search for it)! Ah, the times of "Scooby-Doo", "Pound Puppies", "Thundercats", "Galtar", "Teddy Ruxpin"...
Allo: RogueFanKC...you're babbling again.
Sorry! Next is what you've been waiting for (especially Red Witch)! The next chapter on next Friday is "Enter the Misfits" and you won't believe what General Eddington (from Misfit-verse) and Major Cliffton (from the "Dinosaucers") want General Hawk and the Misfits to do! Read and review, criticism welcome and tell me what you think! Wait until next Friday!