It's been a bit over a week since Charlotte found out the secret. She quickly got used to covering for Henry like I did. She also quickly got used to her job. Her job was pretty much just to research criminals since she did that with the Phone Shark. But I realized that when she found out she had to get a job, all I had to do was take an oath so I asked Ray about this.
So, after I avoided getting sat on by Ray (you all already know about that) I asked him why Charlotte had to get a job but I didn't. He said that when Henry was first hired there was no other position for a job and since I knew his identity I had to take an oath not to tell to be sure it would be kept a secret. That's why I had to take an oath and why I don't have a job there. He then joked how if I wanted to have a job I could get one but I said I was fine with keeping it a secret.
That's all Charlotte has to do and why I don't have a job. I said how it was a bit over a week since she got the job. September ended and we're now a few days into October. In fact I think Halloween is about 4 weeks away.
Anyway, she got used to the job keeping it a secret and covering for Henry. In fact I realized that now that Charlotte knows he is a lot less nervous when coming up with excuses. I think he was only nervous because he was worried about her finding out about it because she was so smart but now that she knows he is a lot less nervous.
So, you know that she's used to the job and covering for Henry and we are now in October so that's pretty much all I can say.
Anyway, there was this award thing for Captain Man and Kid Danger happening. Everyone was at Swellview City Hall for it. Charlotte Jasper Piper and I were at it too. The Vice Mayor of Swellview was there giving the award to them. The Vice Mayor was making a speech at a glass podium making a speech but I wasn't paying that much attention.
"And so, my fellow Swellviewans as vice mayor of this fine city, I present these medals of recognition for bravery and community service to our very own Captain Man and Kid Danger." The vice mayor said when I was paying attention to his speech. We all cheered and clapped our hands. Some paparazzi even took pictures with those cameras that have that flash. Ray and Henry were then given their medals.
"Oh, and please accept this coupon for one free medium frozen yogurt." The vice mayor then gave them a coupon. Wait he said only one. "Wow." "Each?" Ray said and Henry asked. "Nah, you have to split the yogurt." The vice mayor muttered. Ray walked up to the podium. "Thank you, Vice Mayor, and thank you citizens of Swellview." Ray said starting a speech but Jasper said something to us that drew away our attention. "Hey, why didn't Henry come to this?" He asked, leaning in. Oh no.
"Oh, he uh." I stammered. "His goldfish had babies." Charlotte lied. See, she now covers for him the same way I would. "What goldfish?" Piper asked suspiciously. "I didn't know Henry had a goldfish." Jasper said. "Well he does and she laid eggs." I said, going along with her lie. "Do we know who the father is?" Jasper leaned in again. Charlotte and I gave him looks. "And we very much appreciate these medals." Ray said finishing his speech.
We actually didn't hear his speech. "And the yogurt." He added. "Which we'll share." He said quietly. "Kid Danger you're up." As Henry walked to the podium we all cheered and clapped our hands very loudly.
"WE LOVE YOU KID DANGER!" Piper shouted. Wait what? Charlotte and I looked at her weirdly. Henry smiled and waved but then he looked confused. "Kid Danger is so hot." Piper said as the applause died down. "Yeah, you don't wanna be saying that." "You really don't." Charlotte and I both said but she didn't take any notice. Henry then started a speech.
"Even though I've only been Captain Man's sidekick for a short time, I really-" He was cut off by music that was starting to play, and everyone started to leave. Henry started questioning this as me Charlotte Jasper and Piper started to leave City Hall. But Jasper was stopped by those two guys who went to his birthday party last month, Sidney and Oliver. They then walked out of City Hall with 2 laughing girls and 2 snow cones in their hands. Piper then went back to say an insult to Jasper.
Oh, also since Henry knocked Piper's phone in the toilet Piper lost that video of Jasper and Jasper had a video of her wearing makeup and talking to me and Henry about it. So Piper had to do whatever Jasper said which included giving Jasper a pedicure.
The next day Charlotte Gooch Ray Henry and I were in the man cave. Apparently after we left the award thing Jasper wanted Ray to sign his Captain Man action figure and he threw it at Ray's lip but Henry told him that his lip was bleeding.
Ray was a bit freaked out since he couldn't be injured but he was so Ray and Henry kept this quiet. We were trying to figure out what happened so Charlotte was doing research and Gooch was using different ways to hurt Ray. Ray already had acid poured on his foot and had his neck stabbed.
"Come on Gooch, how many of these tests are we gonna do?" Ray asked Gooch. "Shush. Now remove your right glove and hold up your hand." Gooch ordered. "This is getting on my nerves now." Ray said as he took off his glove. Charlotte was doing research and Henry was that free frozen yogurt they got. Then Gooch held up a flame thrower and Henry put his arm in front of me protectively. "Hold it in the fire!" Gooch said and Ray's hand was held in flames. Ray was screaming and Henry Charlotte and I all cringed at this.
By the time Gooch finished Ray's hand was sizzling and he was hissing in pain. Gooch cautiously walked over to Ray and Henry and I walked over to where he was standing. "You still feel the pain in your hand?" Gooch asked.
"Yeah." Ray hissed. "Uh, I don't get it. It's been 2 seconds, the pain should be gone by now."
"We need more tests." Gooch concluded. "No, we checked enough of my body parts." Ray protested. "What about his butt? Check his butt." Henry suggested. "We should check your butt." Gooch agreed. "Check my butt? How?" Ray asked in disbelief and annoyance. Gooch pulled out a crossbow. "Face the other way and touch your toes." He got the crossbow ready to fire and Charlotte looked at him in disbelief.
Ray started protesting against this. "Ah no no no no no. You already stabbed my neck, poured acid on my foot and toasted my hand. I think we can all assume I'm also vulnerable to butt wounds." Gooch nodded.
"Hey you guys." Henry called. Everyone looked at him. "This is great frozen yogurt." Ray glared at him. "Half that yogurt's mine." Gooch put down the crossbow he was still holding. "Gooch, what's going on with me? No one's been able to injure me since I was 8 years old." Ray said.
"Hey everyone, come look at this." Charlotte said to us. "What's up?" Henry asked as we walked over to her. "Watch this footage from the award thing yesterday. Here I'll play it in slow motion." She pressed a button and a clip started playing. The clip was of Ray laughing with this old woman then this other lady came by and sprayed Ray with her perfume bottle on purpose.
"There, see right there? See that woman with the perfume?" Charlotte asked. "She intentionally sprayed me." Ray said in disbelief. "But perfume wouldn't make you lose your powers." Henry stated. "True." Ray agreed. "Perfume wouldn't." "Only the tears of the jolly beetle." Gooch nodded. "Jolly what?" Charlotte asked. Gooch then started looking it up on the computer. He went through a few images but he eventually found the picture he was looking for.
"There, the jolly beetle." Gooch said pointing at a picture of this beetle. "One of the rarest and happiest bugs on Earth." Ray explained. "So… you guys are saying that a jolly beetle can take away Captain Man's power?" Charlotte asked slowly.
"Not the beetle itself." Ray held up a finger. "The beetle's tears." Gooch clarified. "You see when they cry, their tears contain an enzyme, like an acid, that breaks down molecular density." Ray explained to the 3 of us. "And molecular density is what makes Captain Man undamageable." Gooch said. Henry was on a pear pad sitting on the edge of the round couch that was in the Man Cave with me. "And you guys think that that lady's perfume?" Henry started to ask as he moved his legs over the edge of the couch.
"Contained the tears of a jolly beetle." Gooch concluded pointing at him. Ray groaned frustratedly. "That's impossible. To fill a whole perfume bottle, you'd need tears from dozens of jolly beetles." He emphasized. "And they would all have to be crying." Gooch added. "But, if those beetles are so jolly, what would make them cry?" I asked, sitting in the same position as Henry. We all looked up to the ceiling trying to think of an answer, but nothing came to our minds.
Maybe it's the Thomas and Friends episodes The Sad Story of Henry Diesel's devious deed and Henry's Forest. Wait? Oh those are the episodes that make me cry. Then my brother would offer me his shoulder to cry on.
Like 2 days or so had passed since then. Henry told me that Ray is afraid to fight crime now because he is afraid of getting hurt. Trust me I know how he feels to be afraid of getting hurt but if I refused to go anywhere because I was afraid of getting hurt I'd never leave mine and Henry's room. Like I was afraid of going to the deep end of the pool because I was afraid of drowning but I still went to the pool. Or how about the middle of August.
Good god, the middle of August. This was the first day of school but for me Edward Gordon James Percy and Oliver it was our first day of middle school. Instead of going to 4th grade we went all the way to 8th grade. That was so terrifying. The youngest person in the school after us was at least 3 or 4 years older than us. We encountered some of the older basketball players and they looked down on us intimidatingly. They were like over 6 feet tall, built as fuck and the top of our heads, I don't even want to say it but the top of our heads were slightly taller than their waists. Do I need to say it? I think you get what I mean. They were like giants compared to us.
We were not used to passing periods so when the bell rang, we got trampled. Part of the reason why we skipped 4 grades was because we already had our eyes opened to the real world. Even with that we still found the difference between elementary school and the fact how much bigger the people were than us a rough adjustment. We even started questioning how strong our friendship was but we refused to let it break apart and shook off the idea immediately and decided that no matter how hard the challenge of middle school was we had to stick together and not let our friends be broken up even though we knew it could happen to any group.
Thanks to us helping each other out and the help of Henry Charlotte Jasper and a few others we made it through the challenge and quickly got used to middle school. We also shook off the idea of our friendship breaking and the challenge made it stronger and the idea of it breaking was just some bs that was made up due to the stress of the challenge. But like I said, the challenge made it stronger. But if my friends and I were brave enough to go through that prison it proves what I said earlier.
We were afraid of getting hurt at school and our friendship breaking but we still went and easily adapted with help of each other, and our friendship was strengthened. Anyway why is Ray so afraid to fight crime? He is still a great fighter. Anyway Charlotte found out something that could help Ray and she told me about it and we went to the Man Cave to tell Ray and Henry.
We got in the elevator and went down screaming as we did. We got up from the floor when the elevator door opened, and we walked out. Charlotte looked at the elevator weirdly and we ran over to them.
"You guys." Charlotte called. "She found something." I said that for her. "What'd you find?" Henry asked, walking over. "Ok, Ray lost his power because he got sprayed with tears from a jolly beetle?" Charlotte asked to clarify. "Yeah yeah I think we're all aware about what happened up to this point." He grumbled. "Just tell us what you fo-" Henry was cut off by his phone ringing. Ray groaned loudly. "What now?!" He grumbled again.
"What?" Henry sighed as he answered his phone. I am 99% sure I know who he's talking to. "I don't know but I can't talk ri-" "I AM NOT OK!" The person on the phone shouted. Make that I'm 100% sure. "You've never ever been ok." Henry said with a slight glare. She for real hasn't. "Who's that?" Ray asked from the couch. Henry lowered his phone. "Just mine and Reyli's dumb sister." He whispered. "I heard that!" Piper exclaimed. "Piper I-." Henry tried to explain before he was cut off.
"My friend Marla took a pic of me, and I looked really bad in it." Piper started ranting. "Oh no." Henry said sarcastically.
"And she promised me she wouldn't post it but then she did post it and SHE TAGGED ME!" Piper said her voice louder than a normal voice in or in her case it was a normal voice. "Wow, tell me more." Henry said in an insincere voice and put his phone down on the couch and started talking to Charlotte. "Ok tell us what you found out." He said for Charlotte to continue. "That jolly beetles only eat one thing." She said.
"What?" Henry asked. "Japanese fish flakes." Charlotte said. "Fish flakes?" Henry repeated. Are those like made out of fish or fish food?
"Yeah, and 2 weeks ago a hundred pounds of them were shipped to a warehouse right here in Swellview." She said as she stood behind Ray. "A load of fish flakes that big would feed dozens of jolly beetles." Ray realized. "And who would need to have that many jolly beetles?" Charlotte asked with a smirk. "Some who needed a lot of jolly beetle tears." Henry gasped.
"Enough to spray Captain Man." Charlotte referred to Ray. I noticed Henry's phone on the couch and heard Piper say very faintly, "Henry, are you listening?" Instead of very loudly for a change. "Hold up." I said and picked up Henry's phone. "It's me Reyli. Henry's busy. What? No way. She did? Then what happened?" I asked, going from covering for Henry to asking very sarcastically. I put Henry's phone down not that he would've had a problem with me using it when I was right next to him. "Tell us more." I said immediately going back to the conversation.
"Where's the warehouse?" Henry asked. He smiled at me when I talked to Piper on his phone, and he was ok with me using it for him.
"Downtown, Abbey road." Charlotte said. I remember that place I've been there before. I used to think it was named after a station in Thomas and Friends. I was seriously disappointed. "Ray, let's go." Henry said, trying to get Ray to go with him. Ray stood up and flinched. "No, I can't fight bad guys in my condition." Ray flinched.
Ok he is being a big baby about this. Even without his indestructibility he is still a great fighter and it's only been like 3 or 4 days. He should overcome it. I mean it's been over a month since the first day of school and the only problem from it that still applies now is that the older basketball players are still over 6 feet tall, built as fuck they still tower over us and still look down on us intimidatingly. In fact, me, Edward and Percy share gym class with them and our lockers in the locker room are right next to theirs.
We were nervous to go to the gym for the first time, but we overcame that. The older basketball players treat us like slaves. It can be a bit nasty. Me, Edward and Percy share a locker room with like 5-7 basketball players that are over 6 years older than us and 3 or 4 feet taller than us. They sometimes don't see us on the benches and sit on us but even if they see us they don't get off of us. They always end up changing their shirts in front of us and start flexing in front of us to intimidate us more but they don't take their pants off in front of us. Whenever they take off their gym clothes they throw them onto the 3 of us thinking we were a dirty gym pile but they leave them on us when they realize what they did with smirks on their faces.
We always end up buried in a pile of their clothes no matter what clothes they throw on us. This is a bit disgusting, but this does happen all the time.
No matter which clothes they are, street clothes, basketball clothes or school clothes they always bury us in their clothes and laugh about it. In fact we realized that we didn't need to see them in person to know that they were human skyscrapers.
Percy once put on one of their jackets and his tiny body was hidden in his huge jacket making Edward and I chuckle. But we froze when we found out the owner was standing right behind us. He didn't want Percy wearing his clothes so he buried him in his dirty clothes to teach him a lesson. Then he walked over to me and Edward and warned us that he wasn't afraid to do the same to us or worse shove our faces up his armpits.
Edward and I took like 5 minutes to dig Percy out because of all the clothes in that pile. Edward and I decided to put the clothes away for him.
He then came back because he forgot to put them away and saw us touching his clothes. I quickly and nervously explained that I was just helping my friend out of his clothes and putting them away for him.
He smirked telling me that he did warn me. Let's just say for the rest of that day I had the smell of a teenage boy's armpits clogging my nose because he wasn't lying about shoving my face up his armpit thing and I stayed in that position till the bell rang for next class.
He also warned Edward that the same would happen to him if he tried to help me and he said he knew Edward touched his clothes too but since Edward put them down, he let him off with a warning.
I did warn you we went through this, and it was disgusting. In fact Edward Percy and I still have to deal with that now so they can be real assholes to us. That was pretty much the worst it got and they don't beat us up but they do punch us, give us wedgies and say bad stuff to us like how if we tell anyone they will beat us up. The only reason we're still dealing with it is because there is 1 member of the team that is nice to us. Whenever his teammates do something to us he defends us from them and always sticks up for us. Whenever Gym is canceled we have to go to a spare room and he talks to us. He said that his teammates enjoyed messing with us because they think we can be annoying even though we don't bother them. Most of the time it is just stuff like painful wrestling moves or treating us like slaves. They never hurt us enough to be sent to the nurse but he said if it gets worse to let us know and he will take care of it.
He said his teammates do it to us because they think we are some annoying little kids and use our fear of them to their advantage. He said we don't deserve it since we are nice kids, but he doesn't want them to know he is nice to us so when they are around he pretends to be mean but is nice when they aren't around that's what we agreed on.
That is what we have to deal with during gym.
That is basically what they do to us and he tried his best to protect us from it. He sometimes teases us but he is still nice.
He's very popular and talks to us freely when gym class is canceled because he wants to be our friend.
Me, Edward and Percy got used to the way they stuff they do to us, and they still do it to us, but he is the only 1 on the team that is nice to us. His teammates sometimes punch us and mess with us but he does his best to protect us from it.
My point for mentioning this other than it will come back later is that we knew this will happen whenever we have gym. If you knew this would happen to you, would you want to go to gym and would you be scared if you did? Well Edward Percy and I knew this would happen for almost 2 months.
Yet we overcame it and went to gym. If 2 nine-year old's and an 8-year-old that's 10 days away from turning 9 can be the slaves and sometimes be beat up by 5-7 teenagers (that are all like Godzilla compared to us) 5 days a week for the past 2 months then surely a 33 year old grown man that has been fighting crime for years can fight without his powers. See what I mean? I've been in my thoughts for a while. Let me get back to this conversation.
"Well who wouldn't be afraid?" Ray rhetorically asked Henry and Charlotte something. Apparently Henry told Charlotte that Ray was afraid to fight criminals with his power and Ray was trying to ask who wouldn't be.
Henry scoffed. "How about me?" He asked annoyingly. "I'm your sidekick and I've been helping you do all kinds of dangerous stuff and I never had any powers." He ranted. "I can be hurt." He declared. "Which is why I pay you $9 an hour!" He snapped. "I'll be back." Henry declared.
"Where you going?" Charlotte asked. "To do my job." Henry kinda snapped for being annoyed at Ray. I picked up Henry's phone as I heard Piper say "that is messed up!" "Yeah yeah, Marla's bad and you're amazing." I sarcastically said. "Thank you!" She shouted. I hung up and tossed Henry his phone as he walked to the tube pad and he caught it. "Well? Go with him." Charlotte encouraged Ray and Henry turned around. Ray hesitated.
He groaned. "I can't." He said. "You mean you won't." I scoffed. "Have you seen my bee sting?" He asked, showing me and Charlotte his hand. We both just looked weirdly away. "Just forget it. I don't need Captain Couch." Henry said as he stood under the tube pad and the tube came down. "Up the tube!" He said and the tube sucked him up.
Charlotte and I gave Ray looks. "Look, the bee hurt me." He said, showing us his hand and bee sting again. The 2 of us looked back at him. Once I got stung by a bee and Henry swore he'd beat the shit out of a bee if he ever saw one again. While Henry was gone, Ray decided to face the fear and he went to fight the bad guy with Henry. This is what happened.
Henry found the criminal who was using the jolly beetles. It was a mad scientist called Dr. Minyak not Dr. Maniac, it was Dr. Minyak and his assistant Nurse Cohort who kinda had a crush on Ray. She was the one that sprayed Ray with the tears the day of the award show. Dr. Minyak's goons had captured Henry so Ray leapt down to save him and then a fight started. When it ended his goons were knocked out.
But he and Norse Cohort weren't.
Ray and Henry were going to bring the beetles back here but Dr Minyak held them in glass cylinders and he threw them onto the floor letting the beetles escape and he released this gas that would kill them allowing him and Nurse Cohort to escape. Henry thought they should catch them but it was more important to catch the beetles because they were they only way to get Ray's power back. They managed to catch the beetles except for one Ray crushed with his foot. By accident but he claims it was the gas.
The beetles were brought back here, and Gooch found a way to get Ray's power back. The glass cylinders were set up and each beetle had one to itself. I don't know how they can get Ray's power back though.
"So how does this work?" Charlotte and I both asked simultaneously. "You see when the beetles watch something funny, they secrete euphoric acid, which we can use to reverse the weakening effect of the tears." Gooch explained. Charlotte nodded.
He's basically saying that a liquid that the beetles make when they laugh is an acid that we can use to reverse the effect of the tears and get Ray's power back. The acid was light blue too. We put on the Drake and Josh episode Foam Finger, the part where Drake and Josh were arguing about the finger and the fight they had. The part where Drake asked 'you calling me a liar?' and Josh said 'I ain't calling you a truther' and Ray Henry and the beetles were laughing and I was smiling. "And now I extract the fluid." Gooch declared. He used like a turkey baster or needle or something like that to extract that acid the beetles were making from the container where it was held.
"And this happy bug juice is really going to fix Captain Man?" Henry asked. "We hope." Gooch answered. "It better." I said nervously.
"Come on, let's do this." Ray said and clapped his hands once. "Ready?" Gooch asked when he got that needle thing ready to spray. Ray nodded and took a deep breath. "Spray in the hole." Gooch said and Ray was sprayed with that liquid and it was like it came out of a spray can. When Gooch was done Ray started acting strange.
He started to flex out of his control and groan very loudly. We all nervously looked at him. "That's interesting." He said as his eyes started to glow that shade of blue. Eventually he stopped groaning and flexing, and his eyes went back to normal. When they did he took a huge sigh. We all weirdly looked at him.
"Did it work?" Henry hesitantly asked. "Only one way to find out." Gooch said. He then got this huge laser ready to fire at Ray. "Setting to intensity 5." Gooch informed Ray and the 3 of us. It means the laser will be very hot.
It started warming up but before he could shoot Ray with it, the crime alert started barling. "Emergency." Charlotte and I both declared and Ray ran over to the motors to see what it was. It was Jasper groaning and limping through Swellview Park because he put on too tight skinny jeans and couldn't take them off and was whining for help.
Henry Charlotte and I gave annoyed 'seriously it's him' or 'really it's him' looks to each other.
Ray turned off the monitor. "You hear that? There's a boy wandering through Swellview Park trapped in his own pants." Ray said. Well Jasper did want skinny jeans after the award thing to get girls and they were too tight on him.
"Swellview needs you." Henry said. Ray walked in front of the laser. "Ok Gooch, time to check my density. Let's see if I got my Captain Man back." Ray said with a determined glare.
Gooch was about to fire but he hesitated.
"You realize if the beetles euphoric acid didn't work..." He warned in a very hesitating voice. "You sure, Ray?" I asked in a hesitating voice. Ray gritted his teeth. "Blast me." He demanded. Gooch turned it on.
Then this blue electric laser thing shot out of it and hit Ray in the chest making it look like the laser was burning his chest. Ray was grunting and screaming. Charlotte looked away, Gooch and Henry cringed, and Henry covered my eyes.
Eventually Ray fell on his knees still groaning and screaming. When the laser was done Ray fell on the floor on his back with smoke coming from his body. Henry Charlotte Gooch and I all looked at him anxiously. Ray flipped off the floor onto his feet. "I'm ok." He announced we all cheered, and Henry Charlotte and I ran up to him and gave him huge hugs. He even spun me around because I was the lightest after he stopped hugging Henry and Charlotte.
Gooch walked up to him when he put me down and they high fived. Ray turned to Henry. "Kid Danger." He spoke.
Henry's phone then started ringing. Henry groaned. "It's my little sister." Ray also groaned and I rolled my eyes. "I got it." I said as he gave it to me and answered it.
"What Piper?" I asked, walking over to the monitors. "Reyli, why do you keep answering for Henry?" She asked. "Because he's busy again and you know he will let me use his phone if I ask." I scoffed. "Reyli, my friend Marla is out of control." She said and I remembered what happened earlier. "Wow, please tell me all about it." I sarcastically said and I put his phone in front of the monitors. I turned back to the others as they were watching me have a conversation with my sister.
"She's distracted, you 2 can go now." I informed Ray and Henry and went back to them. They ran to the tubes and stood on the tubepads and the tubes came down on them. "Call it." Ray said. "Up the tube!" Henry said and they both were sucked up. I looked at where they were standing, kinda impressed. I could tell that look was also on Charlotte's face. We both turned to the monitors when we heard a girl's voice say 'hello?'
"Reyli? I AM NOT OK!" Piper shouted loud enough for us to hear. I grumbled, walked over to the phone and hung up in the middle of her sentence and walked back to Charlotte. At least Ray got his indestructibility back and can fight crime like he used to again.
