I don't know why it is.

Maybe it's because I've been thinking about this scene (and this chapter) a lot this week. Maybe it's because this is an amazing scene in a movie full of amazing scenes. Maybe it's because there's a reference to "A Christmas Story" in the first few sentences. Maybe it's because I just want people to cry.

But for some reason, I have been super-excited to write this chapter. Other than the twist (which the entire story is built around), this was the first scene I planned out. It's the first chapter that has parts that are entirely original. It's the longest chapter I've written so far. It's super-duper emotional - especially at the end. I've even been planning this author's note for over a week. I'm honestly just really excited to share this chapter with the world.

And if it makes this super-long rant make any more sense, this chapter is narrated by Good Cop/Bad Cop. So that might help. Have fun!

Also, on a completely unrelated note, I want to thank SpringTastic for reviewing almost every single chapter in this story (Chapter 2, I'm looking at you). It's really cool to see that people like my story. And it will get really exciting soon - especially when the twist comes into play.

(Disclaimer - see Chapter 1)

Chapter 6:

They're Innocent

I stood in Lord Business's office, waiting for doom.

The Special had gotten away, and it was my fault. If I had just been a little quicker, if I had stayed in the melting room, if I could've run a little faster, he would be here, and the Piece of Resistance would be ours.

But I hadn't caught him. And now I was in for it. What would it be? The guillotine? Hanging? The chair? The rack? The infinite abyss of oblivion? Mere child's play compared to what I knew Lord Business had in store for me.

Suddenly, I heard the loudspeaker in the office turn on and say "Engaging dramatic entrance."

I took a deep breath in as Lord Business burst into the room.

"Hello, Bad Cop," he said, his voice steely and cold.

I stepped back to avoid getting crushed by Business's boots. "Sir, I know I let the Special get away, but –"

Business started laughing. "Don't be so serious!" he said. "Where's the other guy?"

When Business wanted the other guy, you gave him the other guy. I closed my eyes and shook my head. "Hey there!" I said, a nervous quiver in my voice.

"Hey, little buddy!" he said. "I've missed you!"

"Oh, did you really?" I said. I was dying to get back to my not-so-good side, but I kept my cool.

Business nodded. "Hey, have I ever shown you my relic collection?"

I thought for a second. "Nope, I don't think you have," I said.

"Nobody knows where this stuff comes from," Business said. "There's the Orb of Ti-Teleest, the Sword of Exact Zero, a lot of things. This is the Cloak of Ban Da'id."

He held up a tan cloak with...stuff stuck to it.

"I hear it's super-duper painful to take off. You wanna try it on?"

I couldn't take it any longer. I closed my eyes and shook my head. "No, sir," I said. "But thank you."

He chuckled under his breath and threw the cloak over to some robots, who struggled to put it back up on its stand.

"You know, Bad Cop, we've done a great job together. Capturing those Master Builders and torturing them and whatnot."

"Thank you," I said dutifully.

"Although," he said, turning toward me, "you did let the Piece of Resistance go. The one thing that could ruin my plans, the one thing that I asked you to take care of – that's super frustrating."

He chortled, an evil grin on his face. This was starting to get scary.

"It almost…well, you know what it makes me want to do?"

I shook my head, even though I knew what was coming.

Business picked me up. "It almost makes me want to pick up…pretty much whoever's closest to me," he said, his voice rising, "and throw them out the window into the INFINITE ABYSS OF OBLIVION!"

He pushed me against the window, forcing my glasses off my nose and making me stare into the swirls of pink and green. Really, the universe should know. Pink and green never go together.

"I wanna do it so bad!" Business shouted, a fake cry in his voice.

"I know…I know you do, sir," I said. "But please don't."

He threw me to the side, and I struggled to get up.

"But it's not just you, Bad Cop," he said. "People everywhere are messing with my stuff!"

He turned on a monitor hanging from the ceiling. It flickered on, showing security camera footage of Emmet on a makeshift motorcycle, bursting out of a house that was being moved.

"But I have a way to fix that," Business said. "A way to make things the way they're supposed to be…permanently."

The monitor changed to show a group of robots in hazmat suits carrying some sort of coffin.

"Behold…the most powerful of all the relics…THE KRAGLE!"

The coffin opened to reveal a tube of material with the word Kragle printed on it in bold red letters. My eyes widened – if you weren't afraid of that thing, you weren't afraid of anything.

"The robots are loading the Kragle into a really scary but kinda cool machine upstairs," Business said. "It's called the Tentacle Arm Kragle Outside Sprayer, or TAKOS." He said it like someone would say the world taco, but then quickly explained – "The S is silent."

"So on Taco Tuesday, it's going to spray the Kragle over everyone and everything using a bunch of nozzles, like this one." He gestured to the floor, which opened up to reveal one of the nozzles, which started to examine me like a dog learning his owner's smell. "I'll show you how it works," he said.

Oh, great, I thought. "Sir, you don't have to," I said.

He chuckled. "Oh, don't worry, I won't try it on you," he said. I sighed with relief – until he continued talking.

"I'll do it on your parents!" he said, as if he were a child telling a story – a story that he could control completely without involvement.

Suddenly, the floor opened again – and a prop house showed up. It was a pretty house, with white walls, a blue roof, yellow and red shutters, and perfectly trimmed bushes surrounded by a white picket fence. But that wasn't what scared me.

Business was right. Mommy and Daddy were standing in front of the fence, as if nothing was going on. They knew otherwise – I had sent them a letter, telling them Business's plan – but they were amazing at putting up a front.

"Hi, son!" Dad called out. "How's it going in the big city?"

"Mommy? Daddy? What are you doing here?" I asked, fear clouding my voice.

"That doesn't matter," Business said. "Now, Pa, I want you to act naturally, like you're just…you know, going about your day."

"Got you," he said, putting his hand up as if he was resting it on an imaginary object.

"Great," Business said. "Keep your hand up like that. Now, Ma, scoot two steps to the right."

She scooted over – but then Daddy turned. The good hidden inside me couldn't help but smile – it wasn't that Pa was inadequate, it was that he was trying to defy Business, even when he knew there was no way out of the situation.

"Pa, why is it that when I talked to Ma, you started to move?" Business yelled. "Get back to where you were!"

"Sorry," Daddy said, scooting back to where Business wanted him to be. "Like this?"

"Perfect, Pa," Business said. "You couldn't do any better. There's absolutely no reason why you should move! Now, Ma, hand on his shoulder."

She put her hand on his shoulder – just as Daddy turned again.

"Pa, you just moved – and you wrecked it. You wrecked it!" Business yelled. "Bad Cop, you see what I'm talking about? All I'm asking for is total perfection."

I wanted to yell back that he wouldn't know perfection if it slapped him in the face, but I held back.

"Send in a micromanager!" Business said.

The floor opened one more time, revealing a large, black robot with red eyes and claw hands. It walked over to Mommy and Daddy and twisted their limbs and fixed their hair and glasses before moving back.

"Hold still, you guys," Business whispered. It seemed like such a simple request, but it hid such an ominous message – this will be a lot easier and less painful if you just do what I say, Business seemed to be saying.

He grabbed a remote from the nozzle just before it moved toward Mommy and Daddy. "Now," he said, "I just spray them with the TAKOS."

A scary red glow covered my parents – and then Business pressed a button on the remote, spraying Mommy and Daddy's legs with the Kragle's juices. Their once-micromanaged faces looked horrified.

"Pa, hold me!" Mommy said.

"Darling, I can't," Daddy said, heartbroken. "I can't move my legs."

"Well, Bad Cop," Business asked, "does that upset you? Surely you want to help your parents, don't you?"

I clamped my lips together so as not to give Business any more satisfaction.

The nozzle, which had backed up to show me the results of the Kragle's magic, closed in on my parents again. "Finish the job," Business said, in a steely tone that told me to obey – or else.

I nodded somberly. "Of course, sir."

But then I felt something inside me. I'm still not sure exactly what it was, but for a split second, I felt like a piece of glass, ready to break. I couldn't let myself do this.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. "I don't want to," I said.

Then I thought about the consequences, and I switched back. "You have to."

There was that glass feeling again. I switched again. "I don't want to."

Business will kill you, something inside me said. "Would you please be quiet?"

So Business is more important than family? I thought, switching back. "I can't!"

Still, I didn't want to die. "You must."

I looked at my parents, standing there, helpless. "But they…"

What was up with this? I had never felt like this before. "Shut it!"

I could almost feel the glass inside me start to crack. "It's not nice!"

I remembered the way Business told me to finish them off. "It's your job!"

But then I saw the look on Mommy's face. She was pleading with me to help them in some way. And I realized I'd rather die for my parents than live for Business.

I switched back one more time. "I can't do it," I finally said. "They're innocent."

Business sighed, as if I had just sealed my doom – which I probably had.

"Just like I thought," he said. "Your Good Cop side is making you soft, Bad Cop."

I hated when he did that – when he talked about me like I was two different people. I was one person, one individual – just like anyone else. My feelings just expressed themselves a little differently than other people.

"Robots, bring me the Fleece-Crusted Scepter of Q-Teep and the Poleesh Remover of Na'il," Business said.

A few robots brought over a pink bottle and a white stick with fleece on both ends. Business dipped one end of the stick into the bottle and took it out.

Suddenly, another robot pushed me down to the ground. I tried switching back to Bad Cop, but the robot held my face in place.

"You've already let the Special get away once," Business said. "Now I'll make sure that it won't happen again."

He held the scepter over my head. "No more Mr. Nice Guy!" he yelled as he brought the fleece down on my face.

The fleece rubbed against my eyes, my mouth, my glasses, and suddenly I couldn't feel my face. Or see. Or breathe. I fell to the ground. Faintly, I could hear Mommy cry out for me.

"On Taco Tuesday," Business said, "I'm going to use the Kragle to freeze the universe and make everyone stop messing with my stuff." He started to raise his voice. "Are you going to be with me, or are you going to be stuck having a TEA PARTY WITH YOUR MOM AND DAD?"

I struggled to get up.

"Son?" Daddy said, fear and uncertainty clouding his voice.

I wasn't able to feel my eyes, but I was able to shake my head. Suddenly, I could see and breathe again. Mommy and Daddy were in front of me, their faces full of disbelief.

I felt the glass in me finally break. "I'm sorry, Dad," I said, "but I have a job to do."

I grabbed the remote from Business, closed my eyes, and pressed the button. A squirting sound came from in front of me.

I let out a sigh and opened my eyes. And what I saw made me jump in fear and awe.

Mommy and Daddy were completely frozen, covered by the magic liquid of the Kragle. They looked horrified, but had a certain peace to them, as if they had already come to terms with what I was going to do.

And that broke me even more than the glass.

"Business," I said, "can I go? For just a second?"

"Nonsense," Business said. "Now that you've proven that you can actually work for me, we have lots of work to do! We –"

"Please," I said, my voice laced with tears.

He sighed. "Fine," he said.

"Thank you," I muttered, and ran out of the room.

The hallways were a blur as I raced through them, finally finding my way to the men's restroom. I sped in and looked in the mirror.

All I could see was the face of Bad Cop.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. When I opened my eyes again, I still saw Bad Cop.

I tried again. Still Bad Cop.

I took off my hat and turned around, looking over my shoulder. The back of my head was completely blank – where there was once a face, there was only yellow skin.

I put my hat back on and looked at myself in the mirror one more time. I thought about what had just happened in Business's office. I felt the realization hit me like a ton of bricks, taking whatever unbroken glass I still had in me and crushing it into tiny pieces.

And I sobbed.

Tears poured out of my eyes as I thought about Mommy and Daddy, about Good Cop, about how empty I felt inside without some sort of conscience.

And I came to a conclusion.

I would have to stay with Business for a while, pretend I had some sort of loyalty left in me. But when the time was right, I would leave. I would find a way to bring back Good Cop.

And I would – hopefully – help save the world.

The slightest of smiles came to my face as I thought about avenging the life that Business had taken away from me. I dried my eyes and walked out of the restroom, ready to face the world.

I really hope you liked this chapter! This one took a little more research than most chapters - I wanted to get the names of all the relics right.

By the way, I haven't gotten a single private message with an idea of what the twist might be! So if you have an idea, don't be shy - feel free to PM me with your ideas.

Feel free (gosh, I love using the words "feel free") to review, but please no negative reviews or cursing. (And please, NOTHING POLITICAL!) Thanks!