Here's the next chapter! Enjoy!
Back in the office space, they got into a room inside that space where a large mirror had many pictures, news articles, and notes taped onto it. Mike took a good look at it as Nancy stated, "These are the 'bad men', the ones we believe are alive, anyway." She then went to one picture with a younger Terry Ives in it, her smiling and being next to Brenner, and took it off the mirror. "Just to clarify, Mike..." He looked at her as she showed him the photo of Terry and Brenner, pointing at the woman. "Our observer. She's the one with the police chief?"
He looked at her and answered, "Yes."
"Now, she doesn't work in the Lab anymore?" He nodded. "And she doesn't even like them?" He nodded again. "Do you know why she left?"
He remembered her mentioning it to him at one point. "She didn't like what they were doing."
"That's why she quit?"
"Yes."
She sighed and proceeded to put it in the pocket of her jeans. "With that out of the way, do you recognize anyone else here?"
He looked back up at the mirror of pictures and scanned the whole thing. Most of the people in the pictures didn't ring a bell to him...except one. He saw a picture of the bald and bearded man from before on a news article titled, "Retired!" He got it off the wall and answered, "Him." Nancy looked at the picture of him with nothing but hate in her eyes. Mike did as well. "He hurt our mom."
She nodded. "Right. His name's Ray Caroll...and he's done more than hurt our mom." She remembered one time with him...
She was still six and now wore the hospital gown every subject had to wear. She looked scared and got cornered by Ray, who was holding a taser rod and approaching her. "No...please-" she begged before he got her shoulder with the rod, stunning her with the electricity with an evil smile on his face. She screamed at the pain.
She crossed her arms again. "Bad men like Ray know about us, so they become hard to track. With you though..." She looked at her little brother. "That won't the case anymore."
Feeling just as hateful for him as she was, Mike crumpled up the photo.
...
Now sitting on the ground floor, the gang, including Holly, kept silent as their radio released static and Mike was blindfolded with Funshine's bandana to find Ray. They all waited for him to finally do the job, Axel holding a can of beer he got from the office space. The freckled boy then ripped the photo in half, dropped the pieces to the ground, and removed his bandana.
"Did you find the bad man?" his niece asked him. His only response was a nod as his nose bled a little.
...
After being told the address to Ray's location, Dottie found the phonebook the gang have been using to find their victims and sat on the ground, opening it up. She bit her lower lip as she slid her finger across one page. It stopped and she read out loud, "'Gramercy Apartments, Washington and Bethel.'" She handed the phonebook to Nancy so she could look at it. "That's it, right?"
She read that quietly to herself before saying, "It's at some place called Lilburn." She looked at her friends. "Where's that?"
"An hour east," Funshine answered.
Mick raised her arms up and down. "We don't even have a new ride," she stated.
The teenage girl looked at Axel, who was sitting next to Mike now, and asked, "We got plates, right?"
He nodded and answered, "Yeah."
She then looked at the African-American woman. "Then we swap plates." She shrugged. "Problem solved."
"Sure, but it's risky." She walked away from the group and walked up the stairs she usually sat on.
Nancy grinned. "Nothing's really fun if there's no risks involved." Mike became curious about that, looking concerned. Nothing's fun if there's no risks?
Mick grumbled, "Not setting a good example for Holly..."
She looked at her again, now smirking. "Normal people would say I'm not setting a good example for her, but she's still fine." She then played with her daughter's hair and looked at the rest of the gang. "Come on, let's make my little brother's first day exciting." Exciting?
"I'm in," Funshine replied, smiling at the boy. "For Mister Mike."
Axel grinned and shrugged. "Yeah, sure, why the hell not?" It was already a given that Dottie would be up to the task, considering who she was. Everyone else looked at the fuzzy-haired woman. "Mick?"
She looked up at the ceiling and began to grin. She looked at everyone else and shrugged, saying, "Screw it!"
That was cue for everyone to stand up and move around to their respective places. Mike stood around as he saw Axel and Funshine open up a safe to get everyone's weapons. Nancy suddenly grabbed his shoulders, making him look at her and her smile. "Time to get you a new makeover," she told him.
"Makeover?" he asked, not knowing what that word meant.
She should have known that a makeover was a foreign concept to him since he was a young boy. "You'll look different than you are now." She then whistled at the guy with the mohawk and called out, "Axel!"
He turned to her as he cocked his pistol. "Yeah?"
"Pick out some new clothes for him, will ya? I'm gonna go do his hair."
He nodded and put the pistol in his back pocket. "Not a problem."
She then looked at Holly and said, Stand by Auntie Mick, okay, sweetie? Mommy and Uncle Mike will be right back."
The little girl nodded at her. "Okay, Mommy." She then walked to Mick. The teenager then gestured him to follow her upstairs to his "bedroom".
...
She had gotten into the drawers in the room to get out some hair products to do his hair with. She sat him down on a chair and told him, "Lean back." He did so as she removed her fingerless gloves, squeezed out some hair gel on one, and rubbed her hands together. She then used her gel-covered hands to get his hair back. He tensed up at the feeling of that, making her say, "Stay still, this won't hurt at all." It didn't...though the feeling it gave him reminded him of...whenever Hopper did his hair-
No, he shouldn't think about him right now.
Just then, the guy with the mohawk got into the room, carrying a pile of clothes and accessories for Mike to wear. "Here's the shit ya need to wear, Carl," he stated as he placed them on the bed.
Nancy gave him a rather disapproving look. "Mike, Axel."
He gave her a smartass look. "I know, Nance." He then left.
She sighed and shook her head. Mike moved his head to look at Axel leaving, but his sister moved his head back to where it was before. "Don't move your head, Mike."
He sighed and replied in a rather irritated tone, "Okay..."
...
After she completely styled his hair, she left the room so that he could change into the clothes Axel provided for him. Afterwards, he looked at a mirror that was in the room to look at how he looked. His hair had feathery bangs that swept to the left side of his face and was swept down from the back like a mullet. He wore a plain white T-shirt underneath a black, studded, unbuttoned leather jacket, gray jeans with a black belt, and black combat boots that surprisingly fit him. He also wore black spiked bracelets and a silver necklace. He actually kind of liked this look.
He got out of the room, catching Nancy's attention when she was leaning near the doorway. She smiled at how he looked before they reached to the ground floor and showed everyone else how he looked. The gang looked approving of his new look, nodding their heads and Axel looking mildly impressed. "You actually don't look bad, Carl," he said to him.
"Yeah, you look bitchin'," Dottie added, crossing her arms and leaning against the table.
"Bitchin'," Holly also said, smiling.
Nancy went to her and said, "Sweetie, you're not old enough to say that word."
She then frowned. "Sorry."
She gave her a warming smile. "It's okay."
Bitchin'...from the sound of it, it was a compliment to him, like 'cool'. He nodded and smiled a little, repeating, "Bitchin'."
...
After that, everyone got outside and walked to the van, Holly holding both Nancy's and Mike's hands. Mick smoked and carried a brown bag with her while Dottie carried another bag, this one being a yellowish-brown. They got to the vehicle, which was covered in tarp. The guys removed it, Axel switching the plates not too long after. Everyone got into the van: Mick took the driver's seat, Axel got the passenger's seat, and everyone else was sitting in the back. They then drove off, passing a couple of cops arresting the man. Little did they know that one paid close attention to the vehicle...
As they were on the road, the radio was on a rock station, playing "Dead End Justice" by The Runaways. Mick blew out smoke while Axel and Dottie were rocking out to it, the punk-haired girl slamming her hands on the table back there to imitate the drumming. Nancy, Holly, Funshine, and Mike smiled at them having fun, though Mike had never seen anyone do what they did before.
Nancy and Holly got out masks for him to try on. The bleached-haired girl gave him a mask of a hurt man, then her blonde-haired daughter gave him a Care Bear one. He wanted neither of those, Funshine wearing the latter mask. The gang continued to rock out to the music, Mike head-banging with them. The little girl gave him a baby mask, him rejecting it nicely. They all rocked out to the song again, Mike now smiling and moving his arms as a way of dancing to it.
Finally, Nancy gave him a black and white evil cartoon mask. He liked that one and decided to keep it on. He looked at Dottie and Funshine. The punk-haired girl nodded and pointed her fingers at him while Funshine just nodded. They all continued to rock out to the song, Nancy wearing a girly, make-overed mask.
Mick had made the van go to the gas station and stop at one of the gas tanks. Everyone removed their masks, most of them getting out of the car and going into the gas station itself. Mike looked confused and asked his sister, "What are we doing?"
"Stocking up," she answered him.
"Get me cookies, Mommy," Holly said to her.
She turned to her and smiled. "Don't worry, I will." She looked at her little brother and gestured him to come with her arm. He shrugged and got out of the van, closing the door of the van and getting into the store with her and the rest of the gang.
The store seemed to look old-fashioned, being made of mostly wood. There were plenty of food and other things in there though. Nancy got a shocked face and looked at the cashier, saying, "Hey!" He looked up at her with a confused face. She tilted her head to the left. "Your bathroom's leaking."
He looked at the bathroom, him seeing it actually leaking through the bottom crack of the door. He looked baffled at this and exclaimed, "Oh shit!" He then ran and carefully tried to get in there with the leaking sewage water...
Even though to everyone else, it looked like he was walking funny into it.
"Yeah...shit." That made Mike giggle a little.
Axel appeared in front of the bathroom door with a grin and announced, "Alright, contestants, ya got a minute and a half, so let's begin our supermarket sweep!" He spread his arms out to create a sweeping motion. That made everyone scatter and get whatever they wanted.
Mike had gotten to a place in the store where produce was being sold. He grabbed an apple and moved forward before stopping when he saw boxes of Eggos in the freezer. He wanted them more than anything else, so he instantly put the apple back and opened the freezer to grab a few boxes of Eggos. He walked down the freezer isle to find some tubs of ice cream, if there was any.
Nancy had taken some sweets for Holly, though she knew too much sugar would be bad for her young daughter. That's why she also got some healthy bars for her as well.
When Axel was stealing money from the cash register and putting it in a paper bag he got, he stopped when he heard a man shout, "HEY!" He and the rest of the gang looked to see the cashier out of the bathroom, holding a gun and pointing it right at him. "You put that money back where it belongs or I'll blow your head off." Mike felt stiff when he saw him with a gun before seeing the guy with the mohawk slowly raise his hands up from the cash register. Apparently, that wasn't good enough for him, because then he shouted, "Did you hear me, freak?!"
Nancy got herself into the scene, looking as calm as she could while holding her hands up a little. "Just put the gun down," she told him.
He then pointed at her and stepped away. "Stay back...STAY BACK!"
She still looked calm despite this, surprising the telekinetic boy. "Darrel, listen to me. Your money is insured. We're not stealing from you. We're stealing from the glorified criminals that are the billionaires running this place." While she was talking, the gang and Mike stepped closer, carefully. "Trust me, you won't even lose a dime." She smiled when she said that and shrugged.
He got closer to her with the gun, still looking unconvinced and making Mike feel tense. She lost her smile when he did that. "I said stay back."
She kept her hands up. "We're on the same side, I assure you."
He still pointed at the gun at her, now making the boy feel rather...mad. "Stay...back."
He was going to shoot her, Mike knew it. He didn't want that to happen, so he screamed and raised his hand up to use his power. He threw the man against a wall with styrofoam boxes, knocking him unconscious. Everyone, including the boy himself, got closer to make sure he was unconscious, looking quite shocked that he knocked him out like that.
"Daaaaamn, Carl," Axel said, sounding impressed.
Before anyone could say anything else, everyone heard police sirens off in the distance. Funshine was the first to react, whisper-shouting, "Go, go, go!" Everyone hurried out of the store, getting their things and throwing them into the van.
"We need to go, Mick!" Axel shouted to the driver.
"Okay!" she replied, getting in the van and starting it up. Without pulling out the pump, the gang had driven away quickly, leaving it to leak. Mike laid on the floor and sighed. That was the first-no, actually, second robbery he's performed. However, this one was his most intense. He was glad it didn't get any worse. Plus, he threw that man and didn't have his nose bleed at all. That meant something good, did it?
It was nighttime now as they finally arrived at the apartment Ray lived in. Mick parked right across from it, her and Axel looking back at the rest of the gang as she held onto her tiger mask. "Alright, we'll have to case the place and stick to the routine," she said. "We have time."
"We also have Mike," Nancy added, tilting her head towards her little brother before looking at him. "Can you look to make sure?"
He only nodded as a reply before closing his eyes and shutting out all his senses. Everyone was silent, even Holly, before he opened his eyes back up and looked at his sister. "He's watching TV." His nose bled a little.
"Is he alone?" Mick asked.
He nodded at her. "I saw no one else."
The bleached-haired girl smiled and stated, "Works for me."
Bouncing in excitement, Dottie replied, "Me too."
"Let's do this," Funshine also replied before they all put their respective masks on.
"Keep it running," Nancy told Mick.
"'Right, meet you around the back," she replied.
Before the two siblings could leave, Holly hugged her mom, making her hug back. She then hugged Mike, making him do the same to her, smiling under his mask. "Aw, sweetie. We'll be back."
"I know," she replied, breaking her hug with her uncle. "I'll still miss you." Holly was so cute to Mike and Nancy in that very moment...
The teen took off her mask to plant a kiss on her forehead before telling her, "Now, go onto Auntie Mick." She nodded as she climbed onto the African-American woman's lap, her buckling the two of them up. She gave Nancy the thumbs-up, making her and Mike leave the van with the rest of the gang and close the door. As they approached the building, the van drove off. Holly hoped that her mom and her uncle will be alright.
They went inside and followed Mike up to Ray's room. The door, unsurprisingly, was locked, so he tilted his head down and used his power to unlock the door. They heard one click, then a chain jingling. He then used it to test out if he could shut the TV off. He didn't heard the TV show the man was watching, so it worked. He turned to the rest of the gang, Nancy nodding as a way to tell him to open the door.
He did so, discreetly so that he wouldn't notice. Everyone walked inside quietly before getting into his living room. The man himself was turning the knobs, confused that the TV shut itself off. Nancy then greeted him with, "What's up, Ray?" He instantly looked at her and the masked gang. It was him, the man that shattered their mom's brain. There was no doubt in the siblings' minds.
"J-Jesus!" he exclaimed as he tried to escape. Suddenly, Funshine got in his way. Even though he had a Care Bear mask on, his demeanor was intimidating.
"Sit down..." he demanded him in a voice that matched his demeanor. "Please." He walked towards him, making him raise his hands up and step back in complete fear. "I said sit down!" He then grabbed him and threw him back onto his chair. Seeing Funshine like that made Mike tense, even though he wasn't Ray.
"P-please...just please..." He looked so scared about what was happening. "Take whatever you want, okay?"
Axel bent down to him and replied, "Oh, we will."
Dottie bent down to him as well. "Where's your wallet, old man?" she asked.
"Bedroom...my jeans, in my bedroom." That was enough for them to leave and steal whatever he had. Funshine kept himself in position in front of the door while the Wheeler siblings stepped right in front of the scared man. He looked at them, both of them feeling pure hatred for him. Nancy took off her mask, gesturing Mike to do the same. When he did that, Ray now looked a little puzzled.
"Do you remember us, Ray?" Nancy asked him. He only shook his head as a reply. The teen then used her power to make the lights go nuts in Ray's vision before seeing the two being replaced with the younger versions of themselves wearing their uniforms. "What about us? You must remember us, Ray." His eyes widened in horror, knowing now that these two were Dr. Wheeler's kids.
When the lights came back to normal, Nancy gave him a punch near the top of his head, making him fall down from his chair and scream. He looked up at the both of them, pleading. "Please...please..."
The two of them kept their cold and hateful looks towards him as Mike said, "You hurt our mom." He then screamed and threw him against the wall with his power. He grunted in pain, now having a bleeding scratch to the right of his head. The impact he made on the wall created a dent.
The two siblings began to approach him, making him more terrified than he was before. "W-wait, wait!" He was shaking, in both his body and his voice. "Pl-please, listen..." He sat up, almost about to cry. "I...I just did what he told me to do." The two stopped, Mike looking concerned now. "Y-your dad and Dr. Brenner, they told me she was sick!"
Mike still looked concerned, but Nancy looked unconvinced, making him look the same. "You had a choice, Ray Carrol, and what did you choose? To follow two men that you knew were evil."
Just as the freckled boy was going to use his power on him again, Ray exclaimed, "WAIT! Wait!" He stopped using it when he exclaimed that. "I...I can help."
Nancy scoffed. "Help?"
"I-in finding him."
"Who?"
"Your dad, Dr. Wheeler!" Hearing that name was enough to make them both tense up, Mike especially. "Br-Brenner's gone, but Wheeler...I can take you both to him."
The boy's eyes were watering up, feeling so many unpleasant feelings hearing about this, about his horrible father. "Dad...is gone."
Ray shook his head. "No, Brenner is gone...but your dad's alive."
Nancy gave him a sharp glare. "Don't you lie to us, Ray."
"I'm not!" He began to cry and sob, whimpering, "I swear..." He sniffled. "Your dad trusts me. I can take you to him."
Neither of them knew how to react to that in that moment. It was fine that Brenner was dead, but not their own dad? That psychopath that treated his own children as nothing more than lab rats? Objects of an experiment? While Nancy didn't know him for too long, she knew that he was horrible...and clever. Mike, on the other hand, refused to believe that the man who was his father, who never cared for anyone but himself and maybe his friend Brenner...was still alive.
"Well, if that psychopath of our father is still alive, Mike can find him, just like he found you," the teenager told him in a cold voice. He continued to cry as she looked at her brother and said, "Do it, Mike."
The boy thought the man was really lying. Plus...he set that machine to four-fifty and tortured his mom's brain with it. He was begging for him not to kill him, but he raised his hand up to an upwards claw, choking him. He was gagging, falling to the side and putting his hands on his neck to make it stop. He was using a lot of his power to choke him, having a face of coldness and anger as he stepped towards. With every step, the choking man moved a little.
"Not too quick," the teen said to him. "He didn't give our mom that kind of mercy." He did that, loosening his power's grip on the man's throat a little, but still using it a lot. His face was now completely red, him slowly becoming limp but still moving. He thought to himself that this man, this horrible bad man, deserved this. He deserved to die painfully and slowly.
As he used more of his power to choke him, he suddenly noticed a broken photo next to the man's face. It was of him and two other girls, one a teenager and the other a child...perhaps they were his daughters. They were all happy and smiling, him having his arms around their shoulders. Several emotions began to wash over him, now his face becoming softer and...guilty. Seeing that picture made him feel so...
He finally removed his power's grip on the man's throat, him gasping for air and coughing. This surprised his older sister, her eyes wide. "Hey, what's wrong?" she asked him. He didn't answer, gulping and feeling awful right now. This man had two daughters...like- "What's wrong, Mike?"
Axel and Dottie came out of one room, the guy with the mohawk saying, "Uh, we gotta problem, Nance."
They both looked up at them as the punk-haired girl pointed at the bedroom they came out of. "There's kids...in the apartment," she added.
Nancy swore under her breath while Mike felt even more terrible. However, his sister looked at him while Ray was begging again and stated, "Did this son of a bitch give our mom any mercy? No."
"No...please, don't..." he begged the boy specifically. "I'm sorry..."
The boy's eyes were brimming with tears as Nancy continued, "He took her away from us: no hesitation, no second thought, not a doubt on his mind." He still hated this man, but...to kill him when he has a family...especially since the mom was probably absent-
"We NEED to go, Nance! They called the damn cops!"
"In a minute!" she shouted to Axel before looking at her little brother one more time. "Now, Mike! FINISH IT!" His own sister wanted him to kill him, but...
Ray shook his head. "No...please, please, don't! Please...please..." This man had been horrible...but Mike won't kill him because he had a family...a family similar to the Ives'. Maybe his apology was genuine...maybe-
Nancy groaned and said, "Fine, then I'll do the honors." She then pulled out her gun, unlocked the safety, and pointed it at Ray, shocking Mike. He screamed before the boy used his power to throw it out the window. She gasped and looked him at him with her jaw dropped and her eyes...watery. He looked at her with a stern face and shook his head. This flickered her anger, the anger she thought she moved on from long ago. "You little-"
Police sirens were heard from the distance, making Axel and Dottie walk. "Nancy, we gotta GO!" Since there was no more time left, they all left the apartment...leaving Ray Carrol alive.
Everyone got outside, going down the flight of stairs as everyone except Mike muttered curses. They all ran to the van, Axel whisper-shouting, "Go, go, go!" He almost tripped before Dottie first arrived at the van and opened the door in a hurry. "Come on, get in!" she shouted as everyone got right into the van. When the door closed, the van instantly sped along out of there.
Mike and Nancy sat together, the boy having a couple tears go down his cheeks before he wiped them away. As Axel handed Holly to Funshine, Nancy looked at him rather angrily and told him, "If you wanted to show mercy to the man that destroyed our mom, then fine." He looked at her, still feeling awful. "But don't you EVER take away MY choice of what I want to do to him again, understand?" He now felt both awful and, as she said earlier in the day, pissed off at her. She didn't know. She had no idea that killing him would be a bad idea, despite him being a bad man.
"Mommy...?" the blonde-haired girl asked her mom, her and her uncle looking at her. She looked sad, making them both feel terrible. "Is something wrong?"
Nancy sighed deeply and brought her onto her lap. "No, it's just...things didn't go right tonight." She gave Mike a sharp glare, making him do the same as he looked out the window.
"It didn't...?" She looked like she was about to cry.
The teenage girl stroked her hair and bounced her a little, giving her a face of reassurance. "Don't worry. Things will go right next time." She hoped to God it will, especially since her little brother, surprisingly, screwed it up. Seriously...it was just like her experiencing her past...
Stopping right here. How was this chapter? Any typos or mistakes I might've missed?
Mike's new look was kind of inspired by one photo-op Finn did (remove the spaces): 78. media. tumblr. (add com slash here) b670fecf6b1bdd193b69efccd37e6e52 / tumblr_ovm4e6j6xr1tmwudwo4_500. jpg. Hope you guys like it!
Soooooo...Brenner's confirmed to be dead, but Ted? Not really...one horrible human being is dead, but the another, according to Ray...
Now begins the strain of the Wheeler siblings' relationship...one wants to spare the man that destroyed their mother, the other wants to kill him then and there. I figured that in this life, Nancy would never flinch at the opportunity to kill someone, especially someone from the Lab, like Kali in canon. Mike wouldn't unless there are certain circumstances (i.e.: him and the Party getting chased back in Season 1). This isn't one of them because...well, his family nearly resembled the Ives', so...yeah. Of course, difference in view is going to sour their relationship.
Follow, favorite, review, and I'll see you guys in the next chapter!