Alright, here I am.
Hope you had a good holiday. Sorry I didn't get to say so ahead of time.
I try to respond to every review I get, but I haven't really answered any of the guest reviews. I don't think I've done my share of letting you know how much I appreciate everyone taking the time to tell me that they like it or even reading it when i update it.
I want to take a moment to sincerely thank everyone for their support this far and answer some of the questions and comments I've received.
Unkown Man: How old are they.
A: This story was planned to take place in the early/current canon universe. Mordecai and Rigby, as well as the supporting characters used are the canon ages, so Mordecai and Rigby would be 23, and the rest would be theirs. My OC Martin is… younger. Don't wanna ruin it, yet.
Zenna: The should of/should have dilemma.
Lol, I've had this discussion with my English teachers for years. Even though should have is the correct way to say it, most people nowadays use should of in typical conversation, so it's always stuck with me. Besides, can you really picture Mordecai and Rigby being correct in their speech? I'll try to change how I use it, but you know the saying about old dogs and new tricks.
I try to be theatrical or movie-like with many of my stories, and the show always gave me an older, Indie film vibe so that's how I tried to keep it.
My taste in music is always labeled as one of my best traits. I can go from, Judas Priest or The Cranberries one minute to Dr. Dre, and Deadmau5 the next. It's always good to hear when someone shares a similar taste in music.
Guest:
Yes, it's still MXOC. Caroline was introduced recently and will be in the next couple chapters, but she won't become a major character until later on.
I'll try my best to stay in touch with future questions (no, I don't know the meaning of life if you ask), and I'll try to find a way to thank everyone properly. Maybe with a multi-author project or something.
Noticing my terrible grammar, I'm going to start proof reading my work better and re-editing older chapters. If I change anything important, I'll let you know.
Anyway, I'm sure you don't care for my sentimentality, so I'll get to the reason you're here.
Chapter 10: One Big Holiday (Part 2)
"So we listened and up the river
And recorded all the sounds
Was some shakin' and some record playin'
All the leather kids were loud"
- My Morning Jacket
[][][]
"Are you sure about this?" Rigby asked, kneeling beside the garage door and glancing down the driveway.
Mordecai nodded and shoved the crowbar under the lip of the door, "Definitely. All he talks about is his secret car. We're doing the world a favor by taking it."
"Alright, hurry it up then."
He shifted the bar back and forth until he found the lock bar. Once finding it, he jerked upward quickly, feeling the padlock start to give.
"Dude, give me a hand!"
Rigby turned and helped him with the crowbar, not at all happy with the amount of noise they were making. After the seventh attempt, the padlock snapped and clattered to the floor, causing the garage door to raise slightly.
"So," Mordecai said as he turned the handle and prepared to lift the door, "What do you think it is?"
"Probably a nerd mobile," Rigby answered, glancing between the house and driveway.
As the door rolled up, Mordecai fumbled to turn on the small flashlight on his keychain while shielding it from attracting attention. It took a moment before their eyes adjusted to the darkness, but once they did, the small beam of the light was enough to illuminate the car.
The metal flake in the paint danced as the light passed over the hood.
"Well," Rigby said as opened the driver door, "It's no nerd mobile, but at least he has a good taste in cars."
Mordecai nodded as he slung his backpack to the ground, "Do your thing, I'm gonna leave a message."
Rigby rolled his eyes and laid down on the floorboard while Mordecai wrapped the paint can in his jacket and shook it.
"I think this is a ninety-four," Rigby said to himself as he ripped the panel off of the steering wheel.
The car rocked slightly and the suspension creaked as Mordecai climbed onto the hood and raised the can toward the door.
Rigby glanced through the windshield and sighed.
After awhile he lowered the can and admired his work. In blue paint was a smiley face with a thumbs up next to it, his trademark tag.
"How's it coming in there?"
Rigby dropped the wires and shook his head, "No luck, it has an aftermarket burglar system. It cuts power to the starter until the chipped key is in the ignition."
Mordecai glanced to the small work bench and slid off the car, "Here's a lawnmower battery, maybe there's some jumpers in the trunk."
Rigby hit the button and climbed out of the door, "I had that idea first…"
"Yeah, you were just giving up for the fun of it," Mordecai said as he lifted the trunk, "Quit being a baby and help me look."
The dim light in trunk did little to show the contents, he was able to find an emergency kit with a set of cable in it.
"Yeah!," he said as he unraveled them, "Awesome, let's go."
Rigby didn't move, his eyes fixated on the small form of a briefcase.
Mordecai connected the clamps to the battery and touched the opposite end together, causing it to spark.
"Should be charged enough," he said, glancing back toward the trunk.
Rigby slowly reached out to open it, stopping when Mordecai yelled for him to hurry up.
Slamming the trunk closed, he ran to the door and pulled on the ignition wires. Touching the cables to the wires sent the power needed to override the controller for the theft system and caused the starter to engage. A moment later, the engine roared to life.
"Bring that with," Mordecai said as he slid into the seat.
"Why do you get to drive?" he asked while he dropped the battery into the back seat.
"Because I can see over the wheel."
"I can see over the steering wheel!" Rigby yelled.
"…"
"… Right, the pedals."
A light kicked on in the second floor of the house and a shadow passed across the curtain.
"Dude, we gotta go!"
"Alright, but I'm driving when we stop for gas."
[][][]
"Alright dude, empty your pockets. This behemoth has a huge tank," Mordecai said.
Rigby dug into the pockets of his jacket and dropped fifty cents onto the hood of the car.
"Really?"
With a sigh, he added a few crumpled bills to the pile.
Mordecai began counting his life savings, suddenly not liking the gas guzzling car, "With what I have, it's forty-six bucks."
"Is that gonna be enough?"
Mordecai shrugged and walked toward the building, "I don't know, we'll have to see."
Once the light on the pump began flashing, he lifted the nozzle and began filling the tank. Watching the counter on the pump, he remembered the briefcase in the trunk. Pushing the button for the trunk, he walked to the back and looked around before he hit the release on the case.
The lock sprang open and he raised the lid, shocked by what he saw. The contents glowed brightly and cast their glow over his face, mesmerizing him.
"Dude, they had snow cones," Mordecai said, holding one out for Rigby.
Seeing what was glowing, he dropped both of them and adopted Rigby's dumbfounded look.
"It's amazing!"
Rigby nodded, "Even better, it's ours!"
They both began to laugh, a slow, almost terrifying sound that grew progressively louder.
The loud clunk from the machine snapped them out of it and brought their attention to the pump. The screen read sixty-three dollars.
Glancing down, they seen the sign that said:
"Notice! This machine's auto-stop function does not work. Please monitor your total."
They blinked and looked to where the cashier was standing at the door.
Mordecai hit Rigby in the arm and slammed the case and trunk shut while running to the car.
"Don't blame this on me!" Rigby yelled, while he connected the cables to the wires, "You parked at the pump!"
Mordecai threw the shifter into gear and slammed on the gas, "We're not done talking about this!"
As they sped toward the exit, an incoming van swerved to avoid them and crashed into a telephone pole. The force of the impact caused the back doors to break open, allowing a large turkey to escape.
Two men in lab coats jumped out of the front and chased after it, a third frantically dialing a phone.
"Sir! Goblox escaped!"
[][][]
Mordecai blinked while he sat at the red light, "You know, I'd forgotten about the last part."
"So," Caroline began, "What happened after that?"
"Car got a flat tire so we pushed it into a river and hopped a bus the rest of the way."
"What about the case?"
He took the turn and merged with the traffic, "We left it, saying we'd go back for it in ten years."
"So, it's still there?" she asked, not entirely believing him.
"As far as I know. But who's to say no one found it already?"
"And the turkey?"
"I know what you're thinking," he said, looking into the mirror as he pulled into the parking lot of the arcade, "But the past month, it makes a lot of sense."
"I'll agree to no believe you on that."
He laughed as he turned the key and the engine rumbled to a stop, "Suit yourself, but that's how they get you."
"Say, would you mind if I made a copy of this CD?"
He thought for a moment then nodded, "Sure, I just need it back before I leave, it's not mine."
"In that case," she said while closing her door, "I'll make one for you too."
[][][]
A man in a white suit stood at the window of a large, dimly lit but expensively decorated room, looking down on the ground below.
The door opens and three men in similarly colored suits walk across the room, stopping at the desk.
They glance at each other, deciding who would start.
"You do it," the one on the left whispers.
The one on the right shook his head, "No, I've got the folder."
"Sir, we've detected an… aberration in one of our games," the middle man said.
Without turning away from the window, he answers in a dull, almost robotic voice, "Well?"
"A machine in an arcade registered a team finishing a game in impossible mode."
"And?"
The men look amongst each other again before he answers, "The names entered were Mor and Rig."
Turning from the window, he sit behind the desk and rests his hands on the table, glaring at the men from behind his folded hands.
"Now," he answered, his voice colder, full of controlled fury, "What have you done to assure these are who we're looking for?"
This time, the man on the right answers, "We are tracing the location of the machine as we speak. We do have this image of the players."
He slides a black and white picture from the folder to the man behind the desk.
He looks down at the picture, it being Mordecai and Rigby in mid celebration, arms in the air while they ran in circles.
"Good," he said, "Inform me when you find the location of them."
[][][]
Mordecai stopped at the curb, letting the truck idle in the darkness for a moment before he pulled his keys from the ignition and opened the door. He spent a moment looking it over before he started down the path to the house.
He pauses at the door and glances to the figure in the chair at the other end of the deck.
"Hey."
Mordecai nodded, "Hey."
He gestured toward the empty seat, "Go on, take a load off."
After thinking for a moment, he turned and dropped into the chair, looking across the yard at the truck, using it to keep himself calm.
"Here," Carl said, handing him a can from the cooler, "It's cold."
Mordecai took the beer and opened it, the smell making him sick. Pretending to take a drink of it, he fought the urge to gag and set it aside.
"So, how was your drive?"
"Good," he said, not looking away, "Never dull."
Carl nodded in agreement, "Definitely. Seems like you got yourself a runner, there. Not one of those foreign four-bangers. You know what they say, no replacement for displacement."
Not understanding what he meant, he agreed, "Yeah."
After a moment, Carl leaned forward, "About that night."
Mordecai shook his head, "Do we have to do this now?"
Carl nodded, "Yes we have to. I was made at Steve and took it out on you. But he shouldn't have told you."
"Steve didn't tell me," he said, barely keeping his voice from rising, "I asked him."
"How'd you figure it out?"
He scoffed and shook his head, "I started to realize the colors didn't quite match up."
"It was disgraceful what my brother did," Carl growled back, "Abandoning his fiancé with a child, then showing up after fifteen years thinking everything would be fine. I was gonna tell you eventually."
"Eventually," he said, rising from his seat, "But not when I needed to know."
"What difference would it make? Do you think it would have made him change? People like Steve don't change. All through school he got what he wanted, stepped on whoever he had to, did what he wanted." Carl returned, the iciness in his voice sending a chill down his spine.
Mordecai glanced at his watch, "It's getting close to your curfew, better hurry up."
Carl laughed humorlessly, shaking his head when he disappeared into the house.
Almost tipping over, he rose from his chair and picked up the can Mordecai left behind and began pouring it over the railing.
"Here flowers, have a drink on me."
A good place to stop, I think.
Alright, thanks again everyone, and have a happy new years!
I'm gonna try to catch the end of the Breaking Bad marathon.