CHAPTER EIGHT: "Stalemate"
"Boomer, could you get me some hot sauce? This burrito needs something to add some flavor," Butch asked.
They were all sitting on the roof of the school as they ate lunch to avoid being noticed by their enemies. "Sure," the blue ruff said before floating down on the side of the school that was opposite the lunch tables, which faced the school parking lot. No one saw him use his powers. He landed on the ground and made his way around the school to the cafeteria line. He decided that he should make his trip as quick as possible to avoid running into anybody that might recognize him.
He went into the cafeteria, acquired the hot sauce, and made his way back out. He just needed to go a little farther down the hall and around the corner to reach the place that was out of view of the lunch tables. He was walking under the second level of the school's main building, which was held up by a row of pillars. However, as he was on his way out he saw a glimpse of light blue out of the corner of his eye. He looked across the lunch tables and to his surprise he saw the Power Puff Girls sitting at their lunch table in conversation. Bubbles immediately caught his eye.
He went behind one of the pillars that helped prop up the second level of the school building and was right near the corner and began to gaze at her with fascination. Just then a gust of wind blew her long pig tails in the air and made her seem almost magical. The sun light struck her at the perfect angle. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"So, Bubbles, what do you want in a boy?" asked Blossom.
"I want him to be sweet and kind and sensitive. He also needs to be very caring," she said and giggled. As she talked her gaze began to wander across the lunch tables. It was then that she noticed a pair of deep royal blue eyes that were staring right back at her.
Just then someone walked by and blocked her view for a brief moment. The next moment the eyes had disappeared. She stopped in mid sentence and began scanning the lunch tables looking around to see if she could find the blue eyes again.
"What is it Bubbles?" asked Emily, who noticed that she was looking elsewhere.
"Oh nothing," she said as she turned her attention back toward her sisters and friend.
Once she looked in his direction Boomer ducked away with his back up against the pillar. "She looked right at me!" he thought with excitement and fear that he may have been discovered.
Suddenly out of nowhere a hand with a red sleeve grabbed him by his collar and pulled him low and around the corner of the building. "What on earth do you think your doing?" asked Brick with a serious and angry look in his eyes, hands still gripping his collar. Butch was right behind him, a scowl on his face. They must have realized he was taking too long.
"I was uhh…" Boomer didn't have a good answer and he let out with the first thing that came out of his mind. "I was observing the enemy's position, sir!"
"I didn't tell you to do that. You could have given us away." Brick forcefully shoved him back and let go of his collar to help get his point across.
"And where's my hot sauce?" asked Butch.
Boomer handed him the small hot sauce packages. He felt like an idiot for almost jeopardizing Brick's plan. "Sorry, bro," he said and looked down at his feet.
"Just don't let it happen again," replied Brick. "You don't understand how risky it is to be lingering around here in the open. You might draw unwanted attention."
"What kind of attention?" asked the blue ruffian with curiosity.
Just then they heard a series of footsteps coming in their direction from around the corner. They boys tensed up immediately. Brick jerked his head in the direction of the suspects as they rounded the corner, wanting to make sure that they were not the Power Puff Girls. Luckily, it was several junior girls who happened to be passing by. They looked in the Rowdy Ruff Boys direction and shared eye contact for a brief moment. They looked away giggling and whispered to each other. What they didn't know was that the boys' super sensitive hearing picked up their whispers.
The Rowdy Ruff Boys heard each of their comments which consisted of:
"The blonde is really cute."
"I wish I was a freshman right now for that one in the red."
"The one in camies has sure got some muscles!"
Brick began massaging his temples to relieve some of the stress. "That's the kind of attention I'm talking about," Brick said as he motioned his head toward them. Ironically, being at school was bringing him the most stress he had ever felt in his life and it had nothing to do with the school work. He hoped he would feel a lot more relaxed when they didn't need to hide their identity any more.
"I'll be glad when I can get this plan underway," he said, thinking out loud.
Meanwhile After School...
Brick entered the fairly large conference room with his hat facing forward, his hood pulled over, and his glasses on just like he had appeared during his introduction into the class. Several long, narrow tables placed in rows sat along the room in perfect alignment. On each side of the tables were columns of seats and on the table between each pair of seats sat a chess board. The stage was set. There were about twenty-three other people in the room. Near the door was Blossom with a stack of cards. Each card had a name and a number.
She approached him and handed him a card. "Hello, Rick. I would like to welcome you to the chess club. You must have missed the introduction yesterday. We will just be skirmishing today. Here is your seat."
Brick took the card without even looking at her and sat at the seat with the same number. Each member had been given a number at random and their opponent would be the member that got the number of the seat across from theirs. He patiently waited and closed his eyes to allow himself to think. He didn't know exactly how long his lies would last. Sooner or later someone was going to discover that he had no skin condition and he had only bought himself two more days at best with his deal with Princess. He would just need to get a feel for this area as soon as possible. He had learned a lot about the students from his earlier periods and princess would still provide an excellent source of information. Maybe this club was exactly what he needed.
He could feel the table shake somewhat as his opponent sat in the seat across from his. The red ruff opened his eyes and discovered an incredibly attractive woman sitting across from him with long red hair and big, bright pink eyes. It took him a few moments to realize that it was Blossom who had sat across from him. "I really need to keep my thoughts in check," he thought to himself. Now that he thought about it he had not gotten a good look at Blossom the night they fought and he had not dared to look at her all day. She was very easy on the eyes.
Immediately Brick reinforced his thoughts of revenge with an iron will. Despite her improved appearance, this was still the same person who had killed him when he was little. His major adversary was only a table length away from him. He decided to play it cool as best he could and see just how much he could learn about her. Perhaps this chess game could serve as a measure of her strategy skills against his. Again, he would only lie when he needed to. The best lies were mixed in with as much truth as possible and he was an expert at deception.
"So, Miss Utonium" Brick started as he opened the chess set and began to put the black pieces in place, "I have heard a lot about you."
"And what exactly have you heard?" She asked looking at him curiously as she put the white pieces into place.
"Aside from the whole hero thing that you do I have heard that you are an amazing strategist. Think you can defeat me in my own element," he said cockily as he motioned to the chess board.
"For the record, it's my element. And the answer is: there's only one way to find out," she said with an equally cocky tone and an aggressive smirk as she finished placing her pieces.
"You have first move," stated Brick.
"Thank you," she said politely as she made the opening move, starting with the pawn in front of her king forward two spaces.
"So are you in any other clubs?" He asked as he moved his first piece as well.
"A few. I love to read and write so I joined the Creative Writers Club or CWC as well. I would have joined sports, but our super powers have me and my sisters banned from anything physical. Except for Bubbles who can do cheerleading," she replied and made another carefully placed move.
"What's the CWC typically done?" He asked and moved anther pawn into place.
"It's essentially based on critical thinking and writing as well as reading and writing for fun. There is lots of poetry," she said as she made anther strategic move.
"That's interesting. It sounds right up my ally. I bet having those clubs on top of being a super hero would take up a lot of time," He replied and confidently moved his bishop into an offensive spot.
"Yeah. It does," she cocked an eyebrow at his move and then moved one of her pieces to block the bishop.
"I figured a girl as pretty as you would be dating some guy by now," he said casually and moved another piece.
Blossom blushed at the comment. "I'll take that as a complement, Rick. However, most guys simply don't want to date me," she replied as she went on the offensive and moved her rook into a position to attack his bishop.
"Why is that?" asked Brick as he blocked the move with his own rook.
"Sure they like the way I look, but they don't appreciate a girl with a brain. It's not popular for a girl to be smart. They mostly want some sweet, gullible, stupid one that they can trick into doing whatever they want and get her in the bed before they ditch her for the next target that comes their way. I am simply not one to be victimized like that," she said proudly and took his rook with hers.
"That's very admirable," he said and took the rook with his bishop, what he presumed was a fair trade.
"I'm glad you think so," she replied.
As the game progressed Brick was surprised by at her tactical knowledge and planning. It finally dwindled down to there only being four pieces left on the board: a white knight, a white king, a black rook, and a black king. Neither of them was able to get the other in checkmate and the game ended in a stalemate.
When the session ended Blossom stood up and shook his hand. "I had a good game with you, Rick. I must say that I am impressed by your skill. We'll need to play again sometime soon," she said.
"Likewise," Brick said as he returned the handshake.
He left heading towards his home in deep thought. Brick concluded that in terms of raw points he had been the victor since the rook was five points while the knight was three, so he did have more points on the board than Blossom did at the end of the game. However, the fact remained that he had failed to get her in checkmate and, in doing so, failed to win. "She's much better than I thought. I may need to come up with a back up plan just incase my original one fails against her," he thought to himself.
It was then that he remembered Him had told him that he wanted to have a staged monster attack on the city sometime in the afternoon. The leader of the Rowdy Ruff Boys quickly pulled out his BlackBerry and decided that he would send his boss a text in polite format and ask Him to change the attack to Thursday, when he knew that his identity would no longer be a secret. However, before he could even type the first letter he suddenly got a text message:
"I am afraid I will need to move your monster attack to Thursday. I found another piece of my important item that I need you to collect immediately. Here is the general location. The rest I leave up to you. –Your Wonderful and Devious Boss"
Brick saw that he also had three media messages that came with the text. He opened them up. The first one was a map with a large X placed on a certain location in Egypt. The second was an image of a Pyramid with a sphinx behind it that was missing an ear and had a large scar that went over its left eye. The last was a picture with an image of the jewel. It was like the others, only with a bronze ring and an emerald suspended in the center of it.
Brick closed his cell phone and called his brothers. For him and his Chemical X charged brothers a flight to Egypt was something that could be done over night. When one of his fellow ruffians picked up the first thing he said was "I hope you like Egyptian food."
Red Crown: I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter. Thank you for the reviews. I love hearing your opinions. Remember to review if you want me to update.