Night was falling over the Venture Compound. Dean Venture was still sitting in a lawn chair in front of the overhead doors of the big hanger, a miniature black cloud still raining down on him. He was wearing only a swimming suit and was beginning to get cold as the day's heat evaporated into the night. He looked like he was crying but that was probably just the rain running down his face.
He heard the click of shoes on pavement and turned to see Triana Orpheus step around the edge of the hanger door and walked towards him. She was dressed in a dark T-shirt with a large skull printed on the front, a black mini-skirt and thick-soled shoes. Normally she also wore stripped thigh-high stockings but those hadn't fared the previous day's adventure well.
"Gary says I'm being too harsh on you," she said as she sat down a paper bag near Dean and started taking things out of it. A couple candles - black candles! - some string, a yellow rubber duckie, a beat-up old Barbie doll with all of her clothes and one arm missing, and an incense pot.
"Are you going to lift the curse?" Dean asked,hopefully.
"We'll see." With some chalk she wrote some words around Dean. They looked like some kind of elaborate urban graffiti. The letters were so convoluted they were hard to read, especially when viewed upside down. If he had been standing next to the magic girl he would have recognized the words as "Dean Stinks'"
"Are you going to look up my skirt ever again?" Triana asked.
"I never wanted to in the first place." Dean swore.
Triana didn't look Dean in the face as she set the candles around him in a circle. Gary had asked her why she was being so harsh to Dean, when by all accounts it sounded like an accident. Hank and Dean had fallen into a sinkhole and she had tried to help them get out by hanging over over the sinkhole as far as she could so they could grab her leg and climb up it. Since she was wearing a mini-skirt it was sort of inevitable that it would happen. Triana wasn't sure why that had so ticked her of.
"Gee, I never realized how bony your knees were before," Dean blurted out as she stood up after adding "I am so not into this" in and around the candles. She clenched her teeth and stopped her first impulse, which was to just walk away. Dean's problem was that he was completely clueless and utterly guileless.
"My legs are not bony!" she declared, as if she had not spent hours in front of her mirror decrying out skinny and bony her legs were. She wished she had legs like her former BFF, Kim, smooth, meaty. Legs guys would love to put their hands all over. She didn't actually like the idea of guys putting their hands all over her legs but she liked the idea of them being that attractive. Triana blushed as she recalled that Kim had envied her legs because her thighs didn't rub together when she walked. And when she stood still there was an actual notch between her legs.
"Anyway, my stockings were ruined yesterday so you're going to have to buy me new ones!"
"Sure. Does that mean I get to go shopping with you?"
Triana had long taken it as a matter of principle that boys hated to go shopping with girls. Trust Dean not to be like other boys. "If you do I swear, I'm bringing a purse - and you're going to hold it!" she threatened.
"Ok."
Triana silently groaned. She remembered how her fathered hated it when her mother had left him holding her purse when she tried on new clothes. Why couldn't Dean be more like other boys? Why couldn't she have just told him he couldn't come along in the first place?
"That's assuming I can lift this spell from you," she said. "This is a very complicate spell. I'm not sure I can remove it all by myself. It's going to take a lot of ritual." As she was talking she handed him the rubber duckie. Then taking the barbie doll, she grabbed Dean's swimsuit, yanked the band out and stuff the doll half way in. She set the incense pot in front of Dean, dropped a pellet in it then pointed at it with her finger. A small flame popped into life.
"Is that what you use to cover up the smell of your smoking?" Dean asked, again, tactlessly.
"No." Triana said crossly, "This is to create the proper mood, to open up the mind. to release... Oh, never mind!"
Triana reached into her bag and pulled out a couple of necklaces, one a string of tiny doll's heads, the other plastic chicken's feet. She draped these over the redhead's shoulders.
"If you must know, I use pine-scented furniture polish. A lot of it, Ok? I've got the best polished furniture in the state. But I'm cutting back on the smoking. Really I am."
"Ok," Dean agreed.
Seeing Dean's one empty hand the girl ducked back to her bag and searched around. "We'll need something to balance the chakra's" she muttered and straightened up with a tiny plastic whale which she tucked into his empty hand.
Triana looked into her bag of goodies and pulled out a tin-foil hat. It was folded like origami into a square with twists of foil at each corner pointing up into s little spire. She set that aside and dug around some more and pulled out a spool of speaker wire, and a knife. Dean's eyes widened for a moment at the sign of the knife. Did Triana require his blood to break the spell? When she went to trim the insulation off the end of the spool he visibly relaxed.
"The thing is," Triana was saying as she scrapped varnish off the thin wire, "is that there are guys who have nothing better to do that look up girl's skirts, take pictures and so on."
"That's disgusting," Dean said.
"Exactly. So we women tend to get a little upset when someone gets caught doing that. "
"Of course."
Triana looked to see if Dean was agreeing to be agreeing, but he looked honestly shocked at what she was telling him.
"And especially when someone announces to the world that they looked up their skirt."
"But I didn't announce it to the world," Dean complained. "There was only Hank there and I'm sure he looked up too."
"But he didn't say anything. He didn't embarrass me, OK?" But Dean was shaking his head.
"Look, if you were to see me naked sometime and didn't say anything about it, it would be like it didn't really happen. I wouldn't have felt embarrassed. I would have felt like I had to do something about it."
"Can I?" Dean asked hopefully, "you know, see you naked?"
"No! God, no! Don't even think about it!"
"But you said..."
"No!" Triana glared at him.. "Besides what would your little friend from the mall think if you went around talking about looking up people's skirts and stuff."
"Gloria? She's understand."
Triana snorted.
"Really she would," Dean insisted. "Gloria's very understanding."
"I thought I was an understanding kind of girl,once, too, and look where you ended up." She took the spool of copper wire and poked a hole in the aluminum foil hat, twisting the end together so it make a connection. She unrolled the rest as she walked towards the hanger door, stepped outside and jammed the other end deep into the ground. She came back and jammed the hat on Dean's head.
"Triana, I think you're making thinks worse," Dean said. The little black cloud over his head had always been spitting tiny lightning bolts around his head but now that he was grounded by the copper wire the lightning was striking the hat on a regular basis.
"How much longer is this going to take?" Dean asked after a while.
"Not much longer," Triana reassured him. She looked him over thoughtfully, then pointed her finger at each of the candles circling him (Not set in a pentagram as that would invoke real magic, which she was trying to avoid) and set them aflame. She reached one more time into her bag. "Say cheese," she ordered as she pointed a camera at him.
"What?" Dean said instead, as light exploded from the flash.
"Memories, Dean, precious memories. You keep talking about my panties and I start showing this picture around."
But you haven't made the rain to stop."
"Oh, that." Triana snapped her fingers and the little black cloud disappeared from over Dean's head.
"You could have done that at any time?" he cried, feeling around his head for any last stray bolts of lightning.
"Yeah, but then I'd never have gotten you to sit around dressed like this."
"You're mean, Triana. That was a really mean thing to do."
"That's what Gary said. But I know you, Dean. You can't keep a secret. But I figure if I have a picture like this -" she held up the camera so Dean could see the picture she'd taken- "then maybe you'd think twice about blabbing."
"I keep my word. If I had said I would never say that again, I wouldn't." Dean had dropped the rubber duckie and whale to the floor, pulled the barbie out of his swim suit and added it to the pile. Triana was blowing out the candles and tossing them back into the paper bag. The incense holder she left where it was because it was too hot to touch.
"Look, Dean," she began hesitantly as she pulled in the copper wire and wound it into a spool. "We have to talk."
"Oh, god, why don't you just kill me!" Dean wailed.
"Dean! Dean! It's not that bad."
"Of course it is. I know what it means when a girl says 'we have to talk': You're dumping me!"
"I'm not 'dumping' you. To do that you would have to be my boyfriend, and you're not. Your a boy and a friend, but it was never more than that." That only lead to more wailing and Dean curling up in a fetal position on the lawn chair. It wasn't designed for that and promptly fell over.
"Oh, come on, Dean, stand up and take it like a man!"
"I don't wanna," he whined.
Triana wasn't prepared for dealing with a 19 year old boy having a tantrum like a three year old. "Dean if we don't have this talk you can't go shopping with me," she suggested.
"But you promised," he whined.
"I'll let you buy me a shake?"
"What good's a shake if you're going back to that Raven guy? He's so sensitive, he's so sweet, he's so cripple that I have to help him all the time."
"I'm not going back to Raven. I'm just going back to my mother's to continue my education." Dean's jab about Raven needing her help all the time rankled because that was how shed met him, opening doors for him, holding elevators... He did to seem to need a lot of help, the more so when she was around. Was he playing her?
"But he'll be there." Dean said snapping her back to the present.
"And there are all sorts of girls around here you can met. But I'm not going back for him. I want to learn more magic. I want to learn how to shut out the screams of Venturestein's soul and stuff like there. And I won't be there forever. "
Dean had unfolded himself and was sitting up on the pavement in the hanger, with his head buried in his knees. Against her best intention Triana moved over to sit next to him. She put her arm around his shoulders. "You know I came back because I was having fights with my step-father. I don't imagine those will get any better. So I told Mom that I'll come back to her house but I plan to return here every once a month or so, so I won't have to fight so much with the Out-rider. So we'll be seeing each other from time to time."
"Cool!" Dean said excitedly. A little too excitedly.
"But Dean, remember, I'm not really a Venture. I'm not cut out for a life like this. It scares the crap out of me every time I see the Monarch's Cocoon floating overhead."
"Me, too," Dean said. "I guess I'm not much of a Venture either."
"And conversely, you're not magic and I am. There's a lot of stuff that goes on there that non-magic people don't understand. And which, frankly I wish I weren't involved in, but just being magic involves me in them. So I need to get trained to survive. Its like how you and your brother got out of that pit yesterday. I would never have thought of that. And I would never have been able to do something like that. You guys are kind of incredible. I'm glad to have met you, Dean. But we're parts of different worlds now and ..." Triana wasn't sure how to end that. There was a lot of crap in what she was saying but some of it was true. Some of it had been said just to make Dean feel better. If what she felt towards Dean had been love she could have found some way to make it work out. She was young enough to love in the power of love.
Triana looked at her watch. "There's a couple hours before the stores close. What say I get my purse, you get dressed and we looked for some stockings for these "bony" knees of mine?"
[]
The minion came in wearing a cheap version of a tuxedo and proceeded to lay bowls of salad at the two setting on the long table. He was so nervous that he might accidentally drop something and be killed on the spot that he almost dropped something. He recovered and left quickly to prepare the second course.
The Monarch, sitting at the head of the long table smiled mysteriously at his lovely wife, sitting on his right. She refused to sit at the other end of the table since it was almost impossible to hear what the other was saying without shouting. She had made it very clear she wasn't going to shout at her husband during supper. She and the Monarch were taking a short respite from the Cocoon. Dr. Mrs The Monarch wanted to do some shopping and laze around the swimming pool of their house in the gated community of Malice. While her husband was smiling mysteriously, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch was planning her evening which at the moment consisted of a long hot bath followed by some serious boning of her husband.
After some time the tuxedo dressed minion returned and swept away the salad bowls before setting out plates of soup. Dr. Mrs. The Monarch was surprised that half the Monarch's salad was uneaten. Usually he stuffed the salad away the way a horse eats hay; a legacy from his summer living with the Monarch Butterflies of the New Jersey marshes. That he hadn't eaten all his salad meant he was consumed with something to tell her. With a sigh Dr. Mrs. the Monarch dismissed thoughts of a long bath and more fun later. Whatever news it was, was going to reshape the night's activities. She schooled herself in patience as the Monarch took half way through the soup (French Onion) before breaking his news.
"Pookines, remember how hard we've been looking for a new Harmonic Resonating Defractionalinzator for the 5th gear, ascension helical core?"
She didn't actually recall him ever interesting himself with the ins and outs of the Cocoon's flight mechanism but was very impressed that he had memorized the name of one of the more obscure parts of it. It was instantly obvious to her that he had found the part but she forestalled stepping on his story. This was the Monarch's story. He got kind of cranky when anyone jumped to the conclusion ahead of him. "That piece is nearly impossible to find!" she said, which was true enough.
"Well, I found one!" The Monarch declared.
"No! Where?"
"It came to me recently that the Flying Squidthulhu used an Harmonic Resonating Defractionalinzator in his flying rig."
"But didn't the Flying Squidthulhu disappear years ago."
"Indeed, my sweet. He disappeared while attacking Mr. Impossible. You see, he made one tiny little error in his plan for attacking Mr. Impossible."
"What was that," Dr. Mrs. the Monarch asked in her gravelly voice.
"He attacked Mr. Impossible!"
"I never liked that man,"
"Who? Mr. Impossible? The man's a conceited jackass."
"No, Squidthulhu. He had all those tentacles coming out of his shoulders and they were always slithering around into places they don't belong. Uggh! A girl couldn't talk to him for more than five minutes without feeling violated! He tried to steal my bra out from under my clothes while talking to me." The look that came into the Monarch's eyes hinted that supper might be interrupted. "He might have gotten away with it, too. Only I wasn't wearing a bra at the time."
"I recall getting you bra - and the rest of your clothes - within minutes of meeting you!"
"You weren't cold like a dead fish."
"And never will be! Squidthulhu probably did something inappropriate with Sally Impossible..." The Monarch said. "Hence the fatal confrontation with that withering mass of elastic flesh!"
"And you found his flying harness?"
"Indeed I did sweetums." The Monarch picked up a small bell by his plate and rang it. The Minion came running, in a panic that he was late clearing off the soup course. He seized the bowls of soup and ran, juices flying. He was back seconds later with two plates containing steaks, some corn and a medium size baked potato. He slipped on the spilled soup, spun around, smashed against a wall, recovered and dropped the plates in front of the two Arches. He pulled himself erect, bowed in the direction of the Monarch and limped away.
"It's so hard to get good help, " the Monarch sighed.
"Are you kidding? That was comedy gold. If I thought he could do that again without dropping a plate I'd suggestion him for the annual Cocoon Christmas party."
"Or maybe he could drop bowls of hot soup onto Dr. Venture's lap!" The Monarch suggested. half-heartedly.
"What about the flying harness?" Dr. Mrs The Monarch prompted.
But instead of answering her the Monarch dug into his steak, cutting off a corner and popping it into his mouth. As he chewed his closed his eyes and sighed. "Ah. Perfect. This has the taste of victory all over it."
Dr. Mrs. The Monarch waited until he had swallowed before reminding hm, "The Harmonic Resonating Defractionalinzator?" She wasn't going to let him make her waiting until dessert to finish his announcement.
"Eh?" He was savoring another cut of his steak, wafting it under his nose like it was a wine or something. "It was surprisingly simple once I set my mind to it. The last date that Squidthulhu was known to be alive was April 12th. He was known to be hiding out in Mexico at the time. And who should be cross the US at the time but Mr. Impossible, doing a victory lap after driving those space aliens off Hawaii. April 12th he was supposed to stop in Denver to open some hospital, but he begs off, said he had an old friend he needed to see in New Mexico. And the rest was that old math question about train 'A' leaving the station at 'Y' and traveling 'Z' speeds per hour and another train heading right for it. Knowing the relative speeds of the two flying machines I calculated where they must have fought and searched the area. Last night the minions reported finding Squidthulhu's skeleton. Or what passes for a skeleton in a humanoid squid. I told them to bring back the flying harness. We should have the Cocoon operational again by tomorrow!"
"And the assault on the Ventures?"
"The Monarch smiled. "You so know my mind. I thought we could sort that out tonight. Then maybe a little victory celebration, if you know what I mean." He arched his massively long eyebrows suggestively.
"And you know my mind," she whispered.