One more chapter to go after this, you guys! I don't know about you, but I'm finally excited to finish this.
The cart ride back to the park was completely silent, as none of the group really knew what they wanted to say. Muscle Man, High Five Ghost and Pops were leading the way home in one of the carts, while Benson, Skips and Thomas were in the other cart, along with the still KO'ed Mordecai and Rigby. While Skips was concentrating on the road, Thomas took up the task of keeping an eye on the two groundskeepers to make sure that they don't fall out of the cart.
Eventually, they all managed to make it back to the park, and Thomas and Benson took care of picking up Mordecai and Rigby.
"Take them inside and put them both down on the couch. I need to go run over to my house and grab a few things." said Skips, before he ran off.
The rest of the group followed what Skips asked them to do, and went inside the house, before placing Mordecai and Rigby next to each other on the couch.
As they waited for Skips to return, the group sat silently until Muscle Man decided to speak up.
"Hey, shouldn't we probably be taking off all of that East Pines stuff that those two have on? I don't think having them still wearing it while we're trying to fix them would be a good idea."
Benson paused, thinking over his options.
"I don't know if it'll really make a huge difference, but I guess we might as well do it. Any volunteers?"
None of them raised their hands, as an awkward silence pervaded through the room.
"Oh come on, you guys. No one will think any less of you for stripping clothes off of another guy."
There were still no volunteers.
"Alright, fine! I'll do it." said Benson.
The gumball machine began walking over to the two to begin removing all of the East Pines clothes, when Thomas suddenly stood up.
"I'll give you a hand, Benson."
Benson, surprised, simply nodded and took Rigby, while Thomas took care of Mordecai. Both of them wore grimaces on their faces, realizing just how awkward this was, but they persisted, eventually removing all of their clothes, leaving Mordecai and Rigby looking just like their normal selves.
"So, what are we going to do about the uniforms?" asked Pops.
Benson gave it a bit of thought before answering.
"Would you mind running to get me a garbage bag? We're going to go put these in the dumpster where they belong."
"Aw man, I wanted to watch those babies burn!" said Muscle Man emphatically.
"I would too, but I don't think Mr. Maellard would be too thrilled to see a fire being built inside the park."
"Awww, lame." said Muscle Man.
Pops ran off into the kitchen, returning a few minutes later with an open garbage bag, which Benson put the uniforms into.
"I'll be right back, you guys."
A few seconds after Benson left, Skips finally returned, carrying a large bag with him that he set down on the floor next to the couch. Once he laid eyes on Mordecai and Rigby, noticing that they were in fact naked, Skips looked questioningly at the group, who all immediately pointed at Muscle Man.
"Not that I'm really complaining, but is there any reason why you decided to strip Mordecai and Rigby of all of their clothes?"
"Well, I'm sure no one wants to see them wearing all that East Pines crap on them. Am I right, you guys?"
Everyone else in the room nodded, agreeing with Muscle Man. Skips shrugged, before turning towards Mordecai and Rigby. Before he could do anything else, Benson returned from his trip to the dumpster.
"Oh Skips, you're back. So, do you have any ideas on how we can return Mordecai and Rigby to normal?"
"Well, first things first, we're going to have to wake them up. Then we'll go from there."
It turns out they didn't need to worry about that, though, as at that moment, Mordecai and Rigby both returned to consciousness. Everyone else was taken off guard for a moment, but they eventually realized what just happened and crowded around the blue jay and raccoon, waiting with bated breath to see what happens.
"Mordecai? Rigby? Are you guys alright?" asked Benson, thinking that they didn't need to worry about breaking them out of their brainwashing anymore.
"Huh? Who are you guys talking about?" asked Mordecai, confused.
"Yeah, and who are you guys anyway?" asked Rigby.
There was a collective sigh of discontent in the room, as the rest of the group realized that it wasn't going to be as easy as they thought.
"Do you know what's going on, Skips?" asked Pops.
Skips thought for a moment, trying to figure out what happened.
"It seems that knocking them out managed to somehow break the control that Gene had over these two, but I believe that they may still have some form of amnesia."
"So what do we do now?" asked Thomas.
"Isn't it obvious? We're going to have to show them some of the things they've done since they started working here, and hopefully it'll jar their memories." said Benson.
"Alright, you guys. Go have a look around the house and see if you can find things that might help jar Mordecai and Rigby's memories." said Skips.
"Wait, didn't those two pack anything before they left?" asked High-Five Ghost.
"Actually, no. Their room is exactly how it was left on the day they quit. I guess they wanted a fresh start, so they left all of their old stuff behind." said Benson.
Having had their jobs given to them, the group was about to split up and head into the different areas of the house, when suddenly Mordecai spoke up.
"Excuse me! Can somebody please explain to me what the heck is going on?"
The rest of the group looked at each other, unsure of what to do, before Benson spoke up.
"You guys go ahead. I'll talk to these two."
While everyone was busy in their own sections of the house searching for things to help Mordecai and Rigby, Thomas decided to head towards their room and see what he could find in there, thinking that would probably be the most likely place to find something important.
As he searched through their closet, he suddenly realized that he doesn't really have much to go on, considering he only began working at the park a few months ago, compared to Mordecai and Rigby who probably had a few years more experience than him.
He wasn't going to let something like that stop him, though. So he continued searching through the closet, hoping to find the one thing that can jog Mordecai and Rigby's memories. Unfortunately, there was no light in the closet, so Thomas was forced to feel his way around the inside of the closet.
The search came up mostly empty, as Thomas grabbed random things which he thought would work, until he noticed a loose floorboard near the back wall of the closet. Intrigued, Thomas slipped his fingers in the open space between floorboards and lifted the board, revealing a video tape underneath. Thomas picked up the tape and removed the slip cover, turning it over to read the label.
"Carrey O'Key's?" said Thomas to himself.
Shrugging, the goat tossed it on the pile of things he could use before exiting the closet and continuing his search.
Eventually, the pile of things grew pretty large, making it difficult for Thomas to carry everything downstairs, but he did manage to do it.
Apparently Thomas must have taken a while looking through Mordecai and Rigby's room, as the rest of the group was sitting around in the living room, looking as if they were unsure of what else to do.
"So, how have things worked out so far?" asked Thomas.
"We've managed to trigger some things in Mordecai and Rigby's memories, but they're still not completely back to normal yet." said Skips.
Thomas nodded, understanding where they were currently at, before he turned towards his pile of things, thinking about what he was going to try first. Eventually, he decided on a CD that was buried pretty deep in the pile. He pulled out the boom box that Mordecai and Rigby had in their room and plugged it in, before placing the CD in it and hitting play.
As the music began playing, everyone except Mordecai and Rigby were suddenly confused, wondering what they were hearing. Mordecai was listening to it intently, while Rigby somehow managed to fall asleep.
"Who's this band that's playing?" asked Mordecai.
Thomas was currently trying to wake up Rigby, but he turned towards Mordecai and replied.
"The CD said Brain Explosion on it. Never heard of the band before, but I figured it might do something."
Mordecai nodded, before he was suddenly hit with a splitting headache. As he clutched at his head, the rest of the group looked on excitedly.
"I think it's working, Thomas! Try something else!" said Pops.
Thomas did as was asked; slowly making his way through the pile, as he showed each of the things he brought to Mordecai and Rigby. Some did nothing to them, but some of them did trigger something within their minds.
Soon, Mordecai and Rigby were left panting after having gone through so much in this small period of time, but the rest of the group wouldn't be deterred. They all figured that Mordecai and Rigby were finally close to breaking through, and they hoped that one more thing would finally return them to normal.
The last thing in Thomas's pile that he hadn't already shown turned out to be the videotape. The goat slipped it out of the cover and inserted it into the VCR.
"Wait, where did you get that video from?" asked Benson.
"I found it under a loose floorboard in their closet. It said Carrey O'Key's on it."
Benson was intrigued after hearing Thomas's answer, but he chose not to pry more into it. Instead, he motioned for Thomas to play the video, which the goat did, before standing off to the side and beginning to watch the video.
As the videotaped Mordecai and Rigby began trashing their coworkers while on the stage, Thomas looked around at the others, who had varying looks on their faces. Benson's gumballs were turning red, Skips had a stern look on his face, and everyone else besides Mordecai and Rigby was slightly confused.
Speaking of Mordecai and Rigby, they were both hit with another pair of splitting headaches, before finally passing out from the pain.
Worried, Thomas rushed over to them, thinking he might have done something wrong, but as he looked at them, he noticed that they were both breathing, so he sighed and sat down on the floor, relieved.
As Benson left to go cool off, everyone else looked at each other.
"So, what do we do now?" asked Fives.
"We wait. Hopefully, once they wake up, they'll be back to normal." said Skips.
The group ended up having to wait for another hour before Mordecai and Rigby woke up once again. By that time, Benson returned noticeably calmer than before, but he still looked pretty tense, not answering anyone's questions.
Once the two woke up, everyone once again crowded around Mordecai and Rigby, waiting to see what happened.
"Mordecai? Rigby? You guys back to normal?" asked Skips.
"Yeah. Why wouldn't we be?" asked Mordecai, confused.
"Hang on. Why are we back at the house? I thought we left." said Rigby, also incredibly confused.
Rigby didn't get his answer, as everyone jumped up and celebrated, hugging the two of them. Annoyed, Rigby stood up on the couch and yelled.
"STOP TALKKKIIINNNGGG!"
As Rigby began breathing angrily, the noise began quieting down. Once everyone stopped their chatter, Rigby calmed down and asked his question once again.
"Alright, can someone please explain to me why Mordecai and I are suddenly here, when the last thing I remember happening was being at East Pines?"
"Gene brainwashed you two and made you into his slaves. We found out and we went ahead and rescued you guys from him." said Thomas.
"Wow, really? I didn't really expect something like that to happen." said Mordecai.
It devolved into idle chatter for the next few moments, as Mordecai and Rigby were busy trying to catch up with everyone else, when Benson suddenly decided to speak up.
"As much as I don't really want to rehire you guys after the video you guys hid from me…"
"Wait, what video?" interrupted Mordecai.
"The video from the karaoke place you two got us thrown out of!" yelled Benson.
Mordecai sat there for a second, not sure what Benson was talking about, before it suddenly dawned on him, and he turned towards Rigby.
"I thought you got rid of that tape!"
"Well, yeah, but I didn't want to just throw it out. I wanted to hang on to it for posterity, so I hid it under the floorboards." said Rigby.
Mordecai, exasperated, simply punched Rigby in the arm. As the raccoon rubbed his arm in pain, Benson finally got the opportunity to finish his sentence.
"Anyway, as much as I really don't want to at the moment, we still have your original jobs open for you if you want to come back. What do you guys think? Do you want to work with us again?"
Oooohhh! Cliffhanger! Will Mordecai and Rigby come back to work at the park? That's something you're going to have to wait till next time to find out.
Anyway, as far as the big story is concerned, it's pretty much done and dusted. But as I have said before, there will be an epilogue, along with the official Chapter 10, but that will probably be pretty short as it's most likely only going to contain Mordecai and Rigby's decision and a bit of aftermath, so I'm just going to combine those together into one document. They'll still be split, though.
So, I'm hoping that I will be seeing you guys next time for the finale of Breaking Point! See ya.
RK