At one in the morning, Rigby had finally finished cleaning up. He shuffled up to his room, the bags sagging and dragging down his face. The Enchiridion was in his hands.
He motioned for the door only to find it locked. "Dude," Rigby called quietly through the door. His voice fell to the floor with exhaustion. "Look, I know it sucks, but come on man… Mordecai…?" The raccoon sighed heavily. He saulked back down the stairs back to the living room. With a heavy thud, he collapsed face first into the soft cushions of the couch. "Good night Mordecai," he slurred as he drifted to sleep almost instantaneously.
In the morning, Rigby rolled off the couch onto the floor. His back cracked in several places as he stood all the way up. "I want to set the couch on the fire," Rigby muttered to himself. His back was in pain.
He wandered upstairs to find Pops occupied at Mordecai's door. "Mordecai, please, open up?" Pops insisted for what seemed like the hundredth time.
"Here, let me try," Rigby said getting angrier.
"Um, Rigby, maybe we should be more carefu-"
"Mordecai! Mordecai, open the door! You need to stop acting like a bum! Open the door!" Rigby demanded. Silence replied. "Mordecai, I'll kick this door down if you don't open up!" Rigby began feebly kicking at the white door until he stubbed his toe. He leaped in pain as he held his injured toe, swearing and cursing under his breath. "I'll… I'll… I'll ram this door down! You'll see!"
"Oh, Rigby, I don't think that's a good ide-" Pops tried to reason. However, Rigby already broke into a sprint with a weak battle cry and had crashed shoulder first into the door. He collapsed to the ground, wincing and whining over his bruised arm. Meanwhile, the door, thankfully, was completely unharmed. What a relief.
"F-Fine!" he stuttered, still clutching his arm and holding back tears. "Then I'll find another way in! This is your last chance!… Okay, I'm coming in!" The raccoon ran down the hall into Benson's room. Just as he did, the door clicked open and Mordecai walked out.
He had not slept. His eyes were drained of life and color. His gaze was hollow and his face was pale. "What?" Mordecai asked in an annoyed tone.
"Oh, Rigby has already left, I'm afraid."
"That's it, I'm coming in! You brought this on yourself!" Mordecai turned around to see Rigby halt his banging on the window. "Oh, hey Mordec- AIII!" In a flash, Rigby was a gone from the roof and there was a loud thud from outside along with groaning. "I'm okay!"
"Retard…" Mordecai muttered as he marched downstairs.
"Shouldn't we check on him?" Pops asked only to have Mordecai brush right past him.
"Where is it?"
"Where's what?" Benson asked, startled. Mordecai had taken Benson by surprise. It was still early in the morning and Benson had just walked into his office. Benson took a second to see the strain plastered on Mordecai's face.
Mordecai was mad at everything. Mad at Margaret, mad at himself, but especially mad at the crown.
"Where is the Crown?" Mordecai demanded. His voice was low, but firm.
"Oh no," Benson said, "You're not getting it back! I'm giving it to Skips first thing when he gets here!"
"Benson, I'm getting rid of it," Mordecai said with an angered tone.
Benson, despite any better judgement, retrieved the crown from under his desk and surrendered it to Mordecai. "You better take care of this." Mordecai grabbed it and walked off without another word. "And if I find out you still have it, there will be consequences!"
The blue jay went passed a dazed and confused raccoon wincing and holding his knee on the ground. "Hey, thanks for that, man," Rigby said as Mordecai started the golf cart and drove off.
Mordecai had driven for half an hour. Far outside of the city, he made his way to a cliff far out in the woods. It was 200 feet above the ground below with a river twenty feet away from the base of the cliff. The tree-line stopped long before the edge and created a small clearing.
Mordecai remembered this place from when he and Rigby went camping once. This had to be the spot to do it.
He stepped out of the cart and grabbed the crown. He walked to the edge, each step a mile. He took a final look at the crown. It really was a beautiful thing, with a mirror reflection of Mordecai staring back at it. Inanimate objects do not show emotions, but this object seemed to have a pleading look on it.
Mordecai closed his eyes, reached his arm back, took a step forward, and froze.
He retraced the motions and screamed as he attempted once again to throw the crown. Again, he could not get rid of it.
Something seemed to be restricting him, making sure that he could not do anything.
"Come on! COME ON!" Once again, he couldn't do it.
The thoughts of Margaret flooded back into his mind. It was hemorrhaging to think of, driving him to the point where it ached. What had he done? Why can't he remember anything?
No… He remembered something. He felt oddly cold when he put it on, like a dull numbness washing over his body. It was calming. For a brief moment in time, he felt nothing but a slow, steady chill over him. He had no worries or fears, just a warm frost. All he could remember were mismatched feelings and senses.
He looked at the crown. If this thing made him forget last time, then maybe it could grant him a small piece of peaceful bliss this time.
He took a deep breath, lifted up in the air, and placed it on his head.
The embrace was so much warmer than he realized.
Rigby spent the entire day doing double the work to pick up Mordecai's end. It was grueling the work load he had to do. The hot sun did not make it any easier. The worst part was his bruised shoulder and the jarring pain in his back. Nothing had broken in the fall, thank goodness, but his entire body simply wanted to give up.
At lunchtime, he finally made it back into the house and plopped onto the couch, sweaty and exhausted. When he sat down, he felt something hard underneath him. He left the Enchiridion, exposed, on the couch the entire morning.
His cheeks turned red from embarrassment and with the thought that someone, anyone, could have found it. He quickly sprinted up to his bedroom and hid it under the clothes pile on his trampoline.
Mordecai arrived back at the house late at night, but with a much more lively mood. He snuck through the back door so no one could see what he was still carrying. He quickly ran to his room. Rigby was there in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. Rigby was exhausted from having to double his work load for Mordecai, but he kept his big mouth shut as he heard his bro enter.
Rigby's back was turned to Mordecai, but just to make sure, Mordecai hid the crown behind his back.
"Oh. Hey," Rigby tried to intimidatingly say as he still had toothpaste in his mouth. He managed to intimidate the mirror instead by spitting all over it.
"Uhh… He-ey" Mordecai said as he began wondering around the room. He had to find a place to hide his treasure before his friend could see him. There! Mordecai quickly shoved the crown onto the top shelf of the closet and hid it behind some of the other boxes.
Rigby had finished and turned around. "Dude, what was with you last night? I'm serious, if something else is eating at you or there's anything you need to talk about-"
"I said I'm fine!" Mordecai said, annoyed by Rigby. "What is this, an interrogation? I'm said I'm okay, can we just leave it at that!"
Rigby was not surprised by Mordecai's sudden change of tone. "Dude, what the hell's your problem?"
Mordecai realized what had just happened. He himself was taken back by his own anger. "Dude, no i-"
Before he could finish, Rigby already stormed out of the room.
Goddammit, why did he get so mad? He's not normally like that, only when he has a legitimate reason to be pissed off at Rigby. " Okay, no more excuses. You are getting rid of that thing tomorrow," he thought to himself, though there was a hint of doubt in the back of his mind.
There was an abrupt knock before Skips opened the door and stepped inside. "I heard about yesterday." Oh great, another unwanted piece of sympathy for Mordecai.
"Skips, everything is fine." Mordecai said in a frustrated voice.
Skips' tone changed. Mordecai was never this aggravated before, especially to Skips. "I need to know now: Did you get rid of it?"
"Yeah," Mordecai broke into a sweat. " He's on to me…"
"Mordecai, this is serious. If you're still in possession of it, tell me now!" Skips demanded.
"Chill out, I threw it over the cliff in the woods."
"Is that the truth?"
"… yeah," Moredcai replied nervously.
"IS that the truth?"
"YES. No one will ever find it again."
"I'm just making sure." A slight feeling of relief seemed to fall over Skips. Skips was hiding something. What it was, Mordecai did not know. Skips began to leave the room, but stopped saying "You got rid of the book too?"
"What?" Mordecai was confused for a second.
"The book that was in the bag, did you get rid of it too?" asked Skips.
Mordecai's mind was fuzzy. " Did I? Why can't I even remember?" Mordecai concluded that since he took the crown to get rid of it, he probably took the book too. "Yeah, I got rid of it too." Something caught him as strange though. Mordecai was the only one to have seen what was inside. "How did you know there was a book in there?"
"Oh, Rigby told me," Skips replied.
That answer seemed to make sense. He didn't think too much about it.
Mordecai was still sweating after Skips left. He had to calm himself down. He went over to the sink. He was shocked to find that he was starting to grow thin, white hairs on his face, making a faded, short beard. That wasn't normal for him. He took the time to shave it off before going to bed, exhausted and tired.
It was eleven o'clock when Rigby entered the room again. Mordecai was out cold. He was relieved at least that he would not have to actually talk to him. Rigby tip-toed over to his bed. Underneath the pile of stuff on his trampoline, was his new toy: The Enchiridion.
He slightly chuckled with glee as he walked out of the room. If he was going to take this magic stuff seriously, he had to practice.
