JMJ

Chapter Eleven

Miss a Little, Lose everything

"Y'know, I don't like this mystery stuff, Arturo."

"Me neither," admitted Arturo ominously.

I just huffed and rolled my eyes.

I knew he meant about me, but I was not saying anything till I saw his mystery first.

Stiff and dizzy though I was when I stood, I had the strength to get up normally enough to follow him. I felt kind of like I was still dreaming otherwise or maybe that I woke up inside an entirely different body and was having trouble getting used to a whole new heft and height. I shook it off— or tried to.

Idly, I shoved my hands into my pockets to hide their shaking, but then I noticed most of my clothes were basically shreds. With a shrug I just shoved my hands in what was left of the pockets, anyway. There was enough to lean on. That was all that mattered to me. Though, not having boots was kind of a pain. Socks in alleys? Not the best mix. Stepped in oil, dragged it with me making it easier for stuff to stick to the material. There was a matting of gravel, and garbage, and even a nail.

Cringe. Yelp. I threw it against the brick wall.

It was weird that I never thought about it before, but Grubber must have had soles like a gorilla to walk barefoot in a junkyard. Going barefoot was better than grimy socks, though. I lost those right after the nail.

We went deep into a twisting maze of alleys, staircases, ladders and even hopped a low roof or two with saggy shingles that crumbled like coffee cake when we slipped along it. We scooted through spaces between buildings that were too narrow to even call them alleyways, closing in around us almost too tight, but then I was pretty lean and Arturo just all-around small.

I had to admit that we were entering into places I had never been to. The skin on my back crawled— maybe my spine itself was doing a bit of crawling on its own too, but I was preoccupied with my surroundings more than myself at the moment. In a city I prided myself in knowing so well, this clandestine sector was like discovering a family secret that changes the whole family history. Nah, more like finding out you had this crazy birthmark on your back that no one told you about and you found it accidentally in a room of mirrors. I almost forgot we were diving beneath sea level here to find Grubber.

Well, Grubber could rearrange himself like a cat even before the green. If anyone knew how to hide I knew no one better for the job, and Arturo must have been hiding with him? They were like a pair of strays.

I knew Grubber was more thin-skinned than he let on about things. I mean, he did insist on talking to no one but us for ages, cuz we were the only ones who understood his raspberry tongue. I never would have guessed he would have slunk off like this unless he was up to something.

This was when I noticed that we were not alone. It was not the graffiti; though, it made me uncomfortable not knowing who made it. I thought I knew all the great artists, but there were some secret genius works of art here that had to make me wonder if I really was dreaming.

I stopped.

"X Means Extinction," one read; it may not have been the biggest but it was the most skilled with pinks, greens, oranges, whites, and outlined in sharp black.

I bristled like a stray cat myself now on the wrong turf. They could have just been talking about the Powerpuff Girls being out of the picture, and yet… I really couldn't just not know about this place, could I?

Was it all new? Without the Gangreen Gang was there already people trying to fill in the gap left from our absence? The underworld was brutal for competition, and the reality of that was slowly sinking into my soul. First their art, then their figures started to appear.

Like ghosts of cavemen bound to their cave art, I saw shadows of people now and again grace the colored pigment like waving wires. I turned but they moved out of sight. Whispers. I think they thought I couldn't hear them, and at first I thought they were closer than they were, but my heightened senses were reawakening again. I could smell their sweat, sense their distrust, and their recognition of me. I wasn't sure if that last one was a good thing or a bad thing.

At least they knew Ace of the Gangreen Gang by sight, even if I didn't look exactly like him anymore. Actually, that made it worse, I suddenly realized, now in shreds, looking like some freak and not a cool one.

I trembled a little— not form fear, understand. Clenching my teeth I tried to hold it in. Then I saw him.

The place we entered was like a jungle ruin more than some place in the city. There was water dripping, wild vines grew along the sides of windowless façades, and there was King Louie sitting on his urban canyon throne make-shifted from an old school desk, some calico couch cushions and some pieces of broken taxi. He grinned about like King Louie too from ear to ear, though there was something somewhat sympathetic behind the crazed mask. I hated it more than anything else about the scene.

I felt those shadows come to life from the decayed post-apocalyptic corners. Loose bricks smoldered as they fell beneath their feet like crimson smoke. Grubber had a king's entourage, apparently, and I was smart enough to use those winding gears inside my head, no matter how over-wound they were at the moment, to know that I had entered a kingdom that went well beyond the boundaries of this castle. Now I understood perfectly why Arturo and Grubber were looking so guilty.

I shook again, and this time I was not sure if it was my condition or just how angry I felt. I sneered toxically, reveling in it either way.

"C'mon, Grubber!" I mocked with a careless shrug. "You can't seriously think Mojo Jojo needs a replacement for monkey-business in this stupid town, huh?"

"Wannus to kill the freak?" muttered an especially greasy looking creature, but he was human— at least as far as natural color was concerned.

Grubber closed his eyes importantly and held up his hand.

I crossed my arms and showed no fear.

"Pthzz, plgzzz, zlpfffttzz, plzz, bllfffffzzzz!"

"Yeah, I know. Arturo just said that," I snapped. "But now I'm here, okay? I can go back and get Snake and we can get outa here, right?"

"Pthz."

"What d'ya mean, 'no'?" I demanded bristling like a street sweeper's brush.

Arturo tugged at the shreds of my pant-leg, and I turned to him heatedly.

"Grubber just proved himself to the Ratstreet Gang," Arturo whispered. "He can't just leave now. It's in the Code of Rats."

"The Code of Spats?" I spat.

The Ratstreet Gang got a little restless at that.

"Come on! I'm Ace of the Gangreen Gang!" I declared boldly. "I own this city!"

"Finders keepers," hissed one.

"You don't look in any condition to lead anyone," snickered another.

"You're not even green." "Word on the street is that you're not well." "You don't look well." "That Ratstreet King will rule now."

"Ratstreet King! Grubber, you traitor!" I shot out at the last one; I was shaking again.

Nope. It wasn't anger. I felt weak. I felt sick. My own emotions were against me. I swallowed hard on my sandpaper tongue and tried to keep upright and to stand my ground with at least half a wit.

"He's not the Ratstreet King. He's just lord of this province. The Ratstreet King lives downtown behind the best restaurant in secret," Arturo explained.

"How many of these freaks are there!?" I almost screamed.

"Look who's calling who a freak!" shot another Ratstreet member back at me like she was gunna nip me with sharp incisors.

I stuck my tongue with disgust, and stepped back, but I wasn't scared. As large as her teeth were she was no physical freak even if a mental one.

Though there was a guy with a chain that was eyeing me pretty funny, and from that point on I had to keep a careful eye on him.

"You can't be serious," I said more pathetic than I meant to sound.

"Look, you're embarrassing us, man!" Arturo whispered hoarsely.

I laughed. "I'm embarrassing you!?"

"Pllthzz, thppzzfff, zzzzzzthp!" said Grubber.

I paused. I looked at the others. I don't think the others understood Grubber like I did. Not even the rest of the Gangreen Gang understood him like I did. That made the betrayal all the worse. I would have revealed it just to spite him, but I figured at the last second it was better for me than for him to keep it secret.

He was inviting me into the Ratstreet Gang in that quirky way he did. He really did have a way with words that might have made him the greatest poet this side of the Atlantic if he'd chosen to be one. His graffiti was some of the best there was, and maybe it was poetry. I could understand spoken-raspberry— couldn't read it fluently. He knew how to write, read, and speak better than anybody I knew in person. He chose this life more than any of us. He was some prince's son for all I knew, but he had chosen the Gangreen Gang just like he chose this. For old time's sake he was offering me a position as his right hand man. We were still friends if I cooperated for now.

Part of me wanted to take it, but… well, it was a pretty small part.

Then Grubber added, "Flppzz, plgtthdzz, zzzzzzzzzzzlp slp!"

"The Gangreen Gang is not just Ex's experiment!" I choked.

Ah, really! Don't tell me I'm crying!? Not now! DR. FORM you—!

I wanted to kill Form. I really did. Shivering and shaking, I just barely sucked the tears back and swallowed the choke down.

"It's my gig!" I said. "It was before the green, it will be after!"

Grubber's smile fell. He looked down. Then he shrugged.

Arturo winced, and true silence fell upon us all. It was like sitting in a graveyard now. The dearly departed? The green.

No! I could have fixed it. Just bide time with the stupid Ratstreet and I'd get back. I felt it could be done. I was a master at making stuff up as I went along. No need for Pirates, I was more than Jack Sparrow. If I just sucked in my pride, I might have won Arturo and Grubber back. I might have been captain of all again with some new members to boot. But street life was like pirate life in one thing… it was nothing personal when opportunity got in the way of loyalty.

They knew I was done-for.

My brain felt a dizzy wave. That was when I remembered something again. Something from the lab.

My brain would be the first thing to go. I felt like I knew what I was doing, but did I really? Maybe I wasn't even hearing what I thought I was hearing. Maybe I wasn't saying what I thought I was saying. Maybe I wasn't even here.

Nah! This was real, as stupid as it all was in it's "I was a teenage lab experiment" kind of way, this was exactly what I perceived it to be. A rival gang was watching the final moments of the other side's leader.

What a pathetic flesh heap I must have looked! I couldn't see myself, but I felt my bones no more than jelly just barely holding up my flesh, and what that made the stuff in between my skin and my bones, I didn't know what. What was holding my hair in place? Why weren't my eyeballs falling into my mouth? How could my brain still be intact enough to have emotional stress!? I would almost rather have been the Incredible Melting Man. Hey, inside I felt like that imploding guy from the climax of Robocop.

"Oh, come on!" I hissed out loud through my teeth.

Quickly, I stuffed my thoughts back where they belonged.

I'm trying to have a serious discussion here with my rogue guys and my body's not cooperating! Five minutes? Just five minutes!?

My brow knit. My eyes betrayed my pain.

Is it even possible for me to be the brains, anymore?

It wasn't self pity or worry. It was just a simple question, and one I resented with max power.

I growled and clenched my fists.

The Ratstreet Gang shuffled back a little. Grubber's normal eyes widened. Arturo sunk smaller than ever into his teeny body.

It was me. The growl that came from my throat even made me stop in fright. It was not the growl of a human being. It was not even the growl of a bear or a lion. It was not natural, like the growl of some alien. I choked.

My chest heaved. I shivered and clenched my fists again for another bout of pain.

"FINE!" I snarled; this also came out of my throat unnaturally.

I fell to me knees.

"Ace?" said Arturo. "Maybe you should get—"

He dared to approach me, but I shoved him back with a hand against his face.

"Ack!" he cried.

I forced myself back up.

I didn't need them! I didn't need anything or anyone!

I stormed away, afraid I'd transform in front of them. Not sure why I should fear that, except that my brain was not my own anymore. It belonged to some mangy beast that would probably obey Dr. Form if he found me. That flabby grinning gourd-head was probably on his way right now! But maybe he was too fat to get in here.

I was already kind of expanding a little myself, I found, but I was not solid. I squeezed through the cracks of this domain like slime. I oozed up to the roof and could hardly believe I was doing it, especially since I was so seething angry. I didn't even know what I was doing, but I let out a scream like a monkey's howl as I broke free to the rooftop.

I was on all fours for a few seconds breathing and seething hot molten yellowish gunk out in front of me.

Then I noticed a pair of eyes.

I thrust my heavy head around towards it, lolling my eyes painfully at the little dweeb sitting there on a lawn chair with a beer and a radio playing Asian rap or something.

"Are you a Rrrrrrraaaaaaatzzzz?" I snapped.

The guy was all eyes, and he shook those eyes more than his head head like it would wisp like smoke right off his body.

"GOOD!" I snarled and leapt for the next roof with another roar. "Ya kitchen's on fire!"

And I laughed… for some reason.

I was losing control of my life just like I was losing control of my own body. I couldn't take it anymore! I felt like I would fall to pieces literally or my sanity would shatter first. Everything hurt, especially my mind. It hurt more than any sore or any gut-wrenching weirdness of the science stuff they did to them. Maybe my insides were already gone, and I was just one big pile of goop that just resembled a person. Maybe…

My eyes turned. The motion made me dizzier even as I did a double-take, but I focused almost impossibly on the improbable sight below me.

"Hngeh?"

I had found my way back to Snake's place and was now squatting on a roof across from Snake's window. It was a cloudy night— dry and windy like a massive tumbleweed was hovering in slow motion from some inter-dimensional desert about to spit down sand rather than snow. The lights were dim in the streetlamps. No cars were driving for some ways. Crickets chirped. The surreal creepiness swallowed me, and I looked with misery at Snake's paint-pealing window.

I licked my lips like dry clay. They tasted kind of like that too only with a little more of a metallic aftertaste. I blinked my crusty eyelids. My brain felt like potato salad.

With a shrug I stood up. I stepped back a few paces, and then made a leap to Snake's roof.

I heard him snort awake through the roof to his room. He rustled in his sheets. Then he went limp— falling asleep again after I didn't move for a moment. Then I slipped to the window itself. It was not locked, and my fingers could squeeze through the window cracks in order for me to open it. The way I slipped inside might have been more snakelike than Snake even on his best days in the gang.

"Yo, Snake…" I whispered.

"Nnthhssssssssss…"

"Snake."

I reached out to shake him, but just as I was about to touch him, he snapped around in a panic and gasped through his teeth.

"Shhhh!" I hissed. "C'mon. Don't wanna wake up the whole neighborhood, do ya?"

"Acccce!" he hissed back.

He scrambled out of bed in his boxers like a soldier caught being late for duty. He tripped and I stepped back as he caught himself on his broken swivel chair.

"Wh—wh—what are you doing here?" he asked shakily.

I shrugged trying my best to keep it cool "C'mon. We still got time to get out of here before anyone notices."

"Notices what?" Snake asked.

He took in my clothes, my body, and my face from head to foot and back again. Then he swallowed hard.

"C'mon I need you for this," I insisted like it was the old day. "Bring what you want and let's go."

"You can't be serious," Snake answered mistily.

"What do you mean, 'I can't be serious'?" I asked a little louder than I wanted to.

Snake bit his lip.

"Well?" I pressed.

"'Well', what?"

"You coming or what?"

"Ace. You're not well."

"Snake! I'm dyin' here an' all you can do is just stand there like a slug! Now do something useful and come with me so's we can get the rest of the gang together and—"

Snake blinked stupidly.

I lifted my fist to slug him, and that's when Snake's eyes flashed with this dangerous anger I never saw in him before. Even in the dim light his eyes were like piercing lasers. Surprised and not quite all hinged at the moment anyway, I staggered. I choked on a gob of slimy foul-tasting spit, but my eyes didn't leave his. For the first time I had the wide saucers and his eyes narrowed firmer.

"Why don't you go through with it?" he asked darker than I had anticipated.

Hot tears taunted the edge of my eyes. I didn't move, except for a small quiver in my lip. It was the tenseness, I told myself.

"You almost killed my mom," said Snake.

"It was an accident!" I protested. "Honest! I didn't want to hurt your mom. I didn't want to hurt you!"

Snake was unyielding. "I was trying to help you, but that wasn't good enough, was it? I was thinking…" here he faltered a little; his eyes fell.

"You were thinking," I growled.

He looked me straight in the eye again. "You never liked me. Not even from the beginning, did you?"

I gulped.

"No!" I wailed; it was pretty pathetic, but I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "That's not true! If I didn't like you I wouldn't've—!"

"You just liked me there cuz I took every punch and every insult and everything you dished out, and for what? You don't like anyone or anything, that's what I think! You barely like yourself cuz you won't even go to the hospital like a normal person would with—with whatever's wrong with you! It's freaking me out!"

"But—" I sobbed.

"I was a freak, I couldn't go home! I stayed with you. But now I'm thinkin' I—I—I—I should've gone home anyway!" he snapped, unable to control himself anymore, and it scared me just a little bit, I have to admit. "I should've! Y—y—you just liked having another member of your GANG! You didn't care about any of us, just your stupid GANG!"

"You loved the gang too!" I sniffed back haughtily— desperately haughtily, I should say.

"Now," huffed Snake, "you—you—you want my help—"

"And after everything I've ever done for you dopes, the least you could do is—"

"—cuz the rest of the gang's gone, and you got nothing left. I always thought you were ssssssssssssssso—"

"Okay, just stop it!"

"—On top of things, so confident, ssssso—"

"Is the whole world against me now?" I snorted.

"But you never were, were you?"

"You're embarrassing yourself now! Really."

"Well, ssssssorry! I'm not gunna be your dupe anymore! Find someone elsssssse."

Now I was the one blinking stupid for a minute or two. Very slowly and just barely getting my brain working again, I shook my head.

"Nah," I half-breathed half-laughed, "Nah, you got it all wrong, Snake. I—"

"I'm not going. There'ssss nothing you can do or say that will make me get out that window with yousssss."

The choke came back. I was not sure if I was gunna bawl or just pass out, but all I did was shrug. I went for the window. What else could I do? I wasn't crazed enough to shove him out the window even though I seriously thought about it. We didn't have the green. A two story drop from this tall narrow dung heap? Well, you get it. I paused, though, halfway through.

Snake's eyes were on me, but when mine met his, they darted away.

I could change my mind and shove him through, anyway…

No.

I leapt down and onto the pavement. My legs absorbed the shock, but not like the good old Gangreen days. It was a soggy stupid way to land, but I didn't wait around. A truck zoomed past.

I ducked with a shriek.

The scientists?

Nope, it was a slow semi not the scientist's truck.

I shook my head.