JMJ

Chapter Five

Deductive Reasoning

"Jojo's missing?" demanded Buttercup.

"Is he sick!?" cried Bubbles.

"I'm sure he's just in his bed," said the Professor looking a little rough around the edges somewhat despite his composed posture; he felt a little rough around the edges too, despite his gentle tone.

"No, I looked there," said Blossom with a frown.

"Try giving him a treat," shrugged Boomer.

Butch grinned. "Or you could just say—"

"BUTCH!"

Butch nearly leapt out of his seat as every one of his siblings assaulted him with his name, their huge eyes blazing.

"I was just going to say 'lab time'!" he sniffed. "Come on, you guys!"

"Sure you were," muttered Brick as he sipped at his orange juice idly.

"I'll go look for him," said Bubbles scooting out of her seat.

Boomer scooted out too.

Blossom sat a few moments more.

"What's wrong, brains?" asked Buttercup with a raised brow.

"I don't know… it's just— well, not like Jojo to be so… quiet," said Blossom. "He's never gone off by himself at breakfast. Even that one time when he was pretty sick, he still came out for breakfast to pout."

"What? You don't think he's outside, do you?" asked Buttercup.

"Why would he be outside?" asked Butch.

"Well," Blossom mused. "There were all those trick-or-treaters."

"Yeah, but he's done trick-or-treating before," Buttercup pointed out.

"Professor?" said Blossom looking up at their father who had been listening quietly to the conversation and growing ever-unhappier despite himself.

"Yes, Blossom?" asked the Professor, and he shook his head. "As far as I know, he was right there with me in the couch all evening."

He began to feel fidgety. The calls of Bubbles and Boomer echoed emptily in the house. His face felt tighter each time there was not so much as a weak cheep in return.

"Maybe he went to go look for Bubbles after the Professor fell asleep," Brick grumbled. "He loves her so much."

It was not so much what he said but the disdain with which he said it that got under one's skin. True to teenage-angst he'd been like that more often than the Professor liked, and he frowned at the boy even though he knew Brick would not lift his eyes to him. What bothered the Professor more at the moment, however, was this uncontrollable regret that he could not explain. It was as if he felt that he had somehow purposely driven Jojo away.

He tried to shake it. It was nonsense, of course. If Jojo had gotten out, it was a freak thing, but it would do no good to blame himself for it in the sense that he had done a poor job keeping his promise to Mojo just before he returned to the vulnerable state of a common animal. There had to be a logical explanation for the chimp's disappearance. Perhaps with all the comings and goings of other Halloween-goers, he had gotten it into his head to go find the sibs, after all. Then it would have been the Professor's fault that he had not locked the door, but… but… It was possible Jojo did get outside and somehow got locked out. It was possible Jojo got into some candy and was sick from overdoing it, and yet…

Why could he not shake that image of Mojo's pleading vulnerable face looking up at him with soulful basset eyes all those years ago? The Professor knew it had been fear and longing that had overtaken Mojo at the last second, but if Mojo had never gone through that experience it was possible he'd still be a super villain today. There was nothing to sympathize in that, except for the poor creature he had become— a creature that was the Professor's responsibility.

Oh, the guilt was rising, not falling!

Jojo counted on him. Why would he leave? It just didn't make sense.

"Professor…?" asked Butch wrinkling his non-existent nose.

"Jojo…!" called Bubbles in the background of the silence that followed. "Come out, come out…!"

Very abruptly the Professor stood up.

"We have to find him!" he cried despite himself.

"Wait, Professor!" cried Blossom.

But the Professor couldn't wait. He threw on his autumn coat and forwent any relaxation they were meant to have this Saturday morning. Like a goose flying south he swept along the current of cold air sweeping dust devils along the corners of the house.

"Jojo!" he called down the street. "Jojo! Where are you?! Come back, Jojo!"

He could not believe his own franticness or the strain in his voice. It was as if the fear that gripped him was not his own but a blanket of fear that had been thrown over the top of him, leaving him bewildered and frustrated on the inside as though watching through a window in disbelief at some other person's mania.

The children were just as surprised as he was. Buttercup, Butch and Blossom sped to the door after him. Bubbles and Boomer were soon calling after him instead of Jojo, but the Professor did not stop. There were no power boosts from those he left behind to whip like fairy lightning to his side in colored hopeful streaks in this drab and colorless autumn morning.

What had seemed so harmless yesterday as a night of spooky games seemed to have left the streets as desolate as a Night on Bald Mountain but with no Angelus Bell to announce the Ave Maria to the rays of dawn. He felt as bitter as though Christmas might never come again let alone Thanksgiving. The world was in ruins by a party of goblins, ghouls and devils. Ashes and bleakness remained.

But it was all in his head, wasn't it? The worst that was physically around him aside from a bitter gray sky were a few stray candy wrappers in the gutters and one or two smashed-in jack-o-lanterns. Why did the jack-o-lanterns remind him of the taunting livid laughter of Mojo? The ghosts of his past plans of terror came back worse upon the Professor than they ever had when he was living them.

"Jojooooo….!" He whined as he came to a stop at the end of the block.

It might as well have been the end of a cliff, and he staggered over the empty moors of forgotten lands in desolate highland peeks.

He felt like a ghost himself or an old and gnarled tree about to blow away on a gale-force wind. His coat-ends flapped like the rustling of leaves catching the violent air with open arms to pull him downwards into the blacktop.

"Dad!" Bubbles' voice was the echo of another world behind him, and he could not turn to her.

The others were racing, but the Professor ran again until after the curb at the end of the next block, and this was only because of the horrible, stomach-churning screech. He fell backwards onto the street.

The angry honk that followed woke him to the familiar suburban neighborhood more than the sting in his hands as they hit the blacktop first. The car drove on leaving its trail of exhaust to be caught up in the flustering breeze. A few leaves swirled up behind it as a reminder that some colors still did exist.

"Professor!" "Professor!" called all those behind him with much more ruddiness.

Butch and Buttercup were the first ones on either side of him in their green fluttering clothes. Buttercup grabbed hold of his arm and Butch was pulling him upright.

"Dad!" squealed Bubbles, her blue and gold like a summer halo.

"Are you crazy!?" cried Blossom despite herself in full flushed rosiness in more than what she wore.

"Yeah, you almost got hit by a car!" wailed Boomer as striking as a splash of blue paint.

"I—I—I…" the Professor breathed, but he could not speak properly until he was on the block again like a man overboard at last dragged out of the sea and back on ship.

He swallowed hard and quivered from head to foot on noodle legs.

"I don't know what's come over me…" he choked.

"He's still sick!" determined Buttercup. "Let's get him back home!"

"Daddy!" sobbed Bubbles.

Throwing her arms around his neck, she showered his dried out face with a hydration of kisses.

"I'm sorry," the Professor sighed closing his eyes and hugging Bubbles back.

Soon, everyone had a hold of him until they were back at the house, where Brick was waiting.

"What are you just standing there for?" demanded Bubbles.

Brick was looking pretty indolent the way he was leaning against the doorframe of the house.

"I called the Classifieds," he retorted, closing his eyes. "He'll be in the paper like a person does for a real lost animal."

"Thank you, Brick!" said Blossom blinking much surprised.

"Yeah, whatever!" Brick growled and slammed open the door away from the throng coming in with the literally windblown Professor.

As Brick disappeared in the general direction of his room ending in the sound of a slamming door, the others had the Professor seated on the couch with some commotion.

With a pensive hand to her face, Blossom paused then as she looked where Brick had gone, but she sighed and shook her head away.

Bubbles was already touching the Professor's forehead.

"I think he has a fever!" Bubbles shivered.

"I'll get the thermometer," said Blossom. "Someone get him water, okay."

"Look, everyone," said the Professor feeling more awful than ever making his children worry so much and fuss over him. "I'm sorry. I'm alright, I'm alright. Or at least, I know I will be alright. But Jojo—"

"Enough about Jojo!" snapped Buttercup. "We'll deal with him."

"Yeah," remarked Boomer. "You just went nuts like Buttercup said. You gotta get a hold of yourself."

"But—but—but…!" the Professor tried to protest.

"No, 'buts'!" Blossom suddenly admonished with the thermometer in hand. "You lie there or I'll tie you down."

"She means it too," said Butch.

"You bet she does!" Buttercup agreed.

The Professor moaned.

"Here, Professor," said Bubbles far more gently than the others. "Open your mouth. Here's the thermometer."

Slumping rather childishly, the Professor did indeed obey for Bubbles to tuck the glass stick beneath his tongue.

"So what about something to drink," Blossom said and rolled her eyes. "Oh, I'll get it."

"You don't have to, Blossom," the Professor garbled.

"No, leave the thermometer there, Dad," Bubbles cooed kneeling on the floor beside his head, and she ran her hand through his wild prickly hair getting sweaty fast now that it was out of the elements.

He closed his eyes, but his head was spinning. In the enclosure of his eyelids he could see malformed macabre shapes like a nightmare was just waiting with lathering drool for the final snap of his consciousness between a set of nasty fangs. Why was it like a chill from the past, that threatening phantom bite? His brain wouldn't work for him. He eased his muscles, but did not quite relax.

After counting the time, Bubbles took the thermometer out of his mouth.

"Yep. It's a fever, alright."

"Ah, Professor," Boomer complained. "Now we're all gunna get it!"

"Here's some water, okay?" said Blossom offering the Professor a glass from the kitchen.

Absently, the Professor took it, but his attention drew to it instantly when he found how weak and noodle-like his fingers were too. He quickly used both hands to grasp it. Still he feared dropping it as he gently put it to his lips. He drank until it to the bottom more greedily than he intended before handing the glass to whoever's hands happened to be the closest available, which happened to be Butch.

Butch made a face, but out of concern.

"What're we gunna do now?" asked Boomer very bewildered and hushed.

"We're gunna put the Professor to bed," said Blossom promptly.

And that was exactly what they did.

"But what about… Jojo?" asked Boomer.

The Professor felt nauseous. He had almost forgotten why he was in this state.

"Brick called the Classifieds," Blossom reminded him brusquely.

"And we'll go look for him," retorted Buttercup; the gears in her head were obviously moving, and the Professor was not sure he liked her tone. "Methodically."

#

"Deductive reasoning tells me that in order to discover who is behind this evil plot with me as a diversion," said Nomo Jojo to himself, "one must move quickly and go where evil dwells. One must go closer rather than flee… or at least the one that is myself must go where evil is known. The underworld of Townsville may have changed since I was last a part of it, but as Jojo I heard many things that are slowly but surely returning to me. Things that were said and seen by a creature without intelligent thought are those things said and seen without fear from those who are responsible for them, and one of those things poor little Jojo heard and that I can recall now as a being of supreme intellect was about a gang known as Ratz.

"Cleverer than the Gangreen Gang, larger too, and more formidable even if less creative, it lurks the streets as it has for many years now. Like the insentient creatures after which they are named, they are everywhere in dark places unseen as much as they are unwanted. From them I shall obtain the knowledge that I seek. They will know what others do not know, because of how they lurk underfoot, unbeknownst to the normal city-dwellers of Townsville, and I will be able to communicate with them without their knowing my true purpose. I am no longer a villain of pomp and pride and naivety and foolishness. I am a vigilante, a silent stalker, a private eye of my own commission to myself.

"Even through the minimal research I have already conducted as a sentient vigilante, I know where one of the seven rat kings' right hand man goes to, as they say, 'chill'.

"Forgive me, Jojo. Forgive me, Bubbles, Blossom, and Buttercup. Forgive me, Professor Utonium, but I must descend into the dark recesses of the world of darkness from which I may never return in order that I may discover what destroyed our fantasy lives. The truth is, I fear, it was never meant to last, and I know that at least the Professor knew this to be so. He told me so… or so he told the good little listener that a calmer, happier Jojo had been."

#

The first snow was falling outside. It would melt before dawn. Arturo de la Guerra wasn't a fan of winter, but he wasn't one to complain about what came. November had barely started and it was bleak, damp, and miserable outside. It was just as miserable on a hot sunny day in June most days for the scavengers of existence.

"Así es la vida," he said to himself carelessly.

It was his motto— at least was these days.

The storms, the gentle breeze, the punches, the free rides and the cheap tricks that left you sitting in a pool of your own spit…or blood.

For instance, last week when he came to this very bar, secluded and cute in its dingy way, he was ordering Sangria. Now he was ordering whatever was on tap, but he didn't slump about. Well, he always was somewhat slouched, but that was more from being over relaxed about life than the other way around. Even though he was drinking cheap this time from lack of funds from a rare bad decision by the local king, he did have a little extra cash to buy a bottle of Dos Equis for the young and pretty Melinda Paloma— tequila for senses other than taste.

Would it not be that fate just had it, that Melinda Paloma was alone tonight instead of with her other friends from the apartment across the street, and she just got in through the door.

Her face was flushed a little from the chill outside, but it only made the wine color of her rich hair all the more full-bodied wreathing her sparkling eyes. Those eyes dimmed a little as she turned to Arutro's gift.

Arturo grinned. Melinda smirked, but it was not a promising one.

She was too good of a girl to be fooled by appearances, and this went both ways. It was not that Arturo was especially short or bug-eyed. She knew nothing about his association with the gang nor had she lived in Townsville long enough to recall anything about Arturo's early days with the "green". Still as she looked down at the beer, it was as though the two bold X's on the label stood for a double dose of Chemical X.

Arturo could just as well be attempting to turn her into a genetic monstrosity that would have made her more infamous than Ace ever had been in those bygone days. Perhaps she saw in that grin of Arturo's a crookedness that went beyond the normal sense of sight altogether. Yet she was intrigued at times nonetheless. A smart, pretty, well-mannered girl like Melinda Paloma was not going to be available for long, but she was no pigeon even if she was a dove. She had the keen look of a hawk as she turned her eyes from the beer and over to Arturo directly again.

"Yes?"

Her false citrine earrings twinkled tauntingly as she turned in the dim-colored lights of the bar.

"It's on me, chica," said Arturo beaming. "It's what you usually have with your dinner when you come here, sí?"

Had he been a little terrier his tail would have been wagging in eager and even candid anticipation. He was short enough that he could stand on the stool with ease and still lean his arm suavely along the bar counter.

Melinda Paloma looked away with some embarrassment and a funny little smile.

"It's not the first time you've come here so lonely, you know," Arturo went on. "We talked before. I think we should be friends, you know?"

"Friends, hmm?" asked Melina, her earrings were like a double pair of eyes winking at him as a warning or as an encouragement.

She leaned her chin in her hands.

"Of course, friends," Arturo insisted, but his greasiness was showing no matter how much he tried not to.

He was better with policemen, admittedly.

"I sense in you," said Melinda with a very pretty tongue, "a kind of lingo of a pingo for a nango fandango that must end in a false step to a night bunko with nothing left of the dancers by dawn but a human gumbo."

Arturo blinked stupidly for a moment or two.

"Forgive me," said Melinda with full seriousness and even a sincere regret, and that was a bad sign. "You seem like the sort who sincerely needs a friend, but even as I came in through door I heard a suspicious character asking that waitress at the door for you, and he is now waiting in that corner for you. The waitress is waiting for a chance to interrupt us. I've seen shadowy people in your company before enough to I think even being your 'friend' may bring you more harm than good in the end."

Arturo blinked without a word in Spanish, English or any slang in between to save this moment as she stood up.

"Thank you, Arturo, for the beer," she said, and with that gift in hand, she left the bar— probably never to return.

At last Arturo frowned.

Yes, Así es la vida.

Part of him wished he could go with her instead of meeting with whoever was waiting for him. There were plenty of the type of friend he sought for in Melinda in those of the Ratztreet Empire, but she left like the last ray of sunshine through the trees. The twinkling of her earrings were like the orange beams of the setting sun. Though, he may get his hands on real jewels any moment, he felt that an irreplaceable treasure had escaped him.

He sat back down and fumed.

"There's a gentleman," said the waitress who was not nearly as clever as Melinda, "waiting for you in that dark shadowy corner over there, Sir."

Arturo closed his eyes and huffed. Then he dropped down from his stool and trotted over to where the dark figure waited for him.

"I thought I got special kudos enough not to be bothered here."

"Ah, but I am not under the jurisdiction of any king," said the deep, dark mysterious voice from that shapeless silhouette in the deepest part of the deepest corner with a corner table. "Please, Arturo de la Guerra. Sangria's on me."

A second time, Arturo blinked in surprise and far blanker than before. He felt almost like he had been shot and his body had not yet caught up with this knowledge. This mysterious figure was not overly tall, but he was taller than Arturo. He had thick arms beneath a thick concealing coat. He was either very slouched or had a very large hat on top of his head. It was obvious that he was as dark as they came, somehow, despite this near comedic monster-house display, he was not of the Ratz. How did he know what Arturo was if he was not part of the gang?

Police?

Somehow he doubted it, but that eased no tension.

"Fine," said Arturo quite emotionless in tone; he closed his eyes with full confidence, "but only if it is Paloma Tequila, and it better be a good one, or I will have the 'jurisdiction' make you regret trespassing for no other reason than that I am in a bad mood."

"Then have your paloma and allow me to brighten your autumn blues with something that contrasts brightly against this wretched weather."