CHAPTER 11: FIRST CONTACT, PART 2
Loneliness is a state that no one truly enjoys.
The species of homo sapiens has evolved into a group of social creatures, relying on one another in order to maintain survival. It is a trait that has been strongly kept by many of its ancestors, but only until the newest member in the family of the homo genus did this concept become overthought and overcomplicated.
With the advent of the idea, the human race had begun to find an identity for itself, using their environments to create cities and societies built upon maths and language, taking what was once a simple concept of strength in numbers and turning it into something completely new and different.
More complex and complicated emotions were built and developed, and the task of trying to manage them all becoming a challenge added on top of the ordinary challenge of staying alive and surviving the species. The modern age has given rise to more complications in the age of technology, making the state of loneliness no longer something to be avoided, but something that is craved.
Otto Rocket is one example that proves this point: He has had plenty of troubles that have come in spades in his already difficult life. In the midst of having to deal with a failing career held together by threads, he suffers rejection from his family and what was once a love interest of his, taking away some of the few prospects he has in his life.
Loneliness is a state that no one truly enjoys, but sometimes it is necessary to sort out these emotions.
An alleyway just outside of the strip mall containing Squid's Electronics is where Otto Rocket chose to sort out his own feelings, doing so by sleeping them off. Laying softly in the alley, he subconsciously and unconsciously alike wished to find a moment alone from the troubles of his own life, finding a temporal fantasy in which the wish was fulfilled.
Gone is the unpleasant dinner with his family, and gone is the fight with his father, giving way only for only some of the things he desires out of life. Gone is the world that has caused him so much pain, warranted and unwarranted alike, and what is in its place is a world that gives him only what he craves.
In his dreams, he does not see the failing numbers that he gets on NewTube by displaying his well-practiced and hones skating skills, but instead, he is before a crowd that cheers for him on the sidelines as he performs for them on a half-pipe in a large stadium full of thousands of people.
His name is in the lights and praised as one of the greats of his craft, and beloved by the people who come to observe him. He is doing what he loves, and the people who watch love him for it. His life is as he has always wished it would be, and he his troubles are finally all behind him.
Concluding his performance before the crowd, Otto stepped down from the half-pipe, taking a bow to his crowd. His display of showmanship is an appreciative response to the roaring response from the crowd, cheering and applauding his every move as if he were their own personal deity performing miracles for them.
When he departs from the half-pipe, he is immediately greeted by Clio, who runs up and jumps on him out of love and lust alike when he concludes his show. They share an impassioned kiss that shows them as lovers that could never be separated, as two made for the each other and no one else...
...but within his own fantasy, Clio is not the only woman he has, but also his past lovers of Sherry and Trish, who both come to his sides and take him by his arms, each receiving a kiss from Otto without any protest from Clio or each other. In his perfect world, he can be with all the women he has been in the past with at once, and make them all happy equally, as they have all made him happy at one point.
And it is not just his past lovers which are with him in his perfect world. Also with him is his best friend of Twister, coming with a camera full of footage shot from the show. Like everyone else in his fantasy, there are no words shared nor is there any need for them, but instead a simple yet special handshake that they have made all their lives is enough to convey all of their feelings for each other.
The traditional 'Woogity woogity woogity woogity!' is what the two share with their handshake, but there are two more hands that also join Otto and Twister to form the full group of Team Rocket, with Reggie Rocket and Sam 'Squid' Dullard joining the group. Like Twister, the two have their primary focus on Otto, giving him the attention and praise he has craved all his life.
But a fifth hand comes to the group as well, finding its way on his shoulder. Otto feels the hand touch and hold him with a firmness that he recognized at an instinctual level, turning with the assumption that the hand belonged to his father, and finding his assumptions to be correct.
Standing before him, Ray Rocket continued to have his hand on Otto's shoulder, adding the other one when finally facing his son. The sight of his father looking down on him is a sight intimidating to face, as any child would feel in the face of the stronger of their progenitors, but this sternness does not last long.
Instead, what comes to his face is a smile, bringing a look of pride that Otto has always sought whether he wished to openly admit it or not. The hands on his shoulders reached to his back to bring him in for a hug, bringing him close to his father both physically and spiritually in a move that could wipe away the woes of anyone in pain.
And it does that well for Otto Rocket, who smiled when in his his father's arms.
Then, he woke up.
The fantasy is over, and he no longer is within the spotlight and praised by the world and the people he loves the most. The very idea that he could even be loved is gone as is the fantasy itself, leaving the heart-shaped hole empty as its substitute filling has left with a return to reality.
All warmth and love he felt he has felt has faded, and instead there is only the cold of the urban Californian night upon him, as well as a few newspapers and cardboard he has accumulated for himself as a makeshift blanket, hoping to keep the cold away and the warmth kept.
What he needs has been snatched away from him once again, and it has left him still alone and hungry for affection.
"Fuck." Otto groaned.
Curling up further into his compromised bed, closing his tear-dried eyes, he attempted to return to sleep, hoping that he could possibly recapture the dream he had before and feel the attention he felt before to erase his pain once again. Trying to consciously return to sleep, he attempted to relive the vision and the fantasy, concentrating all of his attention on it to summon it forth.
And for a few slivers of time, the vision does return as he desired, coming to him in glimpses and fragments that formed what was once the dream he had. It is only a facsimile of the dream he once saw, half-hearted in its original emotion, and nowhere near impactful as it was before.
Caught awake and aware, he knows that what he is seeing is only fantasy and not reality, the truth behind the vision brought to him with his conscious state steals from him the lie that relieved him of the real world, unable to truly recapture the complete and freedom in the fantasy he once was in.
But, now, it is no longer his own private Idaho he leaves, but also what he once knew and remembered as his Kansas.
His attempts at rest were then interrupted by a noise rather strange to hear at this time of night, and especially at this particular location. Somewhere nearby, a loud humming noise was heard, filling the air with soundwaves that made their way to Otto's ears, further disturbing him from his return to sleep.
The reinterpretation of the dream gave forth a vision of his friends and family skating in a skate park within the stadium, materialized through his own half-conscious attempts to recreate his dream. In between blinks of trying to envision his old friends on their skateboards, he began to see a group of others skating towards him in the real world.
Still groggy from his sleep, Otto does not fully grasp that the group coming towards him are not the skaters he sees in his dream, nor are they a part of his dream at all. He only looks on the incoming skaters with a tired confusion, trying to properly comprehend what these new figures are.
The strange humming noise also began to grow louder as they approached, now summoning Otto's full attention to the matter, and ending his attempts to sleep as his eyes widened to a full opening. Picking himself up off the ground, he walked to the parking lot to investigate, hearing the noise continue to grow as he came closer, breaking the empty parking lot out of its dead silence.
Looking forward and squinting his eyes, he found not only the source of the strange noise, but also a more clear view of the incoming skaters. He was now able to fully see them in their full getup of suits and masks, concealing their identity, but was not able to take notice of their choice of boards, not yet aware of their ability to float above the Earth in defiance of gravity.
Nonetheless, the sight of the skaters and their strange apparel is enough to confuse him regarding their identity and intent, squinting his eyes further in uncertainty.
"What the hell...?" Otto groaned.
If the rogue skaters were to come any closer, Otto would perhaps see the lack of wheels on the boards, and perhaps learn about the nature of their devices, but a more pressing matter regarding the skaters catches his attention first. The one coming to the front of the group took off from his suit a small object, pulling away from it something that resembled a pin or ring.
Otto is not the smartest of human beings, but he is among the majority of people who have seen enough action films to understand that what he holds is a grenade, and he has just activated it to explode. As the skaters began to grow even closer, Otto soon realized on top of this startling knowledge that they were coming near him with their explosive device, where it would most certainly bring him harm.
Adrenaline then kicks in to fuel on his body, making him run as far away from the strip mall as he possibly can. The timeframe in which he has to escape is short and gives him but little time to achieve the safest possible distance, and mere seconds after he started running does the grenade make its way in a window to Squid's Electronics.
Then, the store exploded in a violent flash of light, projecting enough force to knock Otto back several feet away, and land onto the hard asphalt ground. The fall is a hard one to take, but any less time to react and gain some distance away from the store would spell death, a fate he has avoided most swiftfully, and fulfilled yet another chance to defy death as he has done with the many stunts he has achieved throughout his life.
But unlike those instances of bravado and human accomplishment, Otto does not feel any sense of pride or championship for his escape, only a simple thankfulness to be alive, and the sharp pain of the injury he did suffer. Barely able to overcome the force and sound of the blast, and the impact of the asphalt, the fall left him struggling to focus on the present moment, writhing in pain and shock after the deafening boom.
Full consciousness is regained, with his eyesight just barely coming back into focus, but his hearing still has not yet recovered. Only able to see without audio, Otto turned saw the several masked figures in their high-tech suits stop in the parking lot, seeming to congratulate each other with high-fives and raised fists.
His hearing began to slowly come back with time, giving him only muffled interpretations of their speech, and in small glimpses.
"...shit was awesome! Why... do this before? Been... destroy this fuckin'... asshole I know owns the..." One skater asked.
"...the job properly and... ourselves and cause a scene... ...by the boss's way..." Another skater replied.
"...give a fuck about... ...don't care. I love this job..."
"...appreciate the enthusiasm... ...before the cops... ...hasn't bought them off yet..." A different skater said.
Barely able to hear the voices, much less the few words he could discern, Otto does not recognize any of the voices or have a chance to memorize them, leaving him with only the information that they have brought trouble to Ocean Shores, and they have destroyed his friend's business, which itself was a place he benefited from.
Stepping forward to confront the rogue skaters, he stood before them with a heroic stance, hoping that mere bravado would be enough to accomplish something.
"Hey, you! Hold it right there!" Otto said.
The skaters, not taking prior notice of Otto, turned to him upon hearing his call, silently standing before him in anticipation. Not having planning his confrontation at all, Otto quickly realized how his decision was made with too much haste, and not as effective as he had hoped, leaving him low on options on how to stop the skaters.
He is more than well aware of his mistake now, but, trying to keep up with it, he continued with the only option left in his situation.
"Uh... You're under arrest! You have the right to remain silent!" Otto said.
The only option indeed, but not anywhere near the best one.
Not knowing what to make of Otto's presence before, the skaters found themselves completely dumbfounded by his bluff, making them even more confused regarding what to make of him. Underneath this internal debate, there is still the realization that he did not actually have any means of stopping the group, making only a useless grandstanding.
In response, the skaters started laughing hysterically at his efforts, eliminating what little bite was in Otto's threat.
"Man, you just are so damn precious. I just wanna pinch your little cheeks. The ones on your face, faggot. Don't get any funny ideas. In fact, don't worry about that, you won't have any more ideas ever again." The first skater said.
Reaching onto his suit to pull another grenade from it, his hand was stopped by another of the skaters, sparing Otto's life.
"No. Don't kill him. That'll make it worse on us." The protesting skater said.
"Hey, listen, I know this asshole. He's gonna talk to the cops, that'll be a bigger problem for your-" The first skater tried to say.
"I said no. Nobody's gonna believe some deadbeat like him. Killing him leaves a murder to be investigated, and brings that trail back to us. We deal with him the most effective way there is."
The skater who then saved Otto's life proved that he was not as merciful as appearances would have one believe, stepping forward with a fist clenched to throw at Otto's face. Throwing his own fists up in a defensive stance, Otto's attempt to stave off the attack was defeated instantly; pushing down Otto's arms with his free hand, the skater then punched him in the face, making him fall to the ground with a further offense on his consciousness.
Not prepared for to take a punch to the face, much less another fall to the ground, Otto gave a loud groan of pain, covering his face in defeat. Whatever threat Otto once posed is now neutralized for the skaters, and they may now depart unobstructed and uninterrupted, leaving the job they set out to do cleanly accomplished.
The one who had attempted to murder him before scowled back from behind his mask, feeling cheated of a moment he desired for years.
"You got lucky, motherfucker. I've been waiting for my chance to do that shit for years. I'll get you next time for sure. See you later, punk-ass!" The first skater yelled.
Turning away from Otto with a middle finger, the murderous skater joined the rest of the group, all stepping on their hoverboards to depart. Finding his motivation to stop the rogue skaters once again, Otto again picked himself back up, charging forward to pursue the destroyers of his friend's store.
With the skaters now beginning to flee from the scene on their boards, Otto continued his pursuit on foot.
"Hey, you! Stop!" Otto called.
Preparing to make their proper escape, the rogue skaters then began riding off on their hoverboards and departing the scene. Now up close and able to see the boards more carefully, Otto, to his surprise, noticed that these were no ordinary skateboards they were riding on.
He saw that these boards had no wheels nor any way to connect to the ground, that these boards seemed to hover off the ground, defying the laws of gravity itself, a sight which Otto has never seen in his life. This new information about the skaters left him completely dumbfounded, stopping to try to process what he was seeing.
"What... the... fuck?!" Otto thought aloud.
The initial surprise makes him stop in his tracks and it gives his enemies a chance to gain more distance, but it is not an advantage that Otto allows them to continue taking. Running up to the nearest skater, he jumped onto his board, tightly gripping onto it with all the strength he had.
As the board continued to move down the street, it dragged along its unwitting passenger of Otto Rocket, who was brought facing the asphalt below him, scraping against his face and body, all while he was being dragged at a speed of several miles per hour on the board, matching that of a board going downhill rather than its current position of perfectly level with the ground.
The speed is only as slow as it is because of the extra weight, which brings it true rider to turn and look at the cause of his troubles.
"Hey, what the hell are you doing?! This thing can't take two people!" The skater shouted.
Still does the voice of the skater not register to Otto, only the barely-heard words themselves, which are enough to make him response.
"I'm not letting you get away, motherfucker! You're not gonna shake me off!" Otto replied.
"Oh, really? Let's test that, shall we? How about we see what this baby can do in the turbo mode?" The skater asked.
[Soundtrack Cue: Powerman 5000 - Supernova Goes Pop]
Before Otto could question what the skater meant in his question, two small rockets appeared on the sides of the board as the robber pushed a pedal on the board's surface with his foot. As the rockets pulled out to the sides, the rockets ignited, blasting the board several hundred miles per hour in seconds.
The speed is enough to make him race down the streets of Ocean Shores with speeds above even the best sports cars. Entire sections of the city go by in a blur, leaving them out of sight and out of mind for both rider and the unwanted passenger of Otto Rocket.
The latter is barely even able to comprehend the bizarre turn of events, leaving his jaw to drop as events unfolded.
"OH, GOD, OH, FUCK, HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" Otto screamed.
As Otto continued his childish panic, dragged along at high speeds along the road, he soon began to realize that his body and face no longer had any contact with the ground, the speed of the board enough to pull his weight off the ground and prevent him from making any unpleasant scrapes with the asphalt below.
Putting his panic to a stop, he then reached for the foot of the skater and grabbed it, attempting to pull himself onto the board with him. Aware of Otto's hand grabbing his foot, the skater attempted to pull it back to try to prevent him from coming aboard, but his effort had only served Otto's intentions further.
Pulling him further onto the board, Otto's hand still stuck with intent to his foot, the skater began to realize his mistake, aiming to take the opportunity to rectify it. After a devilish contemplation of ideas, the skater then reached down and grabbed Otto, pulling him off of the edge of the board and placed him firmly on its center.
The unexpected aide makes Otto look back to the skater in surprise, unsure why he would make an attempt to save his life after trying to take it earlier.
"You- You helped me on?" Otto questioned.
Rather than answer his question with words, the skater answered his question with a sharp punch to his face, nearly knocking Otto back off the board. With just enough determination and balance, Otto managed to prevent himself from falling off the hoverboard, averting a fall to the ground and a subsequent tumble.
With his intentions strongly hinted at with the hit, the skater then clarified them with his words.
"I want to enjoy whomping you, Rocket Dork! Now put up a good fight while I still have the chance to kick your ass!" The skater yelled.
Still unable to discern any distinct voice from any of his foes, Otto nonetheless caught a distinct catchphrase in this skater's words, giving away a clue to his identity.
'Rocket Dork"? "Whomp"? The only person who calls me that is... No way, it can't be... What would he be doing here? Otto thought.
As Otto's thoughts began to piece together the identity of the skater, said thoughts were quickly stopped with another punch to his face, bringing a sharp, stinging pain to his head and dispensing the thoughts from it. Needing to place his focus on the more important matter of the fight, Otto raised his fists in defense.
The skater then threw another punch, aiming to make a sufficient blow to knock Otto off the board once and for all. This time, however, Otto ducked away from the incoming punch, following his duck by landing an uppercut to the robber's stomach, drawing all the breath from his lungs and a cough and deep inhale to make up for his sudden lack of air.
Pitted against each other in a game of fisticuffs on a small fighting platform, the two fighters began to land more punches into each other, each strike making each other begin to lose their footing on the board, forcing them to play a balancing act between fighting one another and staying on the board.
With the combatants balancing their thoughts between balancing the board and attacking the other, the fight grew more and more tense with every blow. Each one of the two knew the stakes that they put themselves in, and each passing second creating a chance that grew more and more likely to make a mistake that would lead to one falling off the board.
Worse yet, there is also a realization that both may fall off the board with the tight space of a battlefield, making the fight itself no longer something to be desired. Having a suspicion regarding the identity of the rogue skater, Otto deduced that his enemy would not be concerned with such troubles, focused only on ending his life, and thus reducing the problem to two questions:
Shall he die at the hands of the skater, or die alongside his enemy?
In realization of these two inevitable outcomes, Otto, stuck with a split-second decision to make, found the answer to the internal debate. Taking notice of an alleyway approaching near on their side, he came to make the latter decision, planning out a course to accomplish a way to defeat his enemy.
Crouching down to the board, he leaned his body to the side, holding tightly onto the board with his hands as he did so. Shifting his weight to one side, the board's balance was aimed towards the alleyway, sending the two on a collision course into it. The rogue skater, once looking down at Otto with confusion, turned to look at the incoming alleyway, quickly realizing his plan, and the lack of time he had to stop it.
Taking the one option he still had to move to safety, Otto jumped off the board, tumbling onto the ground in a roll. The skater, attached to the board with a pair of magnetic boots, did not have an easy way to bail off from his board, leading him to reach for the boots in attempt to detach them and save himself.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, how do you get these things off, again?!" The skater panicked.
The quick and panicked attempt to remove the boots were made in vain with no success, leaving the board's rider continuing on his collision course towards the wall of the alleyway. Unable to prevent himself from his grisly fate, the skater raised his hands to his face, screaming as the wall came nearer.
Finally, the board crashed into the wall of the alleyway, resulting in a loud crash and sending the its passenger tumbling down the concrete ground.
[Soundtrack Cue End]
Black is all that Otto can see, his eyes closed to the outside world as he felt the pain of his tumble to the ground in attempt to survive the crash. The pain is a reminder that he has survived the ordeal and he still lived, giving him one victory to savor in the fight, but not one without its own losses.
As his consciousness began to return to him, Otto began to bring himself back on his feet again, wincing in pain at the fall he suffered. While not bleeding or facing any serious injury, his skin felt sore with a bruise on his side, leading him to cover it as he slowly walked over to the crash site.
Walking to the alleyway, he found the enemy skater also standing before him, walking with a limp of pain just as Otto himself was. His mask was also gone from his face, revealing his true identity. Having already taken a good guess at the skater's identity after his particular vocabulary choices, the revelation had not surprised Otto in the least.
Knowing all too well the face of a man he despised since childhood, Otto spoke out his name.
"Lars. I knew it." Otto asked.
"How so? You such a fuckin' narcissist that you think I'm just always around to fuck with you? Like I'm your fuckin' archenemy or something?" Lars asked.
"Nope. You're the only asshole who ever says 'whomp' or calls me 'Rocket Dork'. Might as well not wear that disguise if you're not even gonna try to hide yourself."
"Well, doesn't matter, 'cause you're gonna be dead in about three fuckin' seconds, anyway. I don't care if my new buddies get pissed or I get fired from this new job."
"And who the hell would be friends with you or hire you to blow Squid's store up?"
"No one you'll ever get to know, because I'm gonna kill your fuckin' punk-ass once and for all. Any last words, Rocket Dork?"
"Yeah, I got a you planning to do that with one arm?"
Confused by Otto's remark, Lars looked to his right arm, hoping to understand the meaning to his words. To his shock and horror, his arm was completely gone, being severed from his body somehow from the crash, with a blood-spurting stump in its place. Upon seeing himself missing his dominant limb, Lars screamed in shock and agony, falling to the ground.
"My arm! Oh, god, I'm missing my arm!" Lars shouted.
Lars fell down and screamed in pain at the sudden realization, feeling blood spray out from where his arm once was. Despite his show of unbearable pain and the loss of a limb, Otto took no pity on Lars, callously looking on his enemy as he laid defeated, continuing to scream.
"Well, sucks to be you, asshole. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna find a payphone and call the cops on you. I hope you like being a southpaw... and learning how to jack off all over again." Otto said.
Walking out of the alleyway, he looked around in hopes of finding a payphone, hoping to bring Lars to justice and ending his newfound career as a criminal. To his chagrin, the street showed no signs of any payphone in sight, leaving him without a way to contact the authorities.
"Shit. There's usually payphones all over the place in movies. Where the hell's one when you need one?" Otto thought aloud.
"There aren't any more fucking payphones, you dumbass! Everyone's got a smartphone, people don't use payphones anymore! Don't you have one?!" Lars shouted.
"No, I'm too broke to have one. Let me have yours, I'll give you a fair shot and get you an ambulance."
"I don't have one, either! I'm broke, too!"
"Damn it. Well, then, I guess you're fucked. I'm gonna go home and call the cops there, if you're still alive."
Before he could depart back home, however, the humming noise from before began to sound, with the other skaters making their way down the street towards their present location. Realizing the imminent threat coming his way, the task of contacting any law enforcement was put aside to maintain survival, once again activating Otto's instincts of fight-or-flight.
"Wrong, Rocket Dork. You're the one who's fucked. You're the one who's gonna die." Lars remarked.
Realizing that he was outnumbered and outgunned, Otto raced his thoughts as fast as he could to find a way out of the situation he was stuck in, scanning his surroundings for a way out. His mind led him to take notice of Lars' board, continuing to float on the ground after the crash, still appearing functional.
Running up to the board, Otto picked it up, finding a severe amount of damage done to its chassis with some electronics expose, making it obvious that the board was damaged from its impact. Common sense would be enough to tell anyone looking at it that the board was in no shape to be used...
...but Otto is out of options for his own survival, and has never been one for common sense.
Running back out of the alleyway with the skateboard, he threw it to the ground and began to skate away, racing down the street as quickly as fast as he could.
"Hey, come back, you asshole! That's my new board!" Lars called.
Leaving Lars behind to skate away, Otto began moving away from the pursuing skaters, pushing his foot against the ground to gain as much speed as possible to escape. However, as fast and as skilled as Otto was as a skater, he was nowhere near fast enough to get away from the two pursuing skaters, their skills and familiarity with their boards giving them more of an opportunity to catch up to him.
After several miles of pursuit down Ocean Shores, the tension of the chase growing and growing with every minute, with the pursuers closing in on their target. Looking to his board once again, Otto looked about its build and controls, trying to find a way to speed up.
"Shit. How did Lars make this thing go faster?" Otto thought aloud.
Frantically searching about the board with his foot, he hit a selector pad near his foot, activating a small holographic display with many options for the board shown. The technological display would be enough to make Otto give pause with surprise and impression, but the more immediate task took precedent, leading him to flip through the various options presented to him.
Flipping through the various options, Otto began desperately trying whatever methods he could do speed away.
"C'mon, where the hell is the 'fly' button on this thing? Isn't there at least a 'turbo'?" Otto thought aloud.
Upon thinking aloud, his wish was granted, albeit at a rate faster than he was hoping for. Accidentally selecting a an option that read 'Rocket Boost' on the board, the hoverboard began blasting away several miles away as it did once before, leaving Otto barely hanging onto the board.
"OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT-!" Otto screamed.
In an instant, Otto blasted away from the skaters, with no sign of his trajectory able to be estimated. With their target out of sight, the two skaters stopped their pursuit, punching their own fists and groaning out of frustration. Having one of their own to tend to, the skaters then circled back to Lars.
Miles away from where the scene first unfolded, Otto was spinning out of control on his rocketing hoverboard, not having any control of his speed. After a long period of racing down Ocean Shores, screaming all the way, Otto took notice of the beach coming ahead in his view, getting an idea to stop.
Upon reaching the beach, Otto adjusted his body weight to spin the board to the side, causing both him and the board to crash on the beach. Otto hit the ground hard, but the having a soft bed of sand underneath him was less of a blow than concrete.
After letting out a pained groan and getting back off the ground again, Otto finally rose to his feet, cracking his back to fix his posture correctly again.
"Ugh... That's gonna be sore tomorrow." Otto groaned.
With his consciousness beginning to return to him, Otto began to take a moment to process all that he had seen, barely able to comprehend the amazing experience that just occurred. Soon, the reality caught up to him, hitting him all at once in a damning wake-up call that called him to attention:
A new group of super-criminals occupied Ocean Shores, destroying at least one place of business and perhaps many more, and they accomplish their job by using hoverboards, a technology never seen to the world before, existing only in fantasy and science-fiction, and Lars Rodriguez, a man who has caused him much grief for many years, is a member of these criminals.
Now having survived the encounter, put his thoughts towards resolving this new issue, making his new mission to return home.
"Shit! I gotta get back to the house and tell Twister!" Otto said.
Once again retrieving the board from the ground, Otto quickly rushed back to his house, this time at a steadier pace that he could manage.
Far from Otto and his return home, the group of rogue skaters returned back to the alleyway crash site, finding Lars still laying on the ground, lamenting over his lost arm. Like Otto, they, too, are callous and not caring over his current situation, no matter how critical it may be, looking down on their fallen and annoying teammate with annoyance rather than empathy.
"You do realize the boss is not gonna be happy about this, right? I did say to you not to fight him. See where it got you?" One skater said.
"WHO THE FUCK FUCKING CARES?! MY FUCKING ARM IS FUCKING GONE! GET ME THE FUCK TO THE FUCKING HOSPITAL, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE MOTHERFUCKERS!" Lars shouted.
"Take you to a hospital after we robbed a store. Real smooth, stupid. Let's head back to the boss, he'll know what to do."
Grabbing Lars picking him off the ground, the skaters then departed back to their home base, with one carrying him along on his back. Still bleeding out of his arm-stump, blood began spurting onto the skater carrying him, spraying red vital fluids all over his unwitting savior.
"Aw! Fuck, man, you're bleeding all over me!" The skater complained.
"Sorry, bro. Is it a bad time to tell you I have hepatitis?" Lars asked.
Upon finally arriving back to his subpar excuse for a home, Otto set aside the board and immediately rushed to the door, opening it up and running inside. Carrying with him important news, he lets no obstacle stand in his way in the goal he set for himself, more than ready to share the ordeal that he had just went through.
"Twist! Twist! You gotta-" Otto began to say.
However, before Otto could share the fight between him and the high-tech skaters, he stopped in his tracks as one more obstacle laid in his path, this one being no fault of his own. Expecting only to find Twister, most likely at the computer attempting to generate more views on their videos, what he sees instead is a festival of insanity that nearly makes him lose all focus.
[Soundtrack Cue: Sublime - Smoke Two Joints]
Otto found not only his best friend of Twister when arriving back home, but behind a thick veil of marijuana smoke, two extra occupants of Sam Dullard and Tito Makani, all high beyond credible belief on Tito's cannabis, and none apparently able to carry out the most basic of cognitive functions, or having no desire to.
Sam, the newest smoker to the group, was chowing down on several bags of FunYums and several other junk food items, sitting on the floor in a move of lethargy. Twister, acting more hyper and focused while in his high, was writing down several nonsensical words, letters, and equations on a chalkboard, something Otto was unaware that they owned.
While writing his glossolalic text on the chalkboard, Twister and Sam began debating over their favorite issues of Danny Phantom, the most popular comic book on the market. However, as any comic fan will know from debates and discussions regarding their favorite subjects, neither could find any middle ground to their debate.
"Come on, dude, Mystery Meat was the first issue in the series. It was the best!" Twister said.
"No, I disagree, while Mystery Meat was a very good issue and a great start to the series, The Ultimate Enemy was the best storyline. It spanned two issues long, it featured a bleak, alternate timeline, and it featured the main character's alternate future self as his enemy. I seriously hope they bring the character back." Sam retorted.
Tito, conversely, was not taking part of the debate between the two fans, nor apparently aware of anything else going on. Instead, he was fast asleep on the couch,.sitting in front of TV as it played old B-movies and other subpar forms of entertainment, none able to catch his attention.
Otto, after overcoming the initial shock of seeing his friends completely intoxicated, questioned the meaning behind the insanity.
"Hey!" Otto shouted.
Interrupted from their conversation, Twister and Sam both turned to Otto, moving slowly as he caught what attention they had.
"What the hell is going on?!" Otto shouted.
Once again, the reaction from Twister and Sam is slow to come in their state, leaving Otto without an answer for a few seconds.
"We had a smoke session planned for tonight, Otto. We invited the Squid. Remember?" Twister asked.
"Oh... shit. I forgot about that. But what's Tito doing here?" Otto asked.
"He said he was here on a peace mission. He wanted to you to make things up with your dad, or something."
"I don't know about you, but I say Tito sure brought the peace." Sam said.
Sam's partially funny joke was enough to get large laughs from the two, the marijuana in their brains making the humor enhanced by the herb.
"Yeah, he sure did! I sure feel right at peace now!" Twister laughed.
"Me too! I sure gave peace a chance, and I fuckin' love it!" Sam laughed.
Unable to communicate the important news to his friends, Otto thought of an idea to shock the group out of their high. Departing the house and walking to its side, Otto grabbed the house's garden hose, turned the water valve open, waiting for the pressure to build and let a stream of water come out.
With their septic system still not fixed, a burst of sewage water bursted out, much to his disgust, soon followed by a stream of clean water in its place. Having spared his friends of the unpleasant taste of sewage that he subjected himself to earlier in the day, he returned to the front door, holding the hose in his hands.
"Don't got any pepper, but this should do the trick." Otto thought aloud.
Putting his finger over the opening to the hose, Otto focused the stream of the hose, spraying a huge blast of cold water all over the group. Hit with a sudden and unpleasant change in temperature in the cold night, the freezing cold water immediately sobered them up a good deal out of their high.
[Soundtrack Cue End]
Rudely awakened from their calm state of a high, the group all began groaning and coughing as the cold water rapidly woke them up, bringing their minds back to a resaonably sharp focus. Returning back to sobriety with displeasure, they all took their time to overcome the sudden change of mental state, with Twister and Sam falling to the floor in discomfort.
With his sobriety returning and what excuses for his concentration with it, Twister, after spitting the cold water out of his mouth, immediately got angry at Otto for his antics.
"God! What the hell is wrong with you, man?! First, you don't show for the kush, which, by the way, was the best I've ever had, thanks to Tito, then you end the best high I've ever had ever! What's so important you had to do all that?!" Twister shouted.
"Yeah, man, you just flooded your own house. What happened?" Sam asked.
As stated by Sam, the water managed to reach not only the group, but also the television as well. After the water began to settle into its electronic components, the TV started to spark and flash, subsequently exploding. With his source of entertainment during his high destroyed, even when not exactly used, Tito found himself in a state of despair.
"No! Surf Nazis Must Die just came on!" Tito lamented.
"Fuck! And you trash the TV?! This better be good, Otto!" Twister said.
Preparing himself for a long, ranting run-on sentence that would rival the vocal skills of Mike Muir, Otto let out a deep breath to explain the situation.
"Well, I was sitting in an alleyway after the dinner party didn't go well when all of a sudden, I heard this weird noise and went to check it out when, all of a sudden, I was outside Sam's store, and then the whole building was blown up by this group of skaters in high-tech suits and started to get away, so I grabbed on to one of their boards, and he dragged me all the way across Ocean Shores and flew me way high in the air, and we crashed into an alleyway when I saw that this robber in particular happened to be Lars, and he was talking about being part of this new job he got with them, and then I had to grab his board to run away from his buddies and then I crashed onto a beach on the other side of Ocean Shores, and had to run my ass off over here to tell you guys this because I think this could be something really big and all of us could be in danger." Otto ranted.
After hearing the long, nearly nonsensical rant that Otto let out, everyone sat in a moment of silence to process everything they heard, barely able to comprehend the incredible story, let alone believe it. Among the those who believed it the least is Twister, who only glared back at Otto with anger.
"What do you think I am, Otto, stupid?" Twister asked.
"Uh... is that a trick question?" Otto asked.
"Fuck you!"
"Well, c'mon now, cuz. If all that's true, how come you got no evidence to back that up?" Tito asked.
To provide the group with physical evidence, Otto stepped to the doorway, returning with the captured hoverboard and threw it to the ground. As the board hovered above the floor, defying gravity itself and suspended above the ground without any wheels, giving the group the evidence they desired.
And in return, they all looked at the board with jaws agape, none able to believe their eyes.
"There. That good enough for you?" Otto asked.