Numbah 1 stood in front of the door that led into Numbah 86's office, he reached up and knocked on the door to no reply. He didn't even know she had an office until today.
Ever since the day where Numbah 1 encountered them in the hospital, Numbah 86 and 85 had been avoiding him like the plauge. He knew they were avoiding him too, because whenever he saw one of them on the Moonbase, the second they noticed his presence, they immediately turned and disappeared down a hallway or into a crowd. They always had this look on their face when they saw him, this startled, wide eyed, frightened look.
Today, out of the blue, she'd called him over to deliver something for her. What it was, she hadn't said. Numbah 1 reached up and knocked on the door again, there was the sound of footsteps inside before Numbah 86 opened the door. "There you are, get in here already!" She said in her usual bossy manner, Numbah 1 just nodded and stepped into the office. Numbah 86 closed the door behind him and locked it, she walked past Numbah 1 warily and sat down in her chair on the other side of the desk.
"You said that you wanted me to deliver something for you, right?" Numbah 1 asked. "Yeah, I need you-" Numbah 86 paused to reach down underneath her desk, grunting in effort as she re-emerged with a large package in a bag that she put on the desk with a loud thud. "-to deliver this to Numbah 85. He's out sick today which is why he ain't here." She continued. "Oh, okay." Numbah 1 said, thinking that it'd be easy enough to deliver as the package wasn't too big.
"Yeah, the baggie is pretty strong and will make it easier to carry the thing around. Once you get there, just give the package to Numbah 85. He'll know what to do with it." Numbah 86 said as she leaned back in her chair, away from Numbah 1, trying to appear causal but her body language made her unease not-so concealable. Her eye's constantly darting from the door to the bald boy, never really able to look him in the eyes, wasn't lost on Numbah 1 but he spoke nothing of it.
"Just be careful, my mom's out of town but my dad will be home." She said calmly. At the mention of her dad, her eyes quickly glanced around the door to insure that no one was watching them. "Got it." Numbah 1 quickly stated. Being in a house with Mr. Boss without back-up (and especially after the rumors he'd heard floating around at school) was not something he was looking forward too. But it was Numbah 85's sake, and maybe the rumors were just rumors? Numbah 86 stood up quickly, it was now or never to ask. "Fanny, wait." Numbah 1 said as Numbah 86 hurried past him and unlocked the door, her hand on the doorknob. She turned to half-heartedly glare at him, equal parts suprised and nervous that he used her real name.
"I need to know, why have you and Numbah 85 been avoiding me? What did I do?" He asked. The redheaded girl paused, her hand gripping the doorknob tightly. "Have you heard the rumors about Mr. Boss?" She asked after a long moment. "Yeah, I've heard. It's going around that I attacked him or something..." Numbah 1 replied, his voice trailing off in uncertainty. "They aren't rumors. You did attack him." Numbah 86 stated, her voice starting to quiver.
Numbah 1 felt his guts doing acrobatics in his stomach. His throat went dry and heart started pounding, his hands going cold and clammy.
No.
First, it was Sector V.
No, no no no no.
Then, he'd attacked Wink and Fibb.
And now, Mr. Boss?! How many?! How many other people had he hurt without knowing? What else didn't he remember?
"I hurt him?" Numbah 1 asked shakily, not wanting to know but simultaneously too curious to not ask. "You broke his arm. That's why he was in the hospital." Numbah 86 revealed. Her back was turned to him but her voice and body was shaking. "Me and Paddy don't hate you, but...it's still unnerving to be around you, knowing what you did. I just need some time to myself. I hope you understand." Numbah 1 let out a drawn-out, shuddering breath, it was good to hear that they didn't hate him. If someone attacked his dad then who's to say he wouldn't react the same way she did? But still, the confirmation of Mr. Boss's injury was another smear on his already guilty conscience.
"No, it's okay. I get it." Numbah 1 replied quietly, he picked up the bag from off the desk. "Thanks for letting me know. I'll be going now." He added over his shoulder as he left. Once he was gone, Numbah 86 sighed and sunk back into her chair. "I hope Daddy will be good to him. Even though boys are pretty annoying, Numbah 1 has gone through so much. He needs a break." She thought.
Point of entry was only the first of Numbah 1's obstacles.
He'd first tried to sneak through the back garden, but that plan hit a road block when he spotted Mr. Boss in a causal outfit, sitting in a lawn chair on the back porch, smoking a cigar. He did indeed have a cast on his right arm, the cast made it a little difficult to smoke but Mr. Boss found a way around this by clenching his cigar in-between his teeth while using his good hand to grab his lighter. Numbah 1 decided that he'd just have to be as sneaky as possible and hope that the business man wasn't in the mood to start a fight.
He crawled on his hands and knees through the bushes, lugging the heavy package behind him on his back. He was halfway there when he heard a chittering behind him and felt tiny hands pawing at his back. He turned to see a raccoon trying to pry the package off his back. "Hey! No! Shoo! Shoo!" Numbah 1 hissed as he swatted at the raccoon with his free hand, but the animal was persistent. Numbah 1 started to thrash around in a desperate attempt to get rid of the creature, but the raccoon started tugging at the package to pull it out of the bag. "No, no! Bad raccoon! BaAAAH!" Numbah 1 aburptly shrieked in suprise as he ended up tumbling out of the bushes and into the backyard, now in clear view of Mr. Boss as the raccoon scurried off.
"What?" Mr. Boss asked, taking a few seconds to process who had just rolled into his backyard. His face dropped in suprise for a spilt second before he frowned in thinly veiled displeasure. "Oh. It's you." He said in a bitter tone. Numbah 1 jolted himself up to his feet, picking leaves and twigs off his clothes as Mr. Boss stepped off the back porch and started walking towards Numbah 1. "You've got a lot of nerve showing up to my house uninvited, kid. Just what do your think you're doing here anyway?" Mr. Boss ordered, his footsteps may as well have been thunderclaps to the boy. Dispite his operative instincts screaming at him to book it, Numbah 1 stood his ground.
"I'm here to deliver a package to Numbah 85." Numbah 1 said quickly, stumbling over his words a couple times in his haste to make his intentions known before Mr. Boss acted on his rising anger. The businessman raised an eyebrow in intrigue and stopped walking forward. "Really?" The boy could see Mr. Boss relax a little, then he turned and walked back over towards the back porch, put his cigar out in the nearby ashtray, then opened the back door and stepped into the house. "In that case, get in here already." He said. Numbah 1 hurried in after him, following the villian up the stairs to Numbah 85's room in awkward silence. Once they reached his room, Mr. Boss gently knocked on the door about four times. "Paddy? A friend's here to see you."
"Come in..." Numbah 85 replied softly, his voice was scratchy and thin, expected from someone who was sick. Mr. Boss opened the door and entered first, Numbah 1 entering behind him as Numbah 85 flicked on his bedside lamp. "Uh, your sister wanted me to deliver this to you. Said that you'd just know what to do with it." Numbah 1 explained as he handed Numbah 85 the package. The ginger boy took the package out of the bag and tore a small hole in the packaging so he could see inside. "Alright! This is just what I asked for, thanks Numbah 1." Numbah 85 said excitedly.
With the package delivered, Numbah 1 was eager to get out of that house. He made his way down the stairs with haste, making a beeline for the door with his pace being quickened by Mr. Boss's heavy footsteps following him down the stairs.
"Hold it right there! You ain't squirming out of this so easily." Mr. Boss ordered, Numbah 1 flinched at the sudden loudness of his voice. He reluctantly pryed his hand off the doorknob and turned around to face him, Mr. Boss sat down in his armchair with his arms crossed. Numbah 1 knew all too well that his armchair was booby-trapped, one press of a secret button located on the arms of the chair would let loose dozens of rockets that could blow Numbah 1 to smithereens in a second.
"Sir down." Mr. Boss ordered again as he gestured towards the couch in the living room. "And quit being so damn skittish, will ya? If i really wanted to do away with you, you wouldn't have made it inside my house." He added as Numbah 1 moved gingerly over to the couch and sat down, sounding rather annoyed by the whole ordeal.
"Alright, what do you want?" Numbah 1 asked.
"I want answers about your involvement the Galactic Invasion." Mr. Boss replied bluntly.
"What's there to say that's already been said? Besides, it's strictly against K.N.D protocol to give out classified infor-"
Mr. Boss sighed and facepalmed with his good arm. "I must not've made myself clear enough." He interrupted, definitely annoyed now. "I want to know about the visor that the G.K.N.D strapped to your face. I want to confirm the rumors I've been hearing on our side about mind control. And I want you to confirm just how much you remember that night." Mr. Boss continued, pulling out a pencil and notepad.
Numbah 1 rubbed the back of his neck in discomfort, his eyes fixating on the door desperately before he tore his gaze away. "Do I...have a choice to tell you?" He asked.
Mr. Boss thought for a moment. "Well, it's either you tell me right here and now, or I'll call Count Spankulot and Cat Lady and they can track you down and drag you back here. So...no, I suppose not." He said finally.
Numbah 1 sighed, relenting as it didn't matter anyway. Mr. Boss was never the type to be stifled of information, if anything it only made him more determined, he'd fought him long enough to know that. "Fine. I'll talk." Numbah 1 agreed.
Mr. Boss smirked in satisfaction. "Good. For starters, tell me everything you know about the visor and how it works." Numbah 1 shrugged. "Surprisingly little, the only things I know about the visor is that's it's some kind of mind control device. It also blocks out your memories of what you did while under the influence of the visor, the closest thing I can think of that's similar is sleepwalking." Numbah 1 explained, Mr. Boss nodded and scribbled some stuff down on the notepad.
Numbah 1 thought of Lizzie or Numbah Vine, she'd told him initially about the visor and it's capabilities after he'd woken up from the mind control for the first time. He. hadn't heard from or seen her since, he hoped that she was okay, wherever she was.
"Okay...okay...good to know. You were mind controlled after all." Mr. Boss muttered as he finished writing stuff down, it was hard to miss the both offended and frightened look on Numbah 1's face so Mr. Boss followed it up with: "The reason I say that is because the other villians are spilt down the middle about believing whether you were actually mind controlled or not. Some of us believe it, other's don't."
"Do you believe me? I'm not lying, I have no reason to lie." Numbah 1 said quickly, eager to defend himself. "I'll decide at the end." Mr. Boss quickly shut down his turning frantic defense while still somehow remaining neutral toned.
"Okay, second question: How much do you remember from the night you attacked me?" Numbah 1 didn't speak, he closed his eyes shut and thought hard. He tried to bring up anything, any shred of a memory from the depths of his mind but nothing came up. "Nothing." He replied after a long few seconds of slience. "Really? Wow." Mr. Boss commented, from his voice it was clear to see that he was genuinely taken aback.
"How much do you remember in general after the visor came on?" The evil adult pressed on, letting his curiosity shimmer through. "Not much. The memories left are few and far between and even those are hazy little snippets of things. The only clear memories i have, one of them is classified information and the other one is...have you heard about what happened to Chad?" He asked hesitantly.
At the mention of Chad, Numbah 1 could feel it. It the same dark, self hatred that had been haunting him ever since he regained control of his mind. Despite his best efforts to ignore it, that loathing had only gotten stronger as time went on and more guit accumulated. He could feel it now, he could feel it creeping over him like a thick, heavy blanket, binding him tight in self doubt and hoping to smother him in guilt.
"Yeah, who hasn't at this point? Every villian and their grandma knows that you beat him up, apparently unwillingly. You dragged him back to the G.K.N.D Mothership where you were ordered to and did beat the crap out of him. Cree and Maurice showed up, Cree kicked you down and you finished off the visor yourself, that's all I know." Mr. Boss revealed. It felt invasive that it was already common knowledge about what happened to Chad, but he should've known since it was common knowledge on the K.N.D side as well. Still, it made him feel exposed and even dirty that people knew about him hurting Chad.
"I never wanted to hurt him." Numbah 1 muttered, barley being able to keep it from being a whimper. He swallowed down his emotions and kept going. "Yeah, anyway, my only clear memories are the one that's classified information to you and the memory that started about halfway through the incident with Chad." Numbah 1 continued on, Mr. Boss wrote some more things down on the notepad before he stood up with Numbah 1 doing the same.
"Alright, I'll tell all this to the others." Mr. Boss said as he looked over the contents of the notepad before slipping it into his pants pocket. "The others? Other villians, you mean?" Numbah 1 asked warily. "Yeah, you can't expect me to remember all that, can you? To be honest, I don't care about one side or the other. I just want to clear everything up so we can all go back to normal." He said with a shrug.
"Yes, um...I'll just be going now." Numbah 1 said awkwardly, before heading for the door. Finally, he could leave this house, he could get away from thses nagging feelings of self loathing that were bubbling back up.
"Hey. I can't forgive you just yet, but I believe that you were forced to do it. Also, I'd avoid Destructo Mom and Dad if I were you, they're pretty pissed off at ya right now."
Numbah 1 was about to step off the front steps when Mr. Boss's voice stopped him. "You believe me?" He asked as he turned around to look at him. "Yes, I do." Mr. Boss said, simply and bluntly. "Thank you." Numbah 1 said, feeling just a little of bit that darkness slip away.
"Hey, shut my damn door! I ain't heating the neighborhood!" Mr. Boss called out as Numbah 1 turned to leave, making him jolt. He quickly shut the front door and then scampered away from the house to report back to the Moonbase and inform Numbah 86 of the successful delivery.