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warrior-of-waistbands · 14 days ago

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episodic - part 4

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Summary: Everyone doubles down.

A/N: alternative chapter summary: Melvin Has A Normal Day.

once again thank you art of book for listing all the faculty names and subjects.

on that note: Melvin's characterization. since this au is primarily based on movie continuity, in the end i decided to defer to its lead. which makes things difficult, as most of his inventions were all pretty lowkey (and the turbo toilet had been further augmented by a third party), and some future plots hinge on his more OP inventions. scene 2 is meant to bridge the character gap between all his incarnations, and also narratively sets some stuff up for this AU. i did say he's a core secondary,

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With the final bell rung, Benjamin made quick work of packing his suitcase. Considering how fast the kids ran out of the school, the halls should be quiet now. The last thing he needed was noise and talking. And so, he stepped out into a reception room filled with faculty.

Not just talking– yelling. At him.

He glanced over to Anthrope, who should have shooed them all away. Her now-empty seat was still swivelling.

“Of course,” he grumbled.

“Whadd'ya mean 'of course'?” Rected griped.

“We’re up to our eyelids in marking these brats’ worksheets!” Ribble waved a stack of papers at his face– all from the impromptu beach day, if he read the date right. “And you expect us to mark an entire grade’s worth of volcano projects?!”

“Clearly it's not just the students that need to apply themselves.”

The rest of the teachers froze.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” He narrowed his eyes, his tone still as clipped from the announcements. “Aren’t you the one always complaining about their marks?”

“Well, yes, but–”

“But nothing, you're the one who insisted on teaching three subjects.” He moved on to other teachers. “Meaner, you’re only doing the running tests– I don’t see why you’re complaining. The most you have to do is make sure they don’t trip over their own shoelaces.”

“The papers–”

“Because its so hard keeping track of when kids stop running.” He turned to Guided. “And you– all the tests are based on stuff your class should have covered by now.”

Guided grumbled something about how the topics were from the start of the semester, no one remembers that.

“Dayken–” Said teacher jolted up from the back. “What are you even doing here? You're a kindergarten teacher.”

“I wanted to feel included--”

“In any case, all I’m hearing–” He pointed an accusatory finger at all of them. “Is that all of you are mad that you need to actually do your job.”

“Excuse you?!” Ribble shot back. No other teachers spoke up.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to do before you barged in here.” He pointed at Rected and Ribble. “You have until the end of the week to make it work.”

He could feel something tighten in his chest flare as he saw the teachers back off. It wasn’t relief, but it was a near thing. At least he wasn’t on the back foot.

“Dismissed.” The tone broached no argument.

The impromptu staff meeting ended– not with a bang, but a whimper. More accurately, it was a grumble of swears that cannot be recounted in a fanwork made for general audiences. He watched all the teachers skulk out of the room with a leveled glare.

None of them dared to look back.

If we could have, we would have. Who else would agree?

He stood there until he was absolutely sure he couldn’t hear anyone nearby. After that, it was just a matter of going down the steps. Of making it through the hallway.

Ignoring how unmoored he felt. He looked to his feet– left, right, left, right. Repeat until he was at the door.

It wasn’t the first time anyone would have thought that about him. Heck, it wasn’t the first time the quiet part was said out loud. It was, however, the first time it was actually doable.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, Ben?”

“Guh–” He whirled around. “Edith!”

She blinked. He stared. The silence lingered a bit too long for his liking, though it was clear she wanted to say something.

“Do you need anything?” he managed.

“Are you alright?” When no answer came, she continued to trail off. “I mean, I– I saw everyone goin’ up to your office. And then there was the announcement earlier, so–”

“Of course I am.”

Another blink. “O– oh, uh, ok, then…”

“OK, then.”

Edith persisted. She trailed behind him closely as he came closer to the door. Most days he’d be a little endeared to it, but right now, right now–

“So, where are you going to set up this whole ‘science fair’? You, uh. Forgot to mention it.”

Of course he did. “The cafeteria. It has the space for it.”

He held a hand up to the door.

“I guess the floors have to be cleaned early…” she mumbled. “Uh, hey– wait!”

He had barely half-opened it.

“If you need anything, just ask, OK?” Then, in a lower voice, she added: “I don’t know why you’re actually doin’ this, but–”

His hand was gone as he whipped back to look at her. “Actually?” he snapped back.

“I– I know you, and you wouldn’t be doin’ this without a reason.”

“Know me?”

His rage was already so spent– from the boys, the teachers, the other guy, it can only persist for so long. It doesn’t billow out so much as burn him out from the inside. And when pushed that far, something had to give.

“It took you a month to realize I wasn’t being an idiot on purpose,” he said. “The real question is why didn't I do it sooner.”

Edith’s eyes widened and her shoulders shrank at the remark. Guilt curdled in him, but it was a distant thing. He wanted to leave. He wanted to reach out and take it back. His body chose the worst compromise between the two and made him stand there like an idiot.

“OK then.” She looked away. “Um, I guess I’ll prep the cafeteria for it then.”

“OK then,” was all Benjamin could manage before she left to do just that. Which was fine. That’s what he wanted, right? He needed to get going too.

Left, right, left, right. Car. Drive. He forced himself to focus on the road completely. To hold onto the wheel like a lifeline. And it worked. At least until he hit the first red light– and then the thoughts crept in.

He should have said something different. He should have said it differently. What kind of answer was I should have done it sooner, anyway?

His knuckles turned bone-white at his grip.

Still, he felt unmoored– like a sharp turn would make him leap out of his own body, and– If we could have, we would have, George’s voice rattled in his head. They had the motive, and they had shown time and time again they had the means.

And yet here he still was: sweating in sixty-degree weather.

He wasn’t sure what that meant, but it was yet another thing to mull over and hang over the other guy.

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For the next two days, the elementary school was a minefield for George and Harold. Which was why they found themselves stumbling around a corner and quickly entering the nearest empty classroom. The small mob ran past the corner none the wiser.

Harold gave a forlorn look to the stack of comics in his arms. “I don’t know how much of the sales can take this.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” George placed a hand to the other boy’s shoulder. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”

A pause. The other boy gave a cautious look around, now that they had a moment to breathe.

“Well, maybe put that on hold for five minutes, what the heck is up with this classroom?”

The classroom looked normal for the most part– if you ignored the absurd number of desks. There had to be triple the amount– several stacked up on each other like a fortress or maze walls. One precarious tower looked further away than it should be possible in a room this size, but it could easily be tiny desks.

“What the…”

“You two!” a voice cried.

“Ah!” Harold yelled.

“Ah!” George yelled with a little jump.

‘Ah,’ Melvin did not yell. Instead, he said: “I’m surprised you two aren’t out for recess.”

They were still standing by the door so there was no chance of him sneaking past them, and his shock of ginger hair would have stood out if he had decided to stay in.

“Yeah, well, I’m surprised you, uh… you…” George said, letting the statement hang. “-- That you’re not working on something for that pop science fair.”

Melvin didn't react. He didn’t know whether it was better or worse– especially after Krupp made that dreaded announcement.

“What is it this time?” he continued, gesturing to the desks. “Something that increases the amount of class per classroom?"

"A scale model of the school’s pop science fair-- with additional statistics?” Harold added.

“Something to make people remember why they went into a room!” George added with a laugh, before snapping to a more contemplative look. “No wait, that’d actually be… not half-bad.”

“Hm. I’ll make a note of those,” Melvin said as he continued to stand there and not do that. The conversation lulled into silence a beat longer than comfortable. Before they could speak up, he added: “And for your information, I am working on it. Hold on.”

The both of them gave another cautious once-over to the room. The room– outside of the weird amount of desks– looked normal. It looked free of any invention, save for the muffled rattling noise. George had even peeked behind the teacher’s desk on the off chance it was hidden.

“What do you mean hold on? There isn’t anything here.”

Melvin didn’t answer.

Instead, the walls and some of the surrounding fixtures started shimmering different colors before settling on the color of error bars you see on TV.

Harold jumped away from a nearby desk he was leaning on as he felt it shift and become less sturdy, wobbling like heat hazes. As they lifted up to the ceiling, the whir had become a fraction louder.

“What’s going on?” he turned around. “Melv– ah!”

George let out a yell, seeing Melvin’s shape shimmer until he was a mass of red and greens. He ran to him, and his first instinct was to try and grab where his shoulder was. All his fingers met was air. Then thin strands as his hand sailed past where his shoulders would be and into the now-clump of what was the tattletale.

“Melvin!”

The strands rose up and darted away like all the other ones until they were standing in a regular classroom with its usual amount of desks and a third smaller than it looked before.

“He was too young!” George said.

“It should have been me!” Harold threw himself to the ground, bashed a fist against it, and stopped. He thought for a moment before continuing in the same dramatic cadence: “OK, I take it back, that’s a bit too much, but you get it!”

“Are you two done yet?”

“I swear I can still hear his voice, even now–” the boy whipped his head around so fast his tie went askew. “Melvin!”

He got out of his overdramatic kowtow. “What the heck?!”

“Like I said, I’m working on the Warp-Weft-O-Tron 2000,” he said like it would explain everything. “Stress-testing it, to be more accurate.”

“The wh–” Before George could finish his sentence, the other boy stood up and pointed at the whirring thing behind Melvin.

In the corner of the classroom, around some tools and papers was something that took the space of two desks. Upon closer inspection, it looked like a sewing machine grafted beside a blocky computer . The needle continued its work and its now-unobscured rattling.

They all followed the threads converged to the machine, now completely colorless. They could just barely see the shiny thread zip through it and up the machine until even that thread dissipated. And once it did, the needle made its final whirring before powering down.

The adrenaline of seeing a kid disintegrate, like the strings a few seconds ago, dissipated to incredulity.

“What kind of science is that thing for–” Harold pointed an accusatory finger at the machine. “Freak-People-Out-ology?!”

“It's built on the principles of techno-textiles and a bit of virtual simulation.” Melvin clicked his pen a few times before pointing it at them. “How about you two?”

“Huh?”

That was apparently the wrong answer as he put a finger to his temple. “I’m merely curious what you’re working on, seeing as Krupp’s announcement said you two suggested the pop science fair.”

And you believe him? George wanted to say, before answering his own question– of course he’d believe that.

Or at the very least, he wouldn’t cast further doubt. Doubting Krupp would mean doubting The Man. Plus, grades were on the line, and that was top priority to the tattletale than trying to think through whether they would ever suggest that.

It had only occurred now to George that that was the reason why Melvin wasn’t automatically on the defensive.

“We’re, uh– keeping it under wraps,” Harold said, realizing the other boy was taking too long to reply.

“Of course.” Melvin nodded in understanding as he made his way to the Warp-Weft-O-Tron and pulled out a spool the size of a lava lamp sitting on top of the sewing machine half. Its threads were soot grey and frayed. He placed it to the side and put an empty spool in its place, but not without grumbling about the material being insufficient.

“I will admit, the sudden nature of this assessment adds a wrench to everything, but– nothing like the stress of an unforeseen deadline to get everything in gear.”

Harold stared at the machine, and then to the boy still engrossed in fixing… whatever. In gear was an understatement if he made a simulation machine on a time crunch.

“You were really holding out on us all these years,” George said, eyeing the computer.

Rows of code scrolled up its screen. Most of it was gibberish, but there were parts he could understand. A record of previous commands and whether it was typed out or recorded through audio. S., MELVIN x1, DESK x15, and more distressingly, a MATERIAL PROCESS WARNING, whatever that was.

“How’d a sock sorter beat this out when you were picking out stuff for the Invention Convention?”

He poked around a nearby toolbox– which was more of a folder of assorted squares of materials. Many of them looked like normal threads, but a good chunk of them weren’t, from how the light bounced off them.

“Firstly: it's a sock matcher. Secondly: Krupp only accepts the ‘practical’ ones–” He pulled out a square of the latter and placed it in an adjacent slot. Something between contemplation and annoyance edged into his tone. “The Turbo Toilet was pushing it. But, the pop science fair has no such restrictions!”

“...It doesn’t?”

A thread the same color as the square spat out of some unseen cavity and began wrapping itself around the spool.

“I asked Ms. Ribble about the specificities for this assignment, and she said, and I quote: ‘sure, do what you need to do’.”

George and Harold both sucked a breath through their teeth. Unlike the tattletale, they knew that wasn’t full permission, so much as the classic grown-up tactic of dismissing a kid by giving them a vague answer to sate them.

“Guess not even tattling can get you all the perks you want,” Harold said carefully.

Melvin stopped typing on the computer part of the machine for a moment. With him faced away, they weren’t sure what expression was on his face, but they could feel a shift. Nothing as drastic as what happened in the principal’s office, but it was there.

“You should go.” It wasn’t a suggestion. “I need to troubleshoot.”

Harold looked to the clock. Recess was almost over, which meant their opportunities to prepare were dwindling.

“Right,” George said.

And they slipped back into an empty hallway. They looked back, and through the window-sliver on the door, they could see the threads shoot up and around the room. The classroom became a black void, though it slowly made its way along the color spectrum.

“What do you think?” Harold asked.

“That our playground street cred is in the gutter at this rate,” George replied.

He gave him a light punch on the arm. Despite everything they couldn’t help but laugh, the sound echoing through the hall.

“We could use it in the Captain Plan,” Harold replied. “It might be a little difficult to, ah–”

“Turbo Toilet it?” George finished, thinking back to the Invention Convention. He watched as Melvin tried to recalibrate it. “It’s a pretty big wildcard.”

As if on cue, after a few basic prisms popped into existence in the classroom, a rough approximation of a cat did. That, apparently, was too much as the simulation spooled itself back up like before.

“But I think we do need a wildcard. It'd drive Krupp up the wall.”

Harold winced. “Well, I mean it can’t make anything worse.”

The both of them walked off to the abandoned art room. Harold shuffled his backpack to the front of him as he counted up the supplies he pilfered. To name a few: flour and water to make glue on the fly. Baking soda and vinegar, because those were Classics. Toilet paper– ‘nuff said.

He stared at a box labelled Office Supplies. In it were huge packs of sticky notes, for irony.

As wrong as Melvin was about whose idea the pop science fair was, he was right, frustratingly, about one thing: nothing like the stress of a deadline to get everything in gear.

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The Captain Plan was one of their simpler plans, in theory.

It was simple in the sense that it was meant to only target Krupp. The hard part, for obvious reasons, was that Captain Underpants was integral to said plan.

It amounted to swapping them out at strategic places they set up. Things he can’t stand. Things that he’d be afraid of. Long enough for the experience to stick. Then they’d swap him back to Captain and slowly amp it up. Rinse and repeat.

They’d keep doing this until he took everything back– the whole assignment gauntlet, the whole thing with the science fair–

The whole capital T Thing with Captain.

And if he refused, well– there wasn’t anything else for it except to rinse and repeat until he did. They’ve got almost half a decades’ worth of grievances to pull back up.

(“Krupp won’t– can’t expel us for this,” George said the night before, his form backlit by a jumbo flashlight. “I mean, he’ll need us to ‘deal’ with Captain.”

The Treehouse’s windows were boarded up to get ready for the colder weather. They should be prepping it for winter, putting stuff away so it won’t get messed up, since they insisted they didn’t need George’s parents’ help, but here they were–

“I mean, he could hold us back now.”

“But would he really want to keep us there if we keep doing this?”

Harold shivered. “Point taken.”)

The walkie-talkie in Harold’s pocket made a noise.

“Yyyello’.”

“How’s it going?”

Right now, the ‘it’ in question was scoping out the cafeteria. The tables were all neatly arranged in rows and ready for whatever project the fourth graders will put on them later. There was no one here save for Edith, who was deep in the kitchen.

“Melvin’s stuff is here.”

He made his way over to the Warp-Weft-shaped tarp. After double checking for any Tattle-Turtles, he was disappointed to find no obvious screws to loosen at the access hatch.

Harold began pulling at the spool on top, unsure of how exactly to mess it up outside of tying the thread in knots. One end of the thread snaked its way to the needle, while the other end–

The other end came out of a small hole, which in turn was connected to the strange hatch Melvin put in that material square that one time. He pulled out a pair of undies, courtesy of Captain himself, and stuffed it into the slot.

The sewing machine whirred, clearly having difficulty with processing a non-square material. The thread didn’t move to spool itself, but it must have processed it by the way the underpants were disappearing in the slot.

As for the computer: it reminded him more of the school printer. There were menus upon menus of settings. In any case, Harold set out to randomly poking at them all. Some he understood– audio commands on, because that may be useful for their plan since it would be easier than trying to get close to type anything out. Everything else?

“...What the heck is a Young’s Module?” Harold asked, less out of curiosity and more to commentate for George’s benefit. “What do you think? Max or minimum?”

“I mean, Krupp’s pretty old…” his voice crackled through the walkie talkie.

“High it is!” And with that, he quickly swiped it as far to the right as he could before quickly closing everything out to the first screen. “OK, I’ll get back to y–”

“Ben!” Edith’s voice called out from across the cafeteria.

Harold ducked under the tarp before either of them could see him.

“We got a situation. Krupp’s here,” he whispered loudly.

“What? Why?!”

Harold hazarded to peek at the small gap between the tarp and the floor. He had been expecting like-liking goo-goo talk. If he had to be honest, he would have preferred that to whatever angry inspector routine Krupp was doing.

“Checking, I think.”

He tilted his head at the principal running a finger over a table for dust. The action was clearly more for acting out… whatever this was, than any actual concern for cleanliness. The lunch lady continued to trail behind him, trying– and failing– to start a conversation.

There was a quick inhaling noise through the speakers. “OK, give me a minute. Move when I give the signal.”

Harold didn’t reply, mostly because they were close enough that he could hear them. Even from this distance, he could see how heavy the bags under his eyes were. How his posture was more hunched than usual.

Krupp sighed deeply, and his shoulders sagged even further. “I’ve been through worse. Trust me.” It almost sounded like a plea.

The lunch lady had no time to dwell on a response as the intercom screeched to life.

“Principal Krupp, please report to your office immediately,” George’s voice crackled through the intercom with a mock-smug air.

“Oh, for–” Said principal ran past her brusquely that the pin that was keeping her bangs up over her face had jostled to cover half her eye.

The signal!

“Good talk!” she called after him belatedly, but made no move to go after him. Then with a big sigh, she mumbled, “I’m blowin’ this.”

And with that, she made her way back to the kitchen and finally gave Harold an opening to get out of there. He made a mad dash to the doors, making sure to not slam it as he trailed him. Now that he was in the hallway, the faint sound of crackling and shuffling echoed throughout.

“Hey, how far is he from the office?” George asked, his voice crackling from both walkie talkie and still-active intercom.

“He’s making his way up as we speak.”

“Cool.”

Krupp was up the first half of the stairs when he turned around. He was breathing heavily, and it was definitely not just because he was speed-walking up the stairs.

“You two have got a lot of nerve disrupting everything–”

“You’re one to talk,” Harold replied, thinking about the pop science fair coming up in a few hours. To all their years in school. To the capital T Thing with Captain.

The principal halfway down a step to approaching him until–

SNAP. The sound reverberated through the school intercoms. For a split second he saw something cross his face. Wide eyes. Furrowed brows.

And then Captain Underpants fell on said face.

He snapped back up, the toupee sitting lopsided on his head. “Sidekick! Where’s–”

Harold held up the walkie talkie.

“Up here,” George replied.

He gave an unsure look as he tried to find where up was in relation to a walkie talkie.

“In the office,” Harold clarified. He walked past him and up the stairs, motioning him to follow.

Captain stood up, wiping the grit from his cheek. It might be because he took a heck of a tumble, but there wasn’t the typical shock of liveliness he expected when he swapped in. All things considered, he was… well, maybe not calm, but expectant.

George was standing at the receptionist half of the office, one of the curtains tucked under his arm.

“You ready?” Then, in a stage whisper to Harold: “Anthrope’s gone off because of… ‘printer repairs’.”

Harold stared at the empty corner of the room. There was a smattering of printer ink at the walls, outlining the office printer that was not there anymore. They couldn’t help but snicker conspiratorially.

“Er,” Captain leaned over to look at what had got their attention. “What’s the plan to Free The Children now, sidekicks?”

“We’re putting Krupp through his own personal gauntlet.”

“I don’t think it’ll take long for him to crack.” Harold gave him a reassuring pat on the arm. “We’ll make sure of it. Everything’ll be back to the way it was faster than–”

“A speeding waistband?” the superhero offered. He was definitely hiding it as he shimmied out of the principal’s clothes and put on his cape, but that same look was back on his face.

“Exactly.”

“Where do we start?” He approached the ink stains on the wall, as if expecting the answer to pop out of the mess.

“Uh, Captain?” George pulled his attention back to the door of the principal’s office. He opened it with an overdramatic flourish. “Just step into our office for this first bit.”

Harold let out a low whistle at the sight. Every surface of the room was covered in sticky notes, leaving the room in an unsightly pale yellow that made the room look flat. Between the writing and the shadows, it did little to help figure out where everything was as Captain nearly tripped on a chair.

“What do you think of our Prankovation 2– trademark?”

Captain took to floating, mindful not to touch anything. He looked confused– he probably didn’t get things like irony yet. “…How long did this even take you?”

“Prankster’s trade secret.”

“This looks done, though,” he hedged. “I’m not sure how I’m supposed to help you here– especially with this–”

He gestured to his wrists, now tied together by jump rope courtesy of Harold. The boy went over to the sticky notes-engulfed water cooler and poured out a thimble’s amount into an open hand.

“For this one, we need to swap you back over to Krupp,” George explained. Seeing the superhero's disappointed look, he quickly continued: “This part's quick-- we're going to bring you back right after for the next bit.”

“O– OK, then sidekicks. I trust you.” Captain twisted around so his face was in patting distance. This close, he could see the expression for what it was– hesitation.

And Captain was gone, leaving Krupp to fall on the floor, a flutter of pale yellow in his wake.

#mmmmmm when the unfair treatment of cap is unfair ☺️ /pos #sticky notes

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