Rain starts to pour down from the now dark sky as the five villains seek shelter in an abandoned house in the forest, there weren't any chairs so they had to sit on the wooden porch for the meantime “We can't stay here for long. They're surely searching for us.” The Pharaoh says before turning to the Explorer “What were you thinking?! You're lucky we saw what blasphemy they were putting on the news and rushed in quick to save you!” the leader scolded.
The Napoleon agreed “Yeah, if we weren't working together we would've left you there to rot.” the other two nod and look at the Explorer with a scowl. The explorer takes off his cowboy hat, revealing neat and tidy hair underneath. He rests the hat next to him “I'm sorry, I just--”
“Sorry isn't going to cut it! We're all doing this for two reasons, for money and control over the city. I don't want you screwing up again next time, you hear?!” the explorer reluctantly nods his head.
“Boss, we should go now.” Scarface–the one who was wearing mafia typed clothes– said.The Pharaoh heaved a sigh “Yes, we should go now.”
––––
Jedediah locks the door quietly, trying not to wake any of his brothers up. He tries his best not to produce any loud footsteps but it seems his older brother was aware of his arrival.
“And where were you, Jj?” Jedediah turns his head to the small dining table to see Austin– Jedediah's older brother– standing there.
Jed tries to hide his face by just gazing downwards the ground, but Austin walks closer to him “Jed, i know where Augustus hit you so you don't need to hide it from me.”
Austin reaches his hands to inspect Jedediah's face but he hesitates “It's alright Augie” Austin continues to reach for Jedediah's face.
“Didn't I tell you to stop doing this? You don't need to keep this up Jj.” his older brother said in an attempt to comfort his younger brother, but Jedediah only furrows his eyebrows “There you are again, when you don't like something I say you furrow your brows and put a big ass frown on your face.”
“I need to do this Tintin, you can't support us all by yourself!” the blonde said exclaiming, Austin just shakes his head “No Jed, I'm perfectly capable of making money for the four of us.” Jedediah stays silent, as Austin leads him to the dining table and sits him down on a chair.
“... How's Ira?” the blonde asked in an unhappy tone. Austin doesn't say anything for a moment, reaching for the medical kit, before muttering out “... He was a bit scared earlier.” Jedediah furrows his brows even more.
Earlier at the bank, the child who cheered for Augustus was Ira Smith, the youngest Smith brother. “I didn't knew he'd be there...”
“Me either, and I sure as hell didn't knew you'd be robbing a bank again after my last scolding.” Austin poured some hot water into a bowl and soaked a cloth in it for a while before trying his best to grab it and dry it off but due to the hot water, it'll be a difficult task for him to do.
“I sure can't stop you from becoming the Explorer again, but please, we don't need you to do any ill will to the city just for money.” Austin stated, after successfully grabbing the wet cloth and drying it.
“I still wanna bring bread to the table Aussie. And to pay for both Peter and Ira's tuition.” Austin just makes a “tsk” sound before rubbing the wet cloth on the bruised cheek.
“I said it already and I'll say it a million times just to get it through your head. I can support the family even if it's just myself working.”
Jedediah stayed silent once more, letting his older brother nurse his bruises.
––––
Octavius walks home, a distraught feeling gnawing him inside. He shouldn't have looked so gullible in that interrogation room, now the Explorer might think he's easy to fool.
“Stupid idiot Octavius, doing stupid idiot things once again.” he grumbles to himself as he takes out his keys and unlocks his door.
When he switches the light on, he sees Henry on the desk, about to knock down a vase “Oh no you don't mister!” Octavius runs as fast as he can before Henry intentionally pushes the beautiful vase.
The vase breaks and the shattered pieces lay out on the floor “Of all the powers Jupiter could've given me, why couldn't one of them be time manipulation or super speed?” he sighs as he picks up big fat Henry from the desk and takes him to his bedroom.
“Now you're going to stay here until I finish cleaning up that mess.” Octavius leaves the room and takes a broom and a dustpan to gather all the broken pieces.
“I just hope something good happens today.” he grumbles to himself once more, sweeping the broken vase pieces into the dustpan.
While cleaning, he sees a piece of paper on the ground and picks it up.
It's a news paper about the Explorer. Was the universe teasing him about how the villain escaped from his clutches?
He inspects the paper and the date says July 28 2021, this paper was from a year ago. He keeps looking at the paper, unable to get his eyes off of it.
The headline reads "New Villain appears, makes a successful escape from Augustus after robbing a man blind" Octavius clutches the paper and after a few moments, he sets it down the table.
That paper was from when the Explorer and Augustus first met. That time when Augustus lets his nemesis go after cornering him in an alleyway.
Octavius shakes his head, clearing his thoughts from all this negativity. He still has some cleaning up to do.
––––
Octavius walks into his friend Attila's little diner. There he sees his big but cuddly friend standing behind the counter “Octavius!” his friend greets, Octavius smiles friendly, he turns his head to see his other friends sitting in a booth.
“Octavius! Hey man” another one of his friends– Larry Daley– addressed him.
He sits down next to Larry and the whole group starts chatting with him “How was work yesterday my boy?” Theodore, or Teddy asks with a cherry smile. ‘Is he talking about the hero work or the librarian one?’ Octavius thought to himself, suddenly feeling uneasy.
Wea clears her throat “We read to some children yesterday darling. There wasn't much to do yesterday.” she looks at Octavius with eyes saying "Play along or you're dead"
Octavius nods reluctantly “Yes..! We're lucky it's a small library so there isn't much we need to attend to.”
Ahkmenrah– the youngest one out of their group– calls out to Attila “Attila, come join us!”
Attila nods and smiles brightly as he starts making his way to the booth “Make some room please.” he sits next to Ahkmenrah and the younger man makes some room for his friend.
“So, do you guys know what happened at the police station yesterday?” Ahkmenrah asks, dipping a fry in some ketchup then taking a small bite from it.
“Of course we do Ahk, it was all over the news yesterday.” Larry said before taking a sip of his coffee. “Explorer was close... To capture.” Attila pitched in.
The whole group agrees, but not Wea and Octavius. Sacajawea looks at her friend and sees Octavius clutching his turtleneck sweater in a distressed way.
“Octavius, are you feeling okay?” she asks him, the group suddenly turns their attention to him and this makes him even more anxious. “Yeah, I think I just need to go back home and check on some documents.” he says.
Octavius gets up and walks to the counter “Octavius! Wait” Attila catches his attention, the brunette turns to face his friend. Attila grabs something from the kitchen and brings it out for Octavius to see. It's a paper bag.
“What is it Attila?” the brunette asked as he gently takes the paper bag from his friend's hands, Attila stutters a bit, but thanks to Octavius being patient, the friendly man manages to say it. “It's for Henry” Octavius smiles and sighs “Attila, I understand that you really like feeding Henry, but he also needs to put on some diet.”
Attila makes a frown.
”But thank you, I'm sure that Henry will love this. Thank you again Attila.” with that, Octavius waves goodbye to his friends and leaves.
––––
The brunette man hums to himself, a smile visibly seen on his face.
Attila really likes Henry, and Henry really likes Attila, maybe because the cuddly man always feeds the cat delicious treats so now his pet grew quite fond of his friend.
Everything was going all fine and dandy before Octavius suddenly bumps into someone, hitting foreheads with the other person.
Octave stumbles a bit, he puts a hand to his head and manages to fix his stature “Ow, I'm very sorry–” he looks to see a blonde man with blue ocean eyes and a stubble beard standing there with a hand over his forehead as well.
Octavius doesn't know what happened to him, but he simply cannot take his eyes off of the man, something about him just seems to appealing to Octavius.
“I'm sorry sir.” the man says, with that, Octavius snaps out of his staring and blushes lightly due to embarrassment “No, no, I'm sorry as well. I should've looked where I was going.”
The blonde man limps his wrist “It's alright kemosabe, I understand you don't mean any ill will.” the man scratches the nape of his neck, before his eyes suddenly widened.
“Shoot. Gotta go, now!” the man runs off away from Octavius and that makes Octavius wonder who that fine and respectful man was. He'd love to get his number sometime.