A distress call was sent to the Mancave in the middle of the night; 2:34 A.M. to be exact. Ray walked out into the main room, sleep deprived and confused. No one usually called at such an odd hour, but his commitment to protecting Swellview didn't end just because he was sleeping.
"Captain Man Hotline." Ray's voice was laced with tiredness and could be heard as he let out a yawn at the end of his sentence.
"Ray?" A voice spoke, immediately waking Ray up. "Ray it's me Dylan, I need—" A pause and sirens could be heard in the background. "I need you to come. My house is on fire and I can't find my mother."
"Tell me what happened." Ray was reaching for his gum as he spoke to Dylan.
"I woke up and my house was on fire. I tried to get my mother out but I can't find her. I don't know where she is. I called the fire department and they're here but I can't go in the house. I don't know where my mother is." Dylan's shaky voice could be heard on the line as the sound of sirens kept getting closer.
"I'm leaving right now, I'll be there as fast as I can, okay?" Ray shouted across the room, standing beneath one of the tubes.
"Okay. Thank you."
—
Henry entered the Mancave in a hurry. Ray usually didn't call at almost three in the morning, but here he was, in his pajamas. When he received Ray's call he asked if he needed help, but Ray told him no, and that he should just go to the Mancave immediately.
Charlotte had gotten the same message and dragged Jasper with her to the Mancave, calling him about seven times before he answered and she yelled at him through the phone that there was an emergency.
"Do you know what this is about?" Henry asked Charlotte and Jasper, who were sitting on the couch waiting for anything to happen.
"Nope." Charlotte popped the p with her answer, clearly angry about why she was here and not in her bed.
"Schwoz was here a minute ago, looking for shock blankets." Jasper supplied, hoping it would help Henry.
"Shock blankets?" Henry looked at his friends.
"You know those blankets the paramedics carry and put on people who have gone through traumatic events?" Charlotte answered as if it was obvious.
"I found the blankets!" Schwoz came in not even a second after Charlotte spoke, providing Henry with an example.
"Why do you need shock blankets?" Jasper asked.
"For Dylan." Schwoz responded.
"Dylan?" Henry perked up at the name, the need for sleep evaporating from his body. "What do you mean Dylan? Did something happen to him?"
"Ray didn't tell you guys?" Schwoz looked between the others who all shook their head. "Dylan's house burned down."
The tubes to the Mancave came down. One had Ray and the other had Dylan, both of them were covered in dirt and ash. Schwoz was ready with the shock blanket for Dylan as soon as the tubes went back up. Ray led Dylan to the platform's stairs, having him sit down while he was being wrapped in a blanket. Henry didn't need to know the full story of what happened before rushing over to Dylan, immediately sitting next to him for comfort. Henry wrapped an arm around Dylan, who responded by leaning into the touch.
"Okay, what is going on here?" Charlotte spoke up. Ray looked at Dylan who nodded his head, allowing the older man to tell the story.
"Dylan called at around 2:30 saying that his house was on fire, his mother was missing, and he needed someone to go into the house to look for her." Ray paused, seeing if he was allowed to continue the explanation and was granted a pass with another nod of Dylan's head. "When I arrived the fire department had a majority of the fire under control which allowed me to enter the house to look for his mom. I couldn't find her."
A loud exhale could be heard from Dylan, who looked like he was debating on whether or not he should be sad, angry, or both.
"What do you mean you couldn't find her?" Jasper asked quietly, expecting the worst answer possible.
"She wasn't there. I checked the house while it was on fire and after it had been put out. There's no trace of her anywhere." Ray kept his eyes on Dylan while he spoke, not wanting to say anything that would further upset him.
"It doesn't make any sense." Dylan let out in a broken voice. "It's like she just vanished." He pulled the blanket tighter around his body. "You're positive you didn't see anything? Not even... a body?" The last two words were whispered, as he didn't really want them spoken.
"Nobody was in the house." Ray knelt in front of Dylan, staying close to him for comfort.
"I don't have anyone." Dylan admitted to the crowd of people. "My mother, she's all I have. When we moved here it was just the two of us. I don't have a father, and my mother doesn't have any siblings. She's the only family I have, and now she's gone." Dylan put his head on Henry's shoulder and just stared off into the distance, not focusing on anything. "I don't have a home anymore. We were supposed to be gone; the moving truck was going to come in the morning."
"We will find your mother." Ray assured Dylan.
"What am I going to do?" Dylan whispered, fear present in his eyes. "Where do I go from here?" The room fell silent as everyone watched Dylan pry himself out of Henry's grasp and stand up, dropping the shock blanket on the ground. "Can I shower or something? I'm all covered in burned house."
"Yeah, yeah you can." Ray got up from his kneeling position, standing up as well. "I'll show you to one of the bathrooms; honestly I should probably shower too, we look the same."
"That we do." Dylan smiled with his words, making everyone else in the room smile with him.
Ray led Dylan out of the room, leaving the others together once again.
"I can't believe this; I mean his house caught on fire." Charlotte, and the others, had only watched the previous conversation play out, but now that Dylan was gone she felt like she could speak about the situation without worrying about saying something wrong.
"And his mother is missing." Henry reminded her.
"Right before he was supposed to move too." Jasper added, his face showing signs of confusion. "Doesn't that seem suspicious?"
"Suspicious how?" Charlotte asked.
"Michael gets put in jail, but Dylan still wants to leave town in fear of people coming after him." Jasper began to explain to everyone. "On the day he's supposed to leave he wakes up to not only his house being on fire but his mother missing in the middle of the night."
"You think someone intentionally set his house on fire?" Charlotte questioned Jaspers theory.
"And what? Kidnapped his mom?" Henry added in.
"It just seems too coincidental." Jasper thought for a moment before speaking again. "Schwoz is there any way to know if something was burned on purpose?"
"Oh yeah." Schwoz's eyes lit up with the question. "They send in arson investigators all the time for this kind of thing."
"How would they know?" Henry asked, interested in the theory himself.
"If there's evidence of any form of fire starters in the house it's usually a sign of arson. Sometimes they can even tell by the way the house burned."
"What do you mean 'the way the house burned'?" Charlotte quoted Schwoz with her question.
"Most house fires start in the walls and the fire migrates to the ceiling. If the fire started on the ground it would be odd."
"When Ray comes back we need to ask him what the house looked like while it burned." Henry was now fully on board with Jasper's theory.
"Agreed." Charlotte seemed on board too.
—
It took Ray ten minutes to shower. Usually he'd be in there longer but he wanted to get out and be ready for when Dylan ended his. He rifled through his drawers looking for anything that Dylan could borrow as clothing since his were dirty from ash. Everything was going to be big on him, but it was better than nothing. Ray left out a pile of clothes outside the door to the bathroom Dylan was occupying. The shower water was still running and Ray imagined he'd be in there for a long time.
After putting down the clothes Ray went out to join the others in the main room. He didn't expect to be ambushed with various questions from everyone when he came out.
"Okay, slow down, one at a time people." Ray moved out of the way from the crowd that formed.
"What did Dylan's house look like when it was burning?" Henry was the first to spit out a question.
"Like it was on fire?" Ray didn't know how to answer the question.
"And what did the fire look like?" Charlotte rolled her eyes at Ray's answer.
"Like fire? What am I being asked here?" Ray needed clarification on what was going on.
"Where was the fire centralized?" Henry was determined for Ray to give an answer everyone could work with.
"A majority of the damage came from what I assumed was the living room."
"Meaning?"
"Like the fire could have started in there. The floor looked about ready to cave in."
"The floor was on fire?" They were getting close to where they needed to be.
"The entire thing, yeah."
"What about the walls or ceiling?"
"The walls were on fire, but not to the extent of the floor." Finally, they had an answer. Everyone but Ray exchanged glances with one another. "Why are you all so interested in how the fire looked?"
"Jasper thinks someone set Dylan's house on fire." Charlotte explained to Ray.
"And kidnapped his mom." Jasper added, not wanting any part of his theory to be left out. "The timing of everything is a bit too suspicious."
"Ray we have to investigate this." The tone in Henry's voice was laced with sheer dedication.
"No, we have to figure out what to do with Dylan." Ray crossed his arms in front of his chest. He spent his entire shower thinking about how to handle the situation. Technically Dylan was now an orphan, never having a father, his mother now being gone, and no known relatives. The easiest solution would be to give him to the police and let them figure out the rest, but Ray knew that doing so would be a bad idea. He was technically a criminal and if the police ever found out about Dylan's past and what he could do, he would be in a lot of trouble.
The next best solution was more difficult and required a lot of people to be on board with it, mainly Dylan. There weren't many people in the world who knew how to properly take care of someone with powers, but Ray did. He'd been taking care of himself for god knows how long, and even though Henry didn't have any superpowers he'd technically also been taking care of him. Ray knew it was risky to ask such a thing, but it seemed to be the only option available to them.
Dylan emerged from the back, hair damp and in clothing that was surprisingly not too big on him. The sight before him was as expected: everyone being in the main room staring at him and waiting for his arrival.
"Hi." Dylan didn't really know what to say during instances in which the room is quiet and everyone just stared. The silence broke and the room was filled with various 'hey's and 'how are you doing's.
Ray stepped forward, something present on his mind. "So, I was thinking about what to do with you. There is an extra room in the Mancave, if you want it, it's yours."
"You..." Dylan's eyes slightly widened with something Ray would categorize as apprehension. "You want me to stay here? Like live here?"
"Either that or I have to give you to the police." Now that was a statement that brought fear to Dylan.
"The police and I don't really mix very well." Dylan admitted, not that it was surprising. "If those are my only two options, then I guess I'll stay here."
Ray didn't know why, but he was happy. There was something about Dylan agreeing to live in the Mancave that he couldn't help but smile at. "Good, I'll have Schwoz decorate the room for you."
"What? Why me?" A voice popped up from the crowd behind Ray.
"Go decorate the room, Schwoz!" Ray didn't even turn around to look at the man he was ordering around.
"Yeah, okay." It was moments like these in which Schwoz knew it was better to agree that to argue. "Can I put anything I want in it?"
"Absolutely not." Dylan spoke up this time, now looking at the scientist who was on the staircase by the sprocket.
"What did your bedroom look like, before it burned to the ground." Schwoz was the only person who didn't have an issue with what he said. Everyone else in the room merely stared at him with at look that read 'seriously?'
"Well," Dylan moved past the comment, "it had a bed, and a dresser." There wasn't much he could say about his room, as it was small and only so many things could fit inside of it. "There was a closet. Oh! And a broken mirror."
"Your room came with a broken mirror?" Ray questioned.
"No, this mirror came from my house back in Jonsville."
"Oh, it broke in the move."
"No."
"So what I'm hearing is you don't care what furniture I use?" The implications in Schwoz's voice could be heard by everyone in the room.
"Just make it into a normal bedroom for a normal person!" Ray ordered, causing the other man to run into the back hallway before getting yelled at some more.
"He's going to put something weird in it isn't he?" Dylan asked.
"Yeah, probably."
—
There was an issue that needed to be tackled: replacing all of Dylan's belongings. The issue was brought up by Henry who asked if anything from the house could be salvaged, and was met with a response of 'no' by both Ray and Dylan. While the Mancave already had it's own furniture and Schowz was putting new furniture in Dylan's new room, one main problem still stuck out. Dylan had no clothing, as all of it was destroyed in the house fire.
Immediately after this issue was brought up, Charlotte was begging Dylan if she could take him to the mall and buy him clothing. Dylan found it amusing that she was so eager to drag him to various stores in order to replace his closet. Soon Henry and Jasper were asking to go with, wanting their own influence on what Dylan should wear. Ray was on board with it too, giving Dylan the "for emergencies only" credit card. He wouldn't be joining them on their adventure, but he could fund it. Dylan agreed, allowing his friends to take him to the mall once it opened.
They ended up constructing a plan. At around 7:00, they would all have breakfast in the Mancave. After breakfast Charlotte and Jasper would go back to their respective houses in order to get ready to go out, and Dylan and Henry would go to Henry's house to do the same. They would all meet up at Henry's before going out to the mall, which didn't open until 10:00.
They spent the entire morning talking and laughing among themselves about anything they could think of while Schwoz renovated the extra room in the back, which Ray ended up helping with. It was just the four of them by the time their scheduled breakfast came around. Having the auto-snacker in the Mancave was always a blessing when it came to feeding people who all had different ideas for food items. Jasper had wanted eggs, to which Dylan practically gagged at.
"What's wrong with eggs?" Jasper questioned, defending his choice.
"In theory they sound good," Dylan explained, "but then I start eating them, and if at any point I remember that I'm eating eggs, it becomes gross."
Charlotte joined Jasper with some scrambled eggs, and Henry coaxed Dylan into having waffles with him. They all enjoyed their breakfast, even if some choices were questionable, and soon they were going their separate ways to get ready for the day. Dylan told Ray and Schwoz that he was heading out, and the two promised that by the time he'd get back his new room would be finished.
Dylan didn't know how he ended up in such a situation. He woke up with his house on fire and his mother missing, and now he has a new place to call home. He didn't know why Ray even offered him a room, as the two of them weren't close. Yes, they knew each other and Ray helped him with Michael, but that was all it was, one helping the other. He chose not to think too much about it, afraid that if he did it would all be taken from him.
—
The trip to the mall was a huge success. Everyone kept giving Dylan clothing to try on and buy for himself. Charlotte had commented multiple times that she was glad Dylan agreed to go shopping since "she didn't get to do this often" and "it's like having my own personal dress up doll". The amount of bags they left the mall with was something straight out of the movies with everyone carrying at least five each.
As promised, once back at the Mancave Dylan was met with both Schwoz and Ray looking very proud of themselves. Dylan was excited to see this new space they furnished, as well as the others. Entering the room, he was met with a luxurious interior. The bed was lofted with a set of stairs on the side that led up to it. Under the bed in the hollow space was an entire couch and coffee table. The room also had a nice desk, various shelves, a closet, and and a full length mirror that Ray commented on about it not being broken. It was a cozy space, one that Dylan loved and never even dreamed of being able to have.
Everyone else seemed to love it as well, the room getting various complements from the others. Dylan questioned how the two were able to complete such an intricate room so fast, to which they replied with something along the lines of "how amazing they were". The morning started out so rough for everyone, though it was mainly Dylan who was having a hard time, but for now it was looking up.
—
A/N
The introduction of this story is now officially done, as I wanted there to be not only a way for Dylan to be introduced but also a way for him to stay around.
The original intention was that this story takes place as soon as Season 3 starts and I plan on keeping that.
My plan for the rest of the story is pretty much a re-write of Seasons 3-5 with the accommodation of Dylan being there. I plan on using scenes and dialogue that come straight from the show's episodes as well as new scenes in order to add in Dylan and the search for why his house burned down and where his mother went. (I'm also probably going to make the characters curse because why not.)
Also, I know that technically Jasper started officially working at Junk N' Stuff during S3xE1, so I'm going to do re-do the beginning scene for that episode so it flows better with what has already been established.
I plan on starting the rest of the chapters off with S3xE1, and they will be named accordingly to what the episode is called.
- LRC