On Cloud Nine
Diana did not come as planned.
Diana foolishly called Rico and told him that she was disappointed that she didn’t trust him to tell her the truth. Rico took care of the problem by mixing her brains like a pot of spaghetti once again, and now Diana believed that Rico had beaten her in the past.
She refused to come to Levi’s home because Rico would be there, and she hated his very presence, and never understood how the family chose a wife-beater over her.
That was what Diana told her daughter when she called her, and Rikka was absolutely baffled. She put two and two together, and she understood that once again, her father had done something.
Two days before Rico would be framed for assaulting Mary Jane, Rikka confronted her father.
She found him inside Maximillian’s study.
It was small and cozy, with a red brick fireplace, old antique chairs, a desk, and a miniature bar disguised as a golden metal globe. Numerous bookshelves lined the walls, and papers upon papers were at his desk, so many papers, it made no sense how any one person would collect that many.
Rico was rifling through his brother’s books and files and jerked up when he was caught.
He gasped, his father was there, glaring at him, telling him that stealing is wrong, and then he blinked a few times and saw Rikka instead.
“You need to take off the rosary sometimes. You can’t lose it,” Rico told her.
“Grandpa says you need to stop going through your little brother’s things.”
“The longer you keep it on, the more it changes you.”
“So you don’t want me to be like grandpa?”
Rico said nothing.
He said nothing and cowered under the hot gaze of his daughter, who for some reason intimidated him more and more whenever they were around. Rikka was a good actor, but she couldn’t fool her own parents, and they knew that she said and did odd things, unable to understand why.
This was another, and Rico was burning up from the fireplace, his sweater vest, and her predatory gaze.
“Why’d you change mommy,” Rikka asked.
“You broke the promise.”
He started to pick up various papers he had dropped, and she strode over, throwing all her weight into him, pushing him into the ground. He fell over and said nothing, shocked that his young daughter would do such a thing.
She quickly grabbed a piece of paper from the ground and inspected it. On it was a singular word, lost, written big enough to take up the entire page, and smaller words, find, written various times over and over again.
“Daddy, I thought you made him forget?”
“I did! But he keeps remembering, I don’t know how,” Rico shouted.
He got up from the ground, snatched the paper away from her, and turned it over several times, inspecting it. He couldn’t understand what Maximillian was doing nor would he even get a chance.
“I don’t know how his ability works because he never uses it around others when he has it. It’s been so long since I’ve last seen him use it...he probably did that so we would never learn its weakness,” Rico said.
Rikka paused to think.
“You must remember how it works, right,” Rico asked.
So many memories jumbled together, her mind a supercomputer, she had to file through them. Maximillian had to have slipped up, eventually and used his ability around her at least once, but she...couldn’t recall.
“No. No, he hasn’t used it around me, or maybe he used it so often I couldn’t be able to tell if he did.”
The door opened and Maximillian Slater walked inside to find his niece and brother rifling through his personal belongings.
“Put my papers back,” Maximillian said.
Rikka looked at all the papers on the ground, all their common structures. One big word surrounded by little words, some with symbols, and still couldn’t understand what he had done.
“Why do you have all these papers,” she asked.
Ignoring her, he addressed his brother.
“You should train her better. Mine doesn’t do this, nor does he dress like that,” he said, flicking his wrist, referring to her crop top as if she were in the nude.
“Shut up, Maxi-Pad. ”
Rikka burst out laughing, and Maximillian made a shrill noise, ruffling his feathers .
“Why are you calling him that,” she giggled.
“We always called him that because he used to wet the b—”
Maximillian outstretched his hand, palms open wide and made a silent threat.
Rico quickly put the paper down on the desk, but Rikka picked it up and tore it in half. Maximillian screamed out in pain, fell to the ground, and was still. Various books in the room, pieces of paper, they all glowed, crumbled, and then lifted up into the sky.
The room was bright, the words in the room dying, shining bright, and Rikka put her hands out to touch them. They slipped through her fingers, and the lights dimmed out, the room back to its dim hue, lit by the fireplace again.
Maximillian let out a deep sigh.
He crumpled.
Pieces of paper slid onto the floor in various directions and Rikka wished she couldn’t remember this. Warily she eyed her father, waiting for him to fall into a pile of paper clips but he was still human.
He took the initiative, moving over to the pile of Maximillian-papers, and inspected them.
On each and every sheet were nothing but crude pictures of a smiley face, surrounded by smaller, angrier faces.
“What in heaven's name is this,” Rico mumbled.
“Is his ability to use paper,” she asked.
“No. Last time it involved hats.”
This baffled Rikka and her father. She turned to her rosary and asked her grandfather, and he told her that Maximillian used trickster magic.
“Dad’s being dramatic again,” Rico sighed. “Can you help me find him?”
She did. Her ability to find lost things made it child’s play.
Maximilian was three towns over, up to no good as usual. Rikka and her father took the time to grab as many strange papers with words written on them and they threw them all into the fireplace.
It was an arduous task because the words would sometimes fight back.
She tore up the paper with the word smack, and it smacked her back.
After an hour of this, Rikka and her father left his study, disturbed and exhausted. He had remembered how to use his powers for the nth time and Rico needed to make him forget by the end of the day.
No one needed extra Maximillians, paper or not, running amok.
They stood outside of his study, whispering to each other, trying to figure out how to get him to come home early without raising suspicions. Mary Sue walked down the hallway, gave a friendly wave, but stopped because they looked at her strangely.
Mary Sue felt like she was being pressured to take drugs when they forced her to call Maximillian and ask him to come home early.
----------------------------------------
Maximillian came home and was on cloud nine.
Literally.
He slowly descended, on a cloud shaped like a number nine, laughing erratically, and Rico saw him land in the backyard and jump off as if it were some normal mode of transportation.
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.
Rico had seen the talking hats, the dancing quarters, the mirror that kept scolding him about his “bad life choices”, but this was too much.
“I’m going to make myself forget this later,” Rico said to himself.
Maximillian knew it was a trap the moment he saw his older brother in the backyard waiting for him instead of Mary Sue. It was cold, and he wanted to go inside, so Maximillian decided to bring it to him.
He brought his hands up, clapped twice, and Rico jolted, standing inside, right in front of the door to Maximillian’s study. No transition, no walk, they were there, and Rico knew he had slipped up.
“Wow this is so amazing,” Rico said unenthusiastically.
“Yes, it is! I forgot how to properly use my powers, but I remembered last month.”
“That’s so great,” Rico mumbled.
“Do you wanna see a magic trick, ” Maximillian asked.
Rico shook his head no, he stepped to the side, but his brother blocked him, pushed him into the door, and pinned him into it. He was held up, Maximillian’s forearm pushing up into his chin, forced to look into his eyes.
“I don’t like your jokes,” Rico gasped.
“We’ve done this one before . Don’t worry .”
Maximillian did his half-smirk smile, put his hand behind his brother’s right ear, and pulled out a quarter.
Rico laughed nervously, and then Maximillian laughed along with him, and so did the quarter, which decided to grow an ear. He put it in his pocket, and Rico shuddered, hearing the inside of it, up close.
It was as if he were inside of it, squished between his heavy wallet and thick phone, the sound of lint rubbing against his keys.
“Let me go,” Rico pleaded.
“I won’t let you go,” Maximillian said in a babying tone.
He grabbed Rico’s cheeks, squeezed them tight, and mocked him because there was nothing he could do, frozen in place by fear. He put his hand on Rico’s nose and pinched it, and he grunted.
“I’ve got your nose,” Maximillian snickered.
Terror came over his body in waves as Rico looked at Maximillian’s hand and saw...a normal hand. A thumb was wedged between his index finger and Maximillian giggled, everything a joke to him.
“You’re always going on about Santos never taking anything seriously, but every time you use your ability, you treat us all like toys,” Rico screamed.
“I don’t use you like toys. You’re not in my drawer right now.”
“ Who are you? ”
Maximilian shoved his fist into Rico’s chest, and he flinched, feeling something wet pour out of his face. His glasses slid off, down onto the floor and Maximillian opened his fist, showing his nose.
“Gotcha’.”
Rico started crying, and Maximillian used his other hand to get out his phone and mimic that he was holding a remote control. He pressed mute. Rico slid down against the door, silently crying, and pleaded for forgiveness.
“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Let me turn on the subtitles.”
He pretended to press subtitles, but it took a while to find the right language option. There were always so many. The subtitles flashed below Rico, a garish cut into reality, taking no account its rules.
I HATE IT WHEN YOU USE YOUR ABILITY.
YOU TURN INTO SOMEONE ELSE.
“Don’t be silly,” Maximillian laughed, and then quarter with an ear laughed, forcing Rico to laugh, and sob even harder. With every painful laugh, two hot streaks came out of his nose and fell into his mouth, spilling onto the wooden floor, without a sound.
YOU DON'T TALK LIKE THIS WHEN YOU DON'T USE YOUR ABILITY.
I THINK THE WEAKNESS OF YOUR ABILITY IS THAT IT AFFECTS YOUR MIND.
YOU’RE GOING CRAZY.
“No one asked for your opinion,” Maximilian snorted. “ You’re so lame! I’ve always talked this way! You’re lame! ”
PLEASE FORGIVE ME. I ONLY DO THIS BECAUSE I DON'T WANT THEM TO PUT YOU INSIDE ANOTHER RING.
Maximilian was not expecting this. The thought, the very idea, that Rico was protecting him was nonsensical... it was silly.
He loved silly things.
This Maximillian loved silly things.
Therefore he loved Rico best of all.
“ How silly,” Maximilian mumbled. “Yes, tell me more, how you think you’re in charge!”
Rico mumbled something and his brother realized he would die from blood loss and that the subtitles were moving too fast sometimes. He changed the settings, returned his brother his nose, and lovingly told him, it was only a prank, bro.
Since it was only a prank , it all snapped back into place, and Rico was patched up good as new. Good as new, except for the emotional trauma. Red in the face, huffing on the floor, he splayed his hands out sporadically on the floor, looking for his glasses, and put them back on to see his daughter return.
“You finally found the book,” he asked.
“Sorry I’m late,” she shouted.
She opened the old, leather-bound book in her hands at the bookmarked page and spoke before her uncle could do a thing. The book was filled with child-like words, such as, "you're grounded" and "No TV" as commands to stop Maximillian's strange ability.
“Time out, no talking, five minutes.”
Maximilian walked to the corner, at the end of the hallway, and stood in place. Rico chuckled nervously because it was that easy. If his father never died then he wouldn’t have to spend every waking moment being his brother’s handler.
“Rikka, give me the necklace.”
“Grandpa thinks you need to get your life together first.”
Rico was offended, had no idea what that had to do with anything, but wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to wipe his mind again.
There were some problematic things he saw inside his brother’s head which wasn’t unusual, but there was something that Maximillian kept re-discovering every time his abilities resurfaced.
Every time he would remember Acheus had Invictus, and every time Rico had to erase this bit out of his head.
Once the spring cleaning was complete, they dragged his unconscious body down the hallway and were met by Mike.
It was 10PM, Mike was in his boxers, and saw Rikka in her nightgown, Rico still in his sweater vest, now covered in his own blood, and Maximillian was unconscious, being dragged down the hallway.
“There is no statute of limitations for murder,” Mike said calmly.
“We didn’t kill him,” Rikka whispered.
“Why not?”
“Good question.”
“We can’t kill him! I’m telling you, his ability is making him crazy, it’s not him, ” Rico insisted.
“Even when he’s not using his ability, he’s an ass. When he’s using it, he thinks ripping you apart is funny. Let’s kill him. ”
“You shouldn’t have said that. I’m legally obligated to tell someone if you plan on committing a crime, not if you’ve already done it, ” Mike explained.
Rikka had never been so disappointed to not kill someone in her life.
“He never used to be like this. He was different when we were younger, his ability changed his mind,” Rico repeated. “I think editing his memories might be messing with his head too.”
Mike and Rikka refused to believe him. All they had known their entire adult lives was a high-functioning psychopath who lived off the legacy of his father.
It’s true, Michael chimed in. I cannot send him off to those asylums, where they test people all day and night. It’s cruel.
Rikka dropped her uncle’s legs and was frustrated that her anger was taken from her. Her father grunted and laid him down on the ground, and they all peered down on him deciding his fate.
“I’m not allowed to be angry because he’s crazy and we’re supposed to put up with it!? ”
If there is anyone you should be angry with it should be me, Michael said. This is all my fault.
Rikka laughed nervously because she knew he wasn’t lying. Wearing the rosary meant she could feel everything he felt and new information flooded her brain, a monsoon during summertime.
She learned new things she could never forget and she accepted that nothing was permanent.
Everything is fine, nothing was wrong.
Everything was not quite right.
It was all a little silly is all.