THE STUPENDOUS ADVENTURES OF BUTLER BOY! - Chapter 1

I made it thirteen years before I did something stupid.

But when I broke that streak?

It set new records for just how much of a dumbass any single person in any given universe can commit in a single act.

...and it all started, as most horrible incidents of idiocy do, on a perfectly normal day.

“Arden! Get up or you'll be late for school!”

I groaned and obediently rose, yawning widely and rubbing at my face. “Thank fucking god it's Friday, ugh.”

My feet carried me through my room on autopilot, dodging the half-finished electronics projects that seemed to multiply when I looked away. Or went to a store. Heh. A dismantled Atari in particular was a great prize that was only waiting for a mail-order specialty piece to come in before I finished restoring it to full functionality.

Still, being a kid again had its perks – or, well, I guess I'm a teenager now. Thirteenth birthday was last month and everything. Made off with some sweet loot from presents, at least. Sadly, not the ones I had most been looking forward to. Which I was still perturbed about.

It was 1997 and for some godforsaken reason, I wasn't playing Pokemon Red Version on a Gameboy.

Forget the super villains, that was the real atrocity!

But, no... I had to suffer through/enjoy the experience that was playing Double Dragon on the Waynetech Portable.

Bruce, buddy... I know the cape and cowl eats up a ton of your time, but work with me here, there had to be a better name for a handheld game system than that.

There had to be.

I gave a short glare at the offending piece of electronics charging in its dock and lamented the heretical anti-American commitment to rechargeable battery packs. Oh my sweet toxic disposable tubes of acid and metal... you will be missed!

Well, no they wouldn't. Not really.

The WP had hot-swap capability so you wouldn't lose your game when the battery ran out.

That, I had to admit, kicked fucking ass.

The name still sucked, though.

“Pancakes on the table, dear. Eat up,” Mom commanded after I finished my morning ablutions and come bounding down the stairs. Almost instantly, the trio of small ponies that had disguised themselves as wolfhounds locked their eyes onto my food with the ease and precision of long practice.

“You've all been fed,” I informed them as I started eating faster than I probably should. “And besides, Lincoln, you're still being food defensive. No treats until you work that out.”

I swear Carter and Monroe gave the younger dog the evil eye at that pronouncement.

They were smart boys.

“Hey squirt, finally up?” My brother asked, coming by and patting me on the head while I ate. “Thought I was going to have a quiet drive to school for once.”

I rolled my eyes while scarfing bacon and rinsed my mouth out with orange juice before replying. “I could literally walk to school. Or bike. You really don't need the car, Algie.”

Wincing slightly at the childhood nickname, he rubbed at his brown eyes before sighing. “Listen Arden, I know I've asked you before, but please don't spread that around school, okay? I've just about gotten everyone to start calling me 'Al' these days, I don't need my little brother messing it up.”

“Yeah, sure... no skin off my nose,” I shrugged, really and truly not caring one bit. It was one of those 'trying to adult' things that teenagers did.

I'd tried to explain that the real secret to being an adult was not giving a shit.

More depressingly, that was usually because no one else actually gave a shit about you, either.

“Great,” he sighed, just as our father strolled into the kitchen and kissed our mother with a brief hug. It was honestly the kind of idyllic fifties-sitcom life that only a bare fraction of people got to enjoy. I'd really gotten pretty lucky, both times around.

“Hey guys, big day at school, right?” Archibald grinned, snatching a piece of bacon and popping most of it into his mouth with an audible and satisfying crunch. “Big football game tonight!”

“Football?” I frowned and cocked my head. “Is that the game with the small white ball or the black round disk on ice?”

“Be nice, Arden,” Mom sighed as Dad deflated slightly. “You know your father and Algie actually care about these things.”

“We can't all be super-nerds, squirt,” Algernon reminded me pointedly. “Some of us need to earn scholarships.”

I could have rebutted that, I really could have.

But Algie had taken the lessons our father had taught him on self-reliance and making your own way in the world to heart. My brother could have simply accepted that his college tuition would be taken care of and laid about, coasting to an average GPA and riding that to a state college.

Instead, he was the school's star running back, kept mostly straight A's, and was active in the 4H club as well as student council. All around, it was a truly stellar high school career that would end on the high note of nailing one of the top ten spots in his graduating class if he kept things up.

I wasn't sure if I could do the same in his position.

“Yay pigskin tackles field goal?” I responded instead, reverting to my old coping mechanism of humor.

My dad and brother both snorted, the elder of the two a hulking blonde man who'd once played the sport himself. “I guess I'll take what I can get. Still, you'll be there to root for your brother, won't you Arden?”

“I've got my giant foam finger and beer hat full of soda ready to go,” I nodded.

Algie pulled a face. “You know half the team gives me constant sh-er, crap-” He quickly abridged, eyes flicking towards our mother. “-about that, right?”

“And the other half think it's hilarious,” I nodded along, my lips twitching. “Just tell them I'd have my super-nerd credentials called into question if I attended a sports event unironically.”

“Okay, boys. Finish your verbal sparring in the car. Hopefully without running into anything,” Mom ordered as she looked at the clock. “Time for you both to head out.”

Replying with affirmatives, we both finished up the last bit of our meals while I handed out a few head pats to the desperate doggos looking for food. They were, sadly, disappointed save for a bit of grease clinging to my fingers. Once we'd both navigated the hounds, though, Algernon and I made our way out to the one vice my brother truly had.

A 1982 DeLorean DMC-12, lovingly restored from a nearly-destroyed state. Algernon had convinced my father, somehow, to buy the former wreck when he was thirteen with the promise that he'd rebuild the thing as his first car when he could eventually drive. In the end, he'd been able to some impressive work on it, but hadn't been able to bring the engine fully back to life. I'd dropped an amount of money that I still refused to disclose to have several key parts machined privately.

“You know I have to fight the urge to quote Back to the Future every time I get in this thing, right?” I asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“You can totally walk to school if you really want to,” Algie replied.

I sighed and popped the gull-wing door.

Seat belts snapped and a moment later we smoothly accelerated out of the driveway. I reached over to turn the radio up on R. Kelly's I Believe I Can Fly. It'd only been released last year with Space Jam and the artist had yet to make enjoying his work problematic, so I'd enjoy it while I could.

Unfortunately, Algie toned it down almost immediately after I'd turned it up. “Hey, anyone bothering you?”

“About what?” I asked, blinking and turning to the driver, who kept his eyes on the road.

“Ardy, you're thirteen and a sophomore in high school. You can't tell me no one's giving you shit,” Algernon scoffed.

I groaned. “Look, Algie, I don't know who told you about John Baxter, but he's just a jackass. He's not actually bullying me or anything. He just wants me to do his homework for me, okay?”

He flicked his eyes towards me, held them there for a moment, then nodded. “Alright, if you say so. Buddy, the tight end on the team, saw him hassling you. Just wanted to know if I needed to give him an attitude adjustment or not.”

“I am totally not above begging my big brother for help if some asshole who weighs twice as much as I do decides I make a good target,” I replied with a nod.

Algernon snorted and nodded. “Good.”

Then we pulled into the school parking lot.

“I wouldn't worry about it, though. Baxter's a wuss. Anytime he comes close, basically half the kids in class give him the evil eye,” I shrugged.

…

“OW, FUCK! You little asshole!”

So, I was right about John Baxter, for the record. I want that to be clear. I was objectively correct in my assessment of the teen's rampant cowardice and refusal to act. That much is not up for debate. Unfortunately, I had forgotten one key piece of information. Or, rather, hadn't considered it especially relevant at the time I'd made my assessment.

I was sent sprawling across the dirty concrete floor by the hit to my jaw, but I kept hold of the utility knife in my right hand and rolled up to a kneeling position with the weapon poised just in case Kevin took another swing.

Not John.

Kevin.

Kevin Baxter. John's cousin on his father's side. A fat sack of shit that'd been held back a year as a senior, which I'm told you have to be especially stupid to achieve.

“Little pissant nerd cut me!” Kevin snarled, his face scrunching up in rage as he took two steps forward, the gash on his arm streaming blood.

“Kev! We gotta' get outta' here 'fore someone notices we're gone,” John hissed, looking anxiously around the junk-filled room, his head twitching to the stairs up, out of the basement.

Kevin stared at me for a moment longer, then snorted and took a few steps back. “Fuck it, this was the plan anyway. Few days down here'll soften him up. Then he'll do both our work for us! Hehe!”

I blinked, disbelief coating my thoughts. “You just fucking kidnapped someone over homework? Are you goddamn serious, you apeshit troglodyte?”

It was like complaining to the water that it was too wet.

Kevin twitched towards me, then growled and spat off to the side before grabbing my backpack and throwing it inside with me. “Here, little piggy, have a present! Maybe they'll think you ran away! Teach your fuckin' daddy a lesson, too. Maybe the big pig'll cry when ya' don't come home for the weekend!”

Then he pulled the door shut with a rusty squeal of metal, which told me I might actually be in trouble.

I contemplated shouting a last parting shot at him, but that door was thick metal. Moreover, it wasn't really a 'door.' This school had been built in the fifties, after all, and in keeping with the times, they'd installed a bomb shelter underneath it. You could probably fit two hundred people down here if you really tried, but the school had been a lot smaller back then. Beyond a refurbishment in the seventies, it had never seen action. Instead, time and a lack of nuclear war had condemned the empty room to the fate of all disused spaces everywhere.

It had filled up with decades of junk.

But my main problem right now wasn't that.

No, my main problem was the thick, lead-lined steel door was really more of a vault hatch.

Instead of wasting my breath yelling at the two dipshits, I inhaled slowly and released it, letting the adrenaline fade and-

I winced, dusted off the fingers of my right hand, and reached into my mouth, giving the offending article a single quick tug and grunting at the sharp pain.

Bloody saliva dotted the floor as I spat across it.

I sighed as I looked it over. “Thank god for baby teeth, I guess.”

Touching my jaw tenderly, I opened and closed it a few times. Now that the pain was fading, I could tell I'd have a nasty bruise even without looking in the mirror, but that was it. I'd taken the punch pretty well and hadn't cracked my jaw. I closed my eyes briefly and took another breath, inflating my lungs as much as I could as I touched my throat.

“No damage,” I muttered, massaging the skin there, too. Kevin had grabbed me on a blind corner and put me in a headlock to drag me down the stairs, cutting off my airway when I'd tried to yell for help.

I looked at the door again, shrugged, and stepped up to it, giving it as hard a twist as I could on the large wheel.

Nothing.

“Goddammit,” I muttered, shaking my head as I stared at the thick door. “Worth a shot, at least. Shit, I hope the thing isn't seized.”

When was the last time it was even shut?

Or oiled?

“Okay, let's take stock of the situation,” I muttered to myself, sitting down on the floor to rest as the adrenaline high well and truly faded. “Two of the dumbest people in the school have thrown me into a disused bomb shelter from the fifties to intimidate me into doing their homework for them. Kevin's words seemed to indicate that he planned to keep me here all weekend.”

Would they bring me food?

More importantly, water?

I set my elbows on my knees and bent over to rest my head on my bridged fingers.

“Can't rely on that. They've proven themselves to be stupid enough to kidnap the police chief's son because they can't pass algebra on their own merits. They may not know how short a length of time you can go without eating or drinking.”

That left two options: rescue or escape.

The first was... probable, at least? Algie would notice I wasn't there after school, if nothing else. Hell, my teachers should notice my disappearance immediately after lunch. This was the nineties, though. That had upsides and downsides.

The bloody utility knife I'd set down on the floor in front of me was an upside. As long as you didn't bring a prison shank or something, most people shrugged at having a small box-cutter length blade on you for whatever purpose you needed it. The downside was that attendance was less strictly monitored and not digitally enforced. Great for sneaking off campus to make a run for fast food, not so great when you've been illegally detained in an old nuclear bunker.

“Sure, Waynetech probably has the... tech for it, but there hasn't been a societal need developed yet,” I grumbled like I hadn't just taken advantage of that lax attitude to run to Arby's for lunch a week ago.

Speaking of food...

I looked at the bag that had been carelessly thrown in with me.

“Inventory time.” Thankfully, the school had been serving pizza today, and not just any pizza, but actual delivery pizza in celebration of tonight's game. Oh, it was sold per-slice at a huge markup in the name of fundraising, but I'd gorged myself on it anyway, with plenty of coke to go with it. It'd also been a surprise, so I still had the packed lunch Mom had given me, too.

Little blessings.

“Okay, one full lunch... I'll eat that tomorrow if it comes to it. Maybe sip on the juice overnight,” I muttered, frowning. “A thermos of water that I was going to dump and fill with soda for afternoon classes.”

Officially, it was against the rules to drink anything but water in class, but opaque containers were difficult to check. I'd bet some of the seniors even had raw booze or spiked drinks today.

Maybe that explains the retardation? I didn't smell Kevin's breath.

Lucky me, I hadn't gotten around to dumping the water for soda, though. Which meant I could probably make it the full weekend if I had to.

“But let's see what I can do to shorten that,” I hummed and pulled out my electronics kit.

…

Unfortunately, the answer wasn't much.

The room had power, at least, but that was it. The blast door wouldn't budge and there was no sign of even moisture residue in the toilets at the rear of the bunker, much less the taps working. I was going to bitch the hell out of someone about not having a secondary exit to a hole in the ground when the time came, though.

The worse news was...

“Fuck nuggets,” I whispered, dread mounting at I looked up at the last vent in the ceiling from where I'd positioned a partially-functional ladder so that I could see if I'd be able to climb up them. Unfortunately, there was a flat piece of metal about five feet up.

They'd sealed off the vents. Possibly when they'd 'renovated' the space in the seventies. Which was beginning to look more like a decommissioning instead.

“If I get out of this alive, someone's getting sued,” I swore quietly.

Might be the school system, might be the contractors cutting corners they weren't supposed to.

I carefully climbed down the ladder and popped my thermos open to take a drink of water. That was ahead of schedule, but the schedule mattered a lot less now.

“I'm going to be dead in under forty eight hours,” I stated with a frown, looking around the room and estimating dimensions. It was a big room, to be fair. Large enough to fit an olympic-sized swimming pool in it, if only just. But there were no vents, barely any air was coming through the tiny gaps in the door, and the circulation was poor. Plus, I'd already engaged in some serious activity to take a tally of what junk down here I could actually use.

I took a slow, measured breath to fight the panic and sipped more water.

“Okay, situation update,” I spoke aloud to myself, my voice filling the oppressive silence. “School's out by now-”

I glanced at my watch briefly to affirm that and nodded.

“-everyone will be at the game in an hour or two.” I paused. “That doesn't help me. No one's going to come to the school while there are sports to be excited over. That means I'm on my own.”

I drummed my fingers on my thigh and thought.

Door.

Wall.

Vents.

I could try the door. It was tough, but even if the locking mechanism was jammed I might be able to dismantle the housing and get at the internals. There was a bunch of stuff from the old machine shop down here that might or might not work, too. After another few minutes of consideration, I discarded the idea. It was wishful thinking.

As were the walls. They might be old concrete, but they were still concrete and I was still a thirteen year old. There was a chance I could repurpose the giant-ass lathe in the back corner, but... would I get through it in time? What if I hit steel reinforcements?

The vents were equally chancy. All I could see was a sheet of tin sealing things off, but that didn't mean there wasn't more obstruction beyond that. Moreover, it was tin and I didn't have the proper tools. Specifically, I didn't have metal-working gloves. Tin was the widow-maker of metals. I had personal experience in my prior life that it could slice you open so clean you wouldn't start to feel it until you noticed the blood.

It'd suck to bleed out before my air supply went bad.

Very conscious of the breath I was taking, I got up and looked closer at the door.

Slowly, a finger reached out and slid down the side of the heavy steel until I hit the top of the lowest hinge.

I tapped it thoughtfully.

A memory bubbled up.

“Half-pin barrel hinges,” I muttered, and of course they weren't. This wasn't a cheap iron prison gate from centuries prior. But hinges were a weak spot. I grabbed my pen light again and squinted at the seem on that side, trying to remember the flash I'd seen before I'd stabbed Kevin and was thrown in.

“Locking mechanism only on the other side of the door,” I nodded to myself slowly. “If I take the hinges off...”

I didn't know if the entire door would come free. It might, it might not, but I could wedge it open.

Get fresh air.

Call for help.

I tapped the hinge and nodded again.

Alright, I had a plan.

…

“This plan sucks,” I huffed, leveraging my Frankensteinian creation up to the door.

It'd taken me two hours to dismantle the lathe, pull the motor out, and fix the broken connections. Thankfully, anything made before the seventies was cast from a combination of actual metal and the collective spite of the working class, so after a little oil it ran fine. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a piece of castoff machinery from a factory that made WW2 weapons.

If-

No, when I got out of here, I was taking this thing with me. Maybe the housing, too, if I could get some idiot to drag it up a flight of stairs.

How the fuck did they get it down here in the first-

No, focus.

I slipped my sunglasses back on and pushed my makeshift drill back on the hinge. The previous bit had melted and then, well... kind of exploded, so I'd had to wait for shit to cool down before I attacked it again.

Also because I didn't want to start a fire.

“Is it just me or is it getting hard to breathe?” I giggled to myself, an edge of mania creeping into my voice as I fired the lathe back up.

…

“First-” huff “-one down.”

A clatter of metal on concrete.

I dropped onto the cushion of old drama costumes I'd created to sit on while I worked, sweating like a dog, and grabbed my lunch.

“What the fuck time is it?” I grunted around a sandwich.

My watch was over by my bag. I'd taken it off both so it wouldn't get damaged and because it had started to chafe with all the sweat I was building up.

Thankfully, the juice cut back my building headache.

“Three AM,” I muttered.

I'd been in here for over twelve hours.

Shit.

I reached up and massaged my face with dirty hands. I was filthy, tired, sore, had a bucket of human waste in another corner of the room, and was only a third of the way done.

I sighed.

“Many, I wish I could have gotten that fan working.” It would have been a relief, for multiple reasons. Probably even given me a few more hours of air. Unfortunately, I couldn't work miracles.

I blinked, then turned around slowly.

“Goddamn, this shit is getting to me,” I shook my head, then stood to start dismantling the sewing machine. The tiny motor wouldn't be much, but...

…

It was six in the afternoon.

Saturday.

Over twenty four hours of hard labor in a confined space with little ventilation. The fan I'd gerry-rigged up was blowing on my face as I lay on the table I'd cleared.

It had helped, but it wasn't enough.

A second hinge lay discarded on the ground near the door.

I had one more to go.

I took a breath and my headache pulsed. Dizziness had set in three hours ago. Or was it four? It made operating my drill hard. The chest pains hadn't helped, either. I reached down and grabbed my thermos, draining the last few drops of it for a little relief.

I needed to get up.

I needed to...

I shook my head violent as my eyelids grew heavy. “Hey, Superman? Any chance you hear me? Kal-El, Last Son of Krypton?”

I waited a moment.

“Clark Kent?” I called out plaintively.

I took another few slow breaths, disappointed in spite of myself. I'd waited this long for a reason. It would have been hell to explain to big blue how I knew who he was, but it was better than dying. I'd be on Batman's radar for the rest of my life, too, paranoid motherfucker that he was.

I stared at the harsh fluorescent lights buzzing above me.

They weren't helping the headache, but I dared not turn them off.

I'd been awake for over thirty six hours at this point with only a few naps to take the edge off the exhaustion.

I needed to get up.

Finish the last hinge.

Did I have enough time?

Superman showing up would have been easier, at least. At this point, though, I'd even take one of his enemies. Lex. Meeting Lex would be awesome. Even if he was an egotistical prick. He'd probably have a laser that could cut open the door like swiss cheese.

I chuckled.

Or Toyman? That'd be fun to see, at least.

Maybe... maybe...

“What was his name?” I whispered plaintively. I could never remember it precisely. “Mister... Misxy? Mr. Mxysss-no...”

I blinked, finding it hard to focus.

“Mr. Mxyzptlk?”

I stared at the ceiling, the edges of my vision going hazy.

Yeah, that... sounds...

A puff of smoke, fireworks going off in a confined space, I startled awake and skittered backwards, falling off the table and staring up in surprise as my jaw dropped.

“You Rang?”

Purple clothing like a monk, orange highlights, a cape that was the first on the inside and the second on the outside. Oversized necklace of turquoise prayer beads. Blue skin with white hair tied in odd tufts as he grinned at me.

I tried to respond and only came up with coughs.

“Oh, huh... that's right, you fleshy-types need air to breathe. What was it again? Hydro-no, not that. Oxygen! Yep! Air freshener coming right up!”

He snapped his fingers and, all of a sudden, I could breathe.

I took a deep breath, feeling the fuzziness at the edge of my vision recede. Another and my headache... well, it didn't go away, but it became a lot more manageable.

I stared up at the interdimensional menace and swallowed dryly.

“You just saved my life,” I stated, still breathing irregularly. “Thanks.”

Purple rose to his cheeks as he twisted in place like a schoolgirl. “Aw... shucks, don't make me blush. Eh, you pulled me out of a tight spot, too... so no big deal.”

My gut clenched, knowing what I'd unleashed on the world in an oxygen-deprived stupor. I nodded, the words like ash in my mouth. “Yeah, no... big deal.”

“Still... bit of a pickle you've got yourself in here, kid,” the imp stated as he looked over my situation properly. “And... hmm, well, you did get me out of a mess... though I'm curious how you knew my name.”

He tilted his head and squinted at me.

I squirmed and I'm man enough to admit it.

“I, uhh... was muttering random nonsense?” I replied dumbly. “I... I'm not even sure what I said, really. Something... Mixy?”

The blue imp studied me for a moment longer, then snorted and grinned. “Heh, alright then. Not like I'm the type to complain when random chance throws you a bone. Still, let's see...”

He pulled out an oversized pocket watch and frowned.

“Huh. I'm early. Really early for this reality. Not even remotely the right time to bother big blue, yet.” He muttered with a bit of a frown.

“Uhh... sorry?” I shrugged, then cursed myself for speaking up when his attention returned to me.

And he grinned.

“You know what? I'm feeling pretty good today and you really did do me a big favor. Even if I saved you for the moment, you're still stuck down here, so... how about a gift? Random chance saved me... it might save you, too.”

Mr. Mxyzptlk reached into his pocket and pulled out a... plastic egg?

Tossing it to me, I awkwardly caught it after bouncing it off my hands for a moment. “Wh-what is it?”

“Eh, could be anything!” Mr. Mxyzptlk replied with a carefree shrug. “Might be laser vision, might be superspeed, might eve be a boat! You've always wanted a boat, right?”

I blinked, was that-

“So, anyway, thanks for the standing invitation to this universe, kid. I really appreciate it, but duty calls. And by duty, I mean chaos.” He turned back and waved. “I'll check in on you in a few years, maybe. See how you like my present! Don't disappoint me, now...”

Fading from view in a suitably dramatic manner, I struggled to calm my racing pulse.

Slowly, my eyes drifted down towards the plastic egg in my hands.

Then I shook my head and rose up, tucking the egg away in my bag.

“Later,” I promised myself. Maybe I'd die down here after all and not have to deal with the consequences of my actions. Until then... “I've got one more hinge to go. Let's destroy this bitch.”

~~~

I'll have a chapter of Mind Games out late Sunday/early Monday.

In the meantime, here's something to tide people over.

It's the first chapter of a thing that someone decided to give me the idea for. Curse their name. Curse it!

Anyway, there will likely be at least one more chapter of this one to flesh out the starting premise. Probably not this month, though. Hopefully not. I'm busy enough, dammit!