Troy and the Captain of Ringdom

Troy Versus Ringdom

Max and Maddison promised they'd follow their granny to church on Sunday morning right before they returned to Seattle. They would be visiting the Wisconsin Central Parish with their grandmother before having a final meal and heading to the Intra national airport at Northern Madison. Mrs Riecke regularly went to Church with her grandparents. Back in her day, she used to be the Junior choir mistress; Cherry Cosgrove - and along with her siblings, they formed a small musical group which they called the symphony. That was several years ago.

The service went extremely well and the kids even had the chance to make some new friends. Mrs Riecke also met up with a few friends from her long and exhilarating past. Their first visit to Wisconsin in almost a year was a chance to reflect on the numerous memories they made over the years.

On returning to the Cosgrove's residence, a quickly fixed meal of toasted bread and Quaker oats awaited them. That meal would be enough to quench their hunger for the duration of a short flight back to Seattle. The Rieckes bade the elderly Cosgrove couple goodbye as the rough week long stay came to an end. Mrs Riecke took a month long leave off her duties as Sales Representative at Russo Designs; so her employers wouldn't be questioning her absence for another three weeks. Nevertheless, she'd have a lot of explaining to do regarding Max and Maddie's absence for a full school week.

Cherry, Troy and the duo of pilots from the HKV archive were on the verge of arriving at one of Europe's favorite tourist cities. They had a stone to find and it wouldn't take long before Joao came choking down their necks. Troy didn't withdraw her stance on Cherry's statement last night. The Captain insisted that she owed Troy no apology concerning any of her statements but she didn't want any personal issues to interfere with confidential business.

"Captain, Troy. You can get down now. We'll need to get you both something to eat. You kids haven't had anything in days" Officer Greg's co pilot stated a few moments after landing safely. The helicopter landed in what appeared to be an extremely wide expanse of land with no trace of life in sight.

"Where are we?" asked Troy as the duo of heroes walked out of the helicopter.

"I think we're in the middle of nowhere" Cherry expressly answered responding to her pal's question.

"I wasn't asking you Cap" Troy rudely ranted. Her statement slightly triggered an over reaction from Cherry, but the latter was desperately trying not to lose it.

"Look. Troy, of this is about what happened last night then...I think you're being too immature"

"Being too immature? Cherry! Would it kill you to apologize and admit you're wrong? Even once?!" said Troy. For a moment now it had felt like she was actually going to make Cherry cheese it this time.

"Look young lady...I don't what your problem is but right now I want you to keep that to yourself. Until we're able to get that goddamn stone, you have the right to shut your android hole!" said Cherry.

"Oh you're asking for it this time!" Troy responded. Troy then structured her right arm into a plasma blaster with its target firmly fixed on the Captain. Officer Gregorz and his co pilot had to adjust their positions to be far beyond the reach of their hot shots.

"Troy! Look I know I've been mean to you and all but trust me you don't want to do this" said Cherry in a last minute bid to change her mind. Her plea meant nothing to Troy who fired a billion joules of energy in one mega shot straight at Cherry. The Captain flew half a mile away and crashed the helicopter partially.

"Alright fine! Have it your way!" Cherry yelled in the distance.

The Captain flung a couple of verdant blasts at Troy who did well to move before getting hit. Violence was never the best way to settle a raging conflict but now it seemed like the rules wouldn't apply in this case. The duo of Valiants had now turned the HKV base into a free for all battle ground. It was really awkward to see two heroes go head to head.  Officer Gregorz went to the HKV underground stations to get the assistance he required to end this rift before it resulted in unrepairable damage.

As Troy and Cherry prepared to launch another round of attacks, two officers who supposedly worked under the HKV shot a pair of poisonous darts which hit them on their thighs. The heroes began to feel uneasy and a while later, they both fell flat on their bellies. It appeared the darts contained amphoteric sleep inducing fluids which caused them to fall unconscious.

It became absurdly difficult to tell what side the HKV fought on; there were millions of other ways to alleviate this rivalry. As soon as Cherry and Troy became motionless, the HKV officials who initiated the heroes' drowsiness carried them on their shoulders down to the underground base. The cunning look on the faces of the officers was spelling imminent doom for the heroes. The darts were sure to knock them out for a minimum of twelve hours due to the high concentration of the substances they contained.

Maddison consulted the HKV's black operations team to assist Cherry and Troy with getting to Warsaw but she never actually took time to analyze who she was making shady deals with. The Hermus Klostermann Vaagmers were a group of vigilantes founded by a notorious black ops mercenary known as Hermus Klostrermann. Hermus had won multiple people into his allegiance by offering them roaring sums of money. Hermus's primary aim was to establish a new world order where the nations of the world would rely on his empire for food, safety, shelter, clothing and governance. While the heroes could barely handle Joao and the Inversian multiverse, their conquest was about to take a grand twist with the development of the Vaagmers as one of the green amethyst's seekers.

Meanwhile, back in Seattle, Maddison and Max were settling back into everything they left. Max continued scampering around the Seattle High School compound asking for notes and hand outs relating to the topics treated over the past week. Almost everyone at school was refusing to land out their notebooks. After requesting for assistance from nearly every member of his class, Maximilian finally remembered one person he hadn't spoken to. While Max unusually sat alone at lunch on Monday afternoon he thought of the one person hadn't spoken to while he soliloquised -

"Ollie; of course!" Max said raising his index finger up one hand and holding a double cheese sandwich on the other. Oliver Harkins just joined from Landmark High in faraway Houston. 'Ollie' as she fondly called, never really got along with anyone - not because of an imaginary superiority complex, but because she was experiencing a rare phenomenon of Anthropophobia; the fear of people and inter personal relationships.

Max looked around the cafeteria and he couldn't find her. That felt strange because students were never allowed to have any forms of meals outside the school cafeteria.

"Where else could she possibly be?" Max continued thinking loudly. Max could be called the master of soliloquy!

After pondering for a while, it finally hit him. The library! Since he clearly remembered seeing Ollie leave the classroom, the next possible place she could go to avoid seeing more people was the school library.

"Of course! The school library...since Ollie could barely stand being around us in the classroom, that's the next best place she could be at during the lunch breaks! Man I'm a good detective!" Max said whilst still speaking in low volumes to himself; he felt he needed to give himself some credit.

Max continued talking to his inner voice absurdly as he made his way out of the cafeteria. The lunch break was running out fast and he had barely taken a bite out of his mayo filled double cheese deluxe. Maximilian occasionally bumped into a few other students on his way out, but he luckily escaped their wrath.

The lunch break was now down to seconds as Max approached the entrance to the school library, he adjusted his hair and straightened out the wrinkles in his shirt, hoping he could make a good first impression when he met Oliver. His eyes first picked the site of a rusted metal door with a few cobwebs hanging around the door's vertices. Surely the students of Seattle High couldn't have neglected the library that much. Max tried to gently push open the door using its strangely shaped knob, but the more he tried to walk in unnoticed, the louder the noise from the door's hinges came.

As Max walked in, the only two individuals present in the library had their gazes firmly fixed on him.

"What do you want Riecke?" said Mrs Baxter, the Seattle High School librarian. Mrs Baxter had been working at the school for multiple decades - being the school's oldest worker.

"Uhhh...I came to do what everyone does at the library ma'am" Max boldly responded. He knew that if he fidgeted even for a split second, then Mrs Baxter would usher him out no sooner.

"Which is?" Mrs Baxter sarcastically responded.

"To read! I think that's pretty obvious" Max responded.

"Oh really...then how come all I see in your hands is an unharmed sandwich?" replied Mrs Baxter. Max had to come up with something and fast. He observed that there were unusually no books on the shelves - that was because the school principal requested that all the books be brought to his office for an unknown reason.

"Uhhh...that's because...my books are...with Ollie" Max said, fidgeting in between his words. Mrs Baxter would permit his stammering this one time. Ollie raised her head up and behaved in an understandably astonished manner on hearing Max mention her name.

"Oh! I see. Ollie is that true?" Mrs Baxter said, now turning her face in the direction of Oliver Harkins.

"Mmmm...yeah...he's...right!" Ollie said, swinging in to help her class mate, ignoring the fact that they had never even exchanged words.

"Alright then...but you have to..." Mrs Baxter was saying before getting interrupted by the school bell. The bell indicated that students were to get back to their classrooms where their teachers would be waiting for them. No one was more glad to hear the sound of the school bell than Oliver. At least for now, she wouldn't have to defend her reason for helping Max out of his tight corner. Max initially wanted to get notes from Oliver but now he added befriending Oliver to his imaginary to do list.