Pitch Episode 38: Boys Club
#47 of Pitch
My Tuesday night should not have been anywhere near as eventful as the one I had. Attempting to convince Velmer and his very naked girlfriend to have calmer heads was proving to be impossible.
"The Ring is supposed to help in situations like these, right? So why not ask them for help?" I suggested
"Because I can't," Velmer said as he typed on his laptop doing something unbeknownst to me.
"You cant?" I asked.
"Remember when I told you I almost got my people killed because of my inventions? The Ring put out my fires, The Ring relocated us, The Ring kept us safe, but I kept screwing up...so they banned me," he admitted.
"They can do that?"
"I put more lives in danger than I ever saved, so yes, they did that," he answered.
It was already dark out. I was sure to miss curfew despite my being next door. I might have asked Velmer for another phone, but it wouldn't have helped at the moment.
"Why don't we catch whoever these people are? You can do that, right? We don't even know if they're after you or not. They could just be thieves trying to rob a few houses," I said.
"You think that's better?" Riz interjected.
She stood between Velmer and me.
"You don't want to go this far," I said.
"You're right, I don't," Velmer added.
"But we will," Riz continued.
She had my attention but in all the wrong ways.
"Can you please put on some clothes?" I asked the shapeshifter.
"Why? Do you not find me attractive?" She said as she transformed into a spitting image of my mother, and finally, I had to turn my back to her.
"Not the point!" I exclaimed.
With my back still turned, I didn't notice when Velmer got up from his seat until he walked passed me. I followed behind him.
"We could catch them, yes, but if they are hunters, we have to put them down," he said.
"We can give them to the cops," I suggested.
"Right, and whose story do you think they'll believe, the human's or the goblin?" He protested.
We stopped at one of his work tables. There were a bunch of incoherent parts laying about.
"If they aren't hunters, what will you do?" I asked.
"I don't know, scare the shit out of them, maybe," he joked as he started fitting the parts together.
"Then, you'd let them go?"
"Sure. But you have to understand capturing is a lot harder than the other thing" he said
"What if we had help," I suggested.
Velmer didn't have many friends. I didn't have many friends, but I had a few more than he did. I enlisted the help of Wesson and Nerf. It was the best I could do since Velmer couldn't ask The Ring for help. When I explained the situation to Wes, he eagerly jumped at it. We were basically going to be alone in an underground clubhouse waiting for people who may not have been coming. It had the makings of an impromptu date. Nerf, on the other hand, took some convincing. While he claimed to be my friend, I understood we weren't close. He already had plans with his basketball teammates, so I had to bargain to get him anywhere near Velmer's place. I might have asked BJ to tag along, but I couldn't explain the dangers of Hunters without revealing the existence of The Ring. It was shaping up to be a real boys night, with Riz being the one exception. Of course, none of us could have expected events to play out the way they did.
Nothing happened. I assembled an entire team, but the mystery men Velmer feared were staking out his house never made an appearance. We spent all night watching and waiting for anyone suspicious to show up. Everyone eventually went home. I went home, but we came back the next night. And the next night, and the next. For two weeks, Velmer's underground lair was a mission control center before it became the hangout spot we all frequented after school. By week three, no one believed there was a credible threat anymore, but the routine of visiting Lab Goblin sank in. Even Nerf continued to drop by because Velmer built a basketball-playing robot the troll wanted to beat in a game of 21.
"Have you ever noticed we never get earthquakes," Wes asked as we watched Nerf fruitlessly try to out game the bot.
"We got swallowed by the sewer that one time," I said.
"But that wasn't an earthquake, it was more of a freak accident," Wes inspected.
"Then yea, I guess we don't get earthquakes," I answered.
"Other places in Montana get them 7 or 10 times a day," Velmer added as he came to join us.
"I guess I never thought about it," I said.
It was cool the way Velmer accommodated everyone. He built a basketball court for Nerf, gave me yet another cellphone, and even assembled a milkshake machine for Wes. We were supposed to be on our guard in case we had to mobilize, but no one was worried.
"Maybe they were just thieves," Velmer said.
"What?" I asked.
"The people I saw on the cameras. Maybe they weren't anything to worry about after all," he continued.
"I told you so," I said with pride as we witnessed Nerf lose the 3rd game of the day against Basket Bot.
The troll angrily tossed his ball at the bot's head, but the machine's metallic grip caught it before impact.
"So, we aren't killing anyone?" Nerf asked as he walked off the court to join us in the central area of Velmer's lab.
"We were never killing anyone," I said.
"That's not what V man said," Nerf continued.
"What?" I exclaimed as my attention swung over to the goblin in question.
"Joking. Joking. I can't win championships from behind bars," Nerf added at just the right moment.
Velmer never realized how amazing his underground lair was. He was smart enough to build anything, but couldn't see the "aww" in any of it. I think he valued people more than his machines. Why else would he build so much? Why else would he keep letting us come back if he believed the threat was gone?
"As cool as all this stuff is, I think it could be better," Nerf suggested.
"Better how?" Velmer asked while Wes and I were happy to sit off to the side, doing what we did together.
"We need more people, girls, lots of them," Nerf went on.
"That's a bad idea," Velmer said.
"It's the best idea," Nerf argued.
The troll's charisma was strong, but Velmer didn't care. My goblin friend was careless about taking risks, but he didn't seem willing to play games when it came to his homefront.
"We're supposed to be looking out for hunters," Velmer said.
"And so far, we haven't seen any, so why not use this place to do good another way," Nerf argued, and he spoke to everyone in the room as if to get us on his side.
"Halloween is in a few nights," I said.
"I'm saying no," Velmer expressed with minimal attitude.
"I could go for a party," Wes chimed in.
Velmer started to say something until his girlfriend stepped from behind him. Part of her shapeshifting abilities must have allowed her to blend into her surroundings. She seemed to appear out of thin air.
"A party would be fun," Riz added.
"I never get tired of your party trick," Nerf joked.
Everyone else tried to be adults, but Nerf watched the shapeshifter like a movie. At times he would even request that she turn into specific people we all knew. Riz didn't seem to mind, but I imagined Velmer could only take so much of Nerf having fun.
"You should," Velmer said.
"You have a kick-ass clubhouse, robots, and," Nerf ranted until he paused to graze over Riz and her nude form.
Velmer took a step in front of her. They said they were together, but it was so rare that they looked like it. Wes and I had more PDA than they did, and I still got embarrassed whenever people looked at us too long. Seeing Velmer show concern at that moment may have been the first time I believed their relationship. That's not to say I doubted them when they said they were dating, but I could feel it from that point on.
"I'm not throwing a party when there could be people trying to kill me," he argued.
It was a unique picture to watch. Velmer was short in stature like me. Nerf was the tallest in the room. The opposing sides were stark. Neither of them seemed too upset or heated, but they were naturally hard to read.
"Weren't you just saying you were worried about nothing a minute ago," I argued lightly.
I had to step in if only to stop things before they got worse. I couldn't imagine what an actual fight between those two would look like, but I knew it wouldn't end well.
"You want a party too?" Velmer asked me directly.
"I've never been to one, not a real one anyway," I said, admitting a sad truth to everyone present.
Sure, I'd been to family events or even the mayor's birthday, but those weren't real parties. Those weren't hosted by people my age for people my age. I didn't intend to gang up on Velmer, but I had to be honest.