Just a Little Further- Ch. 1

This is a little story I'm fiddling around with. I've already got other chapters done (check out FanFiction.net), so I'm just posting this on DA as an experiment. Please excuse the beginning; I'm not very good with those.

Leave a comment!!!!! If you want me to continue you'll have to pressure me, or I'll procrastinate and never get around to it.

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Chapter 1

"Just a little further… Just a few more adjustments…" The words seemed to replay themselves over and over through the girl's mind. In truth, they were practically the only things that were keeping her going.

It wasn't always like this; usually Heloise was always very proud of her work, treating her various experiments and inventions like fine works of art deserving every bit of her attention. But this time was different. She had been working on this particular project for almost a month now, whereas her average completion time was only a few hours, or a day at the most – with regards to a few of her own more secretive projects (Such as the time when she was working on her "brain-wave dolls", which took a little over a week).

But this wasn't anything special. A giant ray gun. As if it hadn't been done before! Compared to her other projects it was quite lame. The only reason she had been working on it so much was because her boss, Lucius, kept forcing her adding adjustments. She could hear him now:

"More lasers. Make the lights more menacing. I want it to be huge! Bigger! Where are all the buttons? How is a death machine supposed to be complicated if it only has three buttons?? I want it bigger!! You decided to paint it THAT color?"

The stupid oaf. Didn't he know that ray guns were cheap and outdated? With all the time she had been spending on the practically useless machine, though she hated to admit it, but she was pretty sure she was starting to go insane.

"Gah, a ray gun! Of all things…" She put down the welder she was holding and sighed unhappily. "I need a break."

As if on cue, the laboratory doors slammed open and in skipped the always happy Jimmy Two-Shoes.

"Hey Heloise! Whatcha working on?" Heloise growled, and Jimmy rolled his eyes. "Ooohh, we're still building that thing, huh?"

He zipped up closer to the machine and began to examine the keypad with a child-like interest. "Wow, Heloise! This thing is cool! Look at all these buttons! I don't know why you're getting all stressed out over it… Oh! What does this one do?"

Heloise glared at the enormous keypad with disgust. Most of the buttons had almost no purpose, and she felt slightly embarrassed of them.

"That one…" She sighed. "That one makes it make a… scary… sound." She dropped her head in shame and waited for the ridicule to come. Instead, she heard cheers.

"Whoa! Really? That's so cool! What type of noise? Does it sound like a machine gun?" He doubled over and imitated a soldier firing over a barricade. "Bam! Buh-buh-bam! Pow!!" Heloise stared at him.

"Or maybe, does it sound like a, uh, oh! A dinosaur!!!" With that, he jumped to his feet, threw his hands up, and began stalking around the lab. "Grrrrrr… Or, or, is it like a… Oh a WEAVIL!!!" He suddenly threw himself at Heloise.

"Gah! Jimmy! Get off me!" Annoyed, she shoved the chattering over-grown weasel boy off her shoulders and back onto the floor.

Jimmy screwed up his face, gave Heloise an evil look, and began to shake his fist. "Neh, neh, I'm an angry weevil, neh!!"

Heloise smiled. No matter how annoying he could be at times, the boy always seemed to know how to cheer her up. "Yeah, I bet Lucius would be afraid of that! Maybe then he let me stop."

Jimmy stood up and brushed himself off calmly. "Lucy's being unreasonable again?" She nodded. Jimmy stepped back and examined the gun. He studied to closely, eyes going over every little detail, while Heloise studied him, eagerly awaiting a response. After a moment, the young human began to open his mouth, and Heloise felt herself start to get jumpy, hoping he had something good and thoughtful to say about her work.

His moth opened wider and wider, and he sucked in a breath. Heloise crossed her fingers and began to pray to herself, "Please let him like it. Please, please, please…." Jimmy's mouth continued to open. A few minutes passed and Heloise grew more impatient. "How big does his mouth need to be for him to talk?" She mumbled to herself.

Jimmy took in another loud breath and cleared his throat. "Ahem. I think...... Where's Beezy?"

Heloise slapped her face. Beezy? She waits fifteen minutes for his critique, one of the ONLY critiques she would ever care about, and instead he brings up THAT lump? What?! She growled, "I'm afraid I wouldn't know that, Jimmy. Now could you please tell me what you think of my machine?" She gestured to the gun.

"Oh, yeah, sorry." He cleared his throat. "Ahem. I think -"

"HELOISE!!"

The girl cringed and looked up. "Ugh, hello Lucius."

"It's Mr. Heinous the VII, to you. That, or sir. I'm also accepting Your Highness, Your Greatness, Your Terribleness, Great and Terrible Leader, o' Great Master of Evilness, Fuhrer, and my Lord." He leaned back in his chair and tilted his head back so that his nose was in the air, oblivious to how much the camera made his wrinkles… Pop. Poor Heloise hated the screens, because for one thing, they were an invasion of her privacy. For another, each time Lucius turned one on to speak with her she received an experience worse than watching a 3D movie about angry pile of talking manure.

She eyed the screen and frowned. "You already know I will never call you any of those. You're much too small for such titles. " She giggled, "Oh man, your own name is even longer than you are!"

It was his turn to frown. "Oh yeah? Well I think –"

"HEY LUCY!!! HOW ARE YOU DOING?!"

"Shut up you insolent boy! And don't call me Lu –"

Oh I don't know," Heloise chuckled, "That name seems to suit you well, Lucy."

Lucius growled. "Enough of that! Just forget I even brought names up!" He calmed himself, regaining his business face and cool mood. "Heloise, I need you to take a break from the doom machine for a moment and do something for me."

The girl rolled her rolled her eyes. "Amazing. He finally wants me to stop."

The devil narrowed his eyes. "For the moment, but then I want you to return to it as soon as possible. There's no reason that such a simple contraption should take so much time to build. And judging from the paint job you decided to give it," he eyed the machine, "you still have a lot of work to do. Blue? You honestly think I wanted it to be painted blue? Change it! And what is with all the buttons?! I'll never be able to remember what each one does! Get rid of them!"

All Heloise could do was sigh.

"Now for my other business. I've decided to expand my business. Miseryville just isn't big enough anymore. I've arranged a meeting with the mayor of a neighboring city discussing the possible construction of another factory there. There's plenty of room to build there; I plan just enslaving or destroying anyone who lives in the way. And what's more is that 'Factory B' is going to be even bigger than the old one! Just think, my name will be known everywhere! The infinite genius of my terrible inventions and torturous experiments will feared by everyone! No one will get my mercy! No one is safe from my wrath! Oh, it's going to be wonderful!"

Heloise quirked abrow. "And what about this other guy? I've never thought of you as someone who was good at sharing. Can you really work with him?"

Lucius huffed. "Of course I can! Or at least for as I have to. In time, when I have gained his trust, I will turn on him and take over the entire town! Miseryville will be bigger than ever!"

"Well, how do you know he won't turn on you?"

Lucius moved his attention to Jimmy. "And why would he do that?"

The blond shrugged. "I dunno. I just thought that, you know, you want to expand Misery Inc.; he wants to expand Misery Inc. You want to crush people's houses; he wants to crush people's houses. You two sound like you've got a lot in common. If you wanted to take over his land, wouldn't he want to take over yours, too?"

Heloise smiled and hid her blush. Rare moments like this when Jimmy used his brain were always gratifying ones. It made her feel like she was rubbing off on him.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Lucius' laughter. She looked up to the screen to see him leaning forward in his chair, looking very amused. "Who, Bob? No, he's a big softie! Why, I'm surprised he agreed to even have a meeting at all! Perhaps he's a bit dimmer than I thought and didn't know what the meaning of misery was!"

The old monster began howling with laughter. Heloise suddenly realized that they were starting to lead off track and decided to get back to the point. Her break was approaching, and she didn't want to spend it chatting about a sweet business man named Bob.

"Uh, Lucius? What does this have to do with me?"

Lucius stopped laughing. "What?"

"Well, what do you want me to do?"

"What do you THINK I want you to do?

"Design blueprints for Factory B?"

Lucius shook his head. "I've already got guys working on that."

"Come up with plans to over-throw Mayor Bob?"

"No."

She thought for a moment.

"...Finish the ray gun?"

"No!"

"Then what?!"

"I want you to speak with a therapist!" Lucius spat the words out at her as if she should have known all along. He had begun fiddling with a few of the papers on his desk casually when he noticed that the girl was looking at him as if he was insane. It took him a moment to register. "Bob's therapist!" He grunted, slapping his forehead. He heard Heloise 'oh' quietly. "I need you to talk to him about Bob's mental state. I don't want to be working with a nutcase and end up in a hole in his living room putting lotion on just because I didn't know what was wrong with him."

"I thought you said he was a softie?" Jimmy questioned.

"There are plenty of people in the world who seem to be okay at first and then turn out to be angry bears who's only wishes in life are to rise to the top, torture and kill people, destroy the planet, lie… Steal… Spend money on useless things… And ignore their boyfriends. Just look at Jez."

Jimmy chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Yeah, only I don't think Bob is going to be ignoring his boyfriend. Maybe a girlfriend…"

Lucius shrugged. "Who knows? He might be into that sort of thing. Plenty of people are these days, I mean, I've always had my doubts about Sammy. And what if he doesn't have a boyfriend and starts to hit on me? See? These are the things I need you to find out, Heloise."

Aggravated, the young monster felt her face start to go red. "Why do I have to do it? I've been working all month on this STUPID machine and STILL have to continue for WHO KNOWS how long because NOTHING I do seems to PLEASE you! I can't afford to waste any more time doing anything else! I need to get this thing done! The idiocy of the entire project you have been forcing me to build is driving me to pieces! I've completely burned out my fuse when it comes to this thing and, frankly, I just want to be DONE! LET ME FINISH THE DAMN MACHINE, AND THEN I'LL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! AFTER ALL, WHAT ELSE DO I HAVE TO LIVE FOR?!"

Lucius studied her calmly and chuckled. "Relax, Heloise. There's really no need for you to throw a tantrum. My, I never thought I'd see the day when you acted your age."

Heloise grunted.

Lucius took this as a sign of embarrassment and continued. "Did it ever occur to you that I may just be trying to get under your skin? That the color of the machine has no purpose at all?"

Heloise looked away. "Well, I thought about it, but –" She hesitated. After a moment her eyes grew wide and face went back to red."Wait… You mean I just did all that work for NOTHING?!" Her voice boomed and echoed off the walls with a crazed, maniac shriek.

Jimmy leapt back and watched in horror as her teeth became bloodthirsty razors and her eyes turned into vicious fireballs. "Heloise! WAIT! Don't hurt me, j-just calm down! I didn't do anything!"

Meanwhile, Lucius was laughing so hard he was crying. "Oh, oh, Heloise! Stop it! Ah-ha! Oh, please, I-I can't, oh! Ha, ha!!!As much as I love watching you rip Jimmy to pieces, I just can't take any more! Seriously, you're so funny!!"

Heloise looked up from Jimmy's wounded body and with pointed teeth asked, "What do you mean?"

"Oh, I was just playing with you. I really do want my death machine to be finished. And I want to repaint it. Make it anything but blue. Or red… Or pink… Or green… Or purple, black, grey, brown (Oh it better not be brown), or yellow (I will not accept that), orange, cream, peach, lilac, rose, or lily (Nothing with a flowery name),not white, not teal, not turquoise, I don't want anything shiny, not gold, or silver, or bronze… Oh, you know what? Just paint it whatever, I'll come back later and tell you if it's wrong."

He paused for another second in thought. "Just don't make it blue."

Heloise mentally slapped herself.

"But first," Lucius finished, "the therapist. I'll be arranging for a cab to come pick you up and take you there at, say… ten o' clock. I expect you to be ready to go when it gets here. Now would be a good time to prepare some questions. Try not to make them too obvious, we don't want him to think we're nosey. You are excused to go home and get ready. Just remember to be back here by ten."

"Yeah, fine, whatever." Heloise said, crossing her arms over her chest. She was about to leave when she heard Lucius speak once more.

"Oh, and Heloise?"

"Yes?"

"I've heard this therapist is very good. Don't let him get into your head."

She scoffed. "Huh, I'd like to see him try."

Lucius smirked. "Just be aware."

"CAN I COME?!"

"No."

"Please?"

"Shut up, Two-Shoes."

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To be continued.

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