by Anchor Boy
"Yeah", he said as he scratched the back of his head absently. "She finally went to sleep, so I left her and mom to rest. Figured I'd see if anything was going on tonight."
Furball looked at Dev questioningly, and made a low inquisitive grunting sound.
"Yeah, go ahead, Just be quiet when you go in." Dev watched as Furball ran down the hall towards Devs family quarters. "He likes to watch the baby sleep, and I usually find him curled up by her crib every morining anyway. He's really good with her, and she thinks he's great. Still thinks he's a pet, but he doesn't seem to mind, even when Sharky teases him about it."
Shady smiled and laughed. "He's a good guy. Any luck on figuring out what happened to turn him that way?"
"No, unfortunately." Dev said as he took another seat in the room. "I found him like that, never seen any change except for his ability to talk. Which comes and goes."
Shady turned back to the monitors. "He seems pretty devoted to you and your family."
"Yeah." Dev looked at the monitors as well. "Ever since I found him, and took the year trying to figure out his background, he's been like a sidekick of something. Even though he's a hero in his own right. I think he might have had kids where he came from, and thats why he's so taken with the baby. "
"Nothing going on tonight?" He asked glancing over towards Shady.
"Nope" Shady said. "It's been quiet since I took over from Loser earlier tonight."
Beagle Boy came strolling into the monitor room. "Hey there guys", he said as he presented a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies to them. "Thought I'd come keep Shadyy some company for a while. Figured she's like some cookies as well."
"Thoughtful as always Allen." Shady said with a huge grin on her face. She reached for the plate and took two cookies. Dev took three, and said thanks. Beagz pulled up another chair, and sat down.
"Hey Dev" he said as he sat, "I've been wondering something about you for a while now."
Dev looked back at him, with a questioning look on his face. "What's that Beagz?"
"Why do they call you Anchor Boy when you don't normally go by that name?"
Dev looked at Shady, then to Beagz. Both had an interested looks on their faces. "Great. Uhh, well. Did Loser send you in here to ask me this?"
"No", Beagz answered with a perplexed look on his face. "Is it a problem?"
Dev looked at him and smiled. "No, not really. It's just a kinda weird story. It started back when I had only been with the LMBP a few weeks."
<Dev tells the story:
Grey Bird Boy was on monitor duty when the call came in from the Uflyum shipyards. It seems that there were several youths breaking into the cruiser yard and trying to hotwire cruisers to go joy riding in. They had been trying to catch the them for weeks, but had not had any luck. The kids were breaking in at different times during the night, and at different areas of the yard.
They called us to see if we could help out. Furball, Loser and I were the only ones available, or at least awake enough to go out there and check it out. We figured that the easiest thing would be for me to imitate one of the night guards. Furball decided that staking out the maintenance garage in the middle of the yard would be the best vantage point for him. He hid in the garage with the guard dogs, who he discovered he could comminucate with.
Loser was at the office dealing with the owner of the yard, trying to insure him tht we wouldn't make too much of a mess, and trying to pick up the secretary that was still in the office.
It was a couple hours into the night when the five kids hopped the fence a couple yards behind me. Furball let out a big growl to let me know that they were in, and to let Loser know that we were ready to get the kids. What happened after that took about ten seconds. There really wasn't a lot of time to think about what had really happened until afterwards.
Three of the teens jumped into a cruiser, one of them went for the hood, and the last went to un-hitch the cruiser from the doccking port. Furball raced from the garage towards them. I turned and ran back at them. Loser ran back in from the front office towards where we were. Furball growled ferociously at them and jumped so that they had to duck down further into the cruiser, and cause the one behind the cruiser trying to unhook it to look up. He also was able to grab the one kid that had started the cruiser, and had just closed the hood. This action bought Loser and I enough time to converge on the scene from opposite sides of the yard at almost the same time. Loser was a couple of seconds further away than I was when I got to the point where I could do anything.
Loser, while running toward the kids had primed his loser power to use on the teens. Once he reached range to do this at the same time I jumped toward the cruiser to grab the rear bumper to hold it into place. Unfortunately, I jumped right into the way of Loser's barage on the kids, and it had some unforseen consequences...
"What happened then?" Beagle asked as he munched on a cookie.
Shady smiled at Beagle. ""It wasn't that bad hon. Dev just..."
"I'll tell you what happened" Loser Lad said/interrupted as he walked into the room.
Dev looked at him and shook his head. "Couldn't stay away from this one could ya Loser?"
"No way Dev, it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen." Loser said as he grabbed a cookie off the plate and took a big bite. "Well, do you want to finish telling him what happened, or do you want me to?"
Dev looked at Shady with a 'help me' look on his face, and it was all she could do to not laugh.
Dev looked from Loser to Beagz, and went on "Alright then. As you know, I'm only part Durlan, and that fact combined with my natural invulnerability limits my shape changing ability to impersonating other people."
"Right" Beagz answered as he offered Loser another cookie.
"When I dove for the cruiser, Loser's power hit me instead of them. When I grabbed onto the bumper of the cruiser, my mind was set on anchoring them down. Not changing into anything. Just making sure they didn't get away. Having to anchor them down was the only thing I could keep in my mind when Losers' power hit me. I literally turned into a giant anchor."
Loser started laughing and said "I was in total shock. I had no idea that my power could do that to someone. He was a real anchor. I looked at him, his hands had turned into a clamp on their bumpers, and his lower body filled out the rest of the anchor. It was hilarious. I just started chanting 'Anchor Boy' over and over again."
Dev looked at him and started laughing himself. "The worst thing is, it took me over an hour to get back to normal. Furball had to drag the kids to a holding cell, then carry me back to headquarters."
"Where was Loser?" Beagle asked.
"He was making sure that the secretary was alright, and not hurt at all in the non-combative situation." Dev said, looking from Beagle to Loser.
Loser looked at Beagle and Said "Dev and still change into the anchor if he wants to, but it takes longer now to change back. Go on, show him Anchor Boy...". He then turned and ran from the room laughing hysterically. Dev got up and ran after him mumbling something about anchoring him to the bottom of the pool.
Beagle got up to look out the doorway to see if something was going to happen.
Shady came over and put her hand on Beagz shoulder. "Don't worry about Loser, they're too good of friends for Dev to hurt him too bad. Although Loser did limp for a few days the last time they did this."
They turned and sat back down to watch the monitor board. On one of the Monitors, they saw Loser running frantically through the garage. Dev was right behind him.
"You sure that he won't hurt him." Beagz asked.
"I'm pretty sure" Shady said.
Surprise came over both their faces as Dev tackled Loser, and started dragging him towards the gym area.
"I better go try and stop him, he looks really mad" Beagz said as he got up and headed out the door.
"Yeah..." Shady said with a concerned look on her face.
Beagz tore out of the door towards the gym, as Shady buzzed the gyms intercom and said "Boy's, Beagle is on his way to put a stop to this." She smiled as she put her hands behind her head.
"Shady?" A voice said from behind her. "Is everything all right with them?"
Shady turned to see Adrianna standing in the doorway. Adrianna was still relatively new to the LMBP, having only been there about a month.
"They'll be alright dear." Shady said with a smile forming on her face.
Her morale power slowly ebbing out towards Adrianna and calming her. Dev and Loser can be a bit rambunctious at times, but they hardly ever even cause to much damage. Although there was the one time...maybe we should go check on them" she said with a slight look of concern on her face."
They began walking towards the Gym. Adrianna looked back towards the Monitor Room, and asked "shouldn't someone stay in there?"
Shady smiled and showed her a hand held monitor that was cycling through various rooms, and channels. "It's the portable version for situations like this."
They opened the gym doors and saw Beagle sitting next to the pool. He had a slightly distant look in his eyes.
Adrianna ran over to him. "What happened? I saw Dev chase Loser out of the room, and by the time I got to the monitor room, you were racing away. I heard everything that went on. Is everyone all right?"
Beagle looked at her, and said "they're through there." He pointed towards the far doors.
"Doesn't that lead to the cafeteria?" Adrianna asked. She was still trying to get a handle on how everything was laid out.
"Yes" Beagle said. "I'm worried that they'll end up in the kitchen again, and destroy my stuff."
"C'mon" Adrianna said, as she started moving towards the doors. Shady helped Beagle up, and they followed quickly after her. They all reached the doors at the same time. The doors flew open as they burst through, Adrianna leading the charge.
In the room they saw Loser and Dev standing there with the rest of the LMBP members that were in the headquarters.
"SURPRISE!!!" They all screamed in unison.
Carrina and Beagle stopped, and were perplexed. Neither one had any idea what was going on. Shady kept moving to take her spot next to Loser and the rest of the group.
Loser looked at the two of them through one black eye and said, "This celebration is two fold. Carrina, we never had a proper welcoming party for you when you joined, so here it is. Beagle, my friend, your culinary wonders have come from the temporary kitchen long enough. It's with great anticipation of treats to come that we present to you, the new LMBP Kitchen."
The doors at the other end of the room flew open, and Beagle saw the kitchen of his dreams. "You guys are the best" He said, holding back a tear.
Carrina looked at Dev and Loser. "This whole thing was a put on?" she asked.
"No" they both said as they walked towards her.
"Let us explain", Loser said. "We had the whole thing planned. Dev would distract Beagle with his story."
"While Loser went to bring you down to the cafeteria when the time was right." Dev said.
Shady walked over and spoke up herself, "the only problem was that these two can never tell the story of how 'Anchor Boy' came into being without getting into some kind of little tussle. It just happened to work out all right. I had to alert the boys that Beagle was on his way."
Dev spoke up "We moved our 'fight' to the cafeteria, knowing that Beagz would back off. Unfortunately, I happened to give Loser a black eye in the process." A grin moved across his face.
Loser looked at Dev and raised an eyebrow. "Sure it was an accident. Anyway..." he said looking back at Carrina, "I was supposed to get you, and bring you over at the same time Dev brought Beagle over. That responsibility fell to Shady when Dev couldn't let go of his embarrassment, and had to go after me again."
"I'm not embarrassed, per say, It's just that you never let a chance go by without harassing me about it. I'm sure I'll hear about it for a while now that it's been brought up again."
Shady shook her head, and looked at the perplexed Adrianna. "It's alright dear, they're like this all the time. Always looking for ways to harass each other."
Adrianna smiled. She looked at Shady questioningly and asked "Did you use your moral boosting power on me?"
"Yes dear, but only enough to keep you from getting too worried about these two. They've given me enough gray hairs over the years, and we don't want that for you."
"You guys didn't have to do this for me" Adrianna said with an embarrassed look coming over her face.
"We wanted too" said Lash walking up holding a tall glass of some concoction of hard liquors. "Besides, we need every chance to party we can."
Beagle walked over and looked at Dev. "So was the story true or not?"
Dev looked at him and said "Enough of it was."
"IT'S TIME TO DANCE!!!" came Cobalt�s voice over the p.a. system.
Lucien, standing at the sound system, threw 'Dancing Queen' into the cd player, and the party really got going...
<the end >