Chapter Text
It was the middle of Friday afternoon, and Josh and Rebecca were killing time in between classes. These usually carefree few minutes seemed to be stressing Josh out.
“Man, I’ve been so caught up in — ” he checked who he was speaking to — “working the social game recently, it feels like I’ve forgotten how to chill!”
“Yeah, Josh,” Rebecca concurred, “You’ve been kinda high-strung for, like, a month.”
“But there’s nothing cool happening for like, two weeks! No parties at the middle school, no parties at the high school, no popular-people things to crash for cool points, even the Scene-mos aren’t doing anything! I mean, not that the Scene-mos would tell anyone they were doing something, but you get my point!”
“Sounds like you need a vacation,” Rebecca thought.
“That’s it! A trip! But where are we going to go smack-dab in the middle of the school year and nowhere near a break?”
“I mean, a vacation doesn’t have to be a long thing, Josh,” Rebecca noted. “It doesn’t have to be spring break or summer vacation.”
“Yeah, but have you ever taken a day trip and you spend like, half the time thinking about things you have to do when you get back home? I need a spring break, man!”
Suddenly, Simon ran around the corner. He seemed to have come a long distance, as he was slightly out of breath.
“Guys! Guys!”
“Whoa, Simon, what is it?” asked Josh. “And why do you look like you ran here from the other side of town?
“You won’t believe this, but you know Brian, one of our many popular friends from Cornbury High School?
“Of course!” Josh replied. “Doesn’t he live, like, a couple streets away from us?”
“Well, Brian hooked us up.”
“Brian hooked us up?”
“Brian hooked us up!” Simon repeated. “He scored us an all-expenses-paid trip to Dancefest!”
“What?!” Josh couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Dancefest, one of the biggest music festivals around? I thought those tickets sold out months ago!”
“And we have all access passes!” Simon dangled three flashy lanyards in front of them, their customized fronts bearing the names ‘Josh Carter’, ‘Rebecca Hewitt’, and ‘Simon Parker’.
“Wait a second…” Josh grabbed his lanyard and read the date printed above his name. “That’s this weekend!”
“I guess we should get packing after school!” Rebecca commented.
“Wait! What happens when we get there?” Josh asked.
“Brian has a friend who lives out there,” Simon explained. “He’ll pick us up off the flight and we’ll crash at his place for the weekend.”
“Don’t you think that ‘all-expenses-paid’ would include a fancy hotel room?” pried Josh.
“Imagine three thirteen-year-olds checking into a hotel room,” Simon claimed. “And Brian blew a lot of money on the plane tickets.”
“I mean, it’s not crazy, Simon,” Josh insisted. “There was a whole TV show about it.”
Without much warning, the bell rang, signaling that the next class was about to start.
“Crap, we’ve got to get to class,” said Josh.
“I guess I’ll have to give you all the details later,” Simon explained.
“Let’s meet up right after school and get everything figured out,” Rebecca proposed.
“Sounds like a plan,” agreed Simon.
A few periods later, the last bell of the day finally rang, signifying not just the end of the school day, but the start of what was sure to be an amazing weekend. Josh was looking forward to blowing the haystack that was Cornbury and getting away from all his problems — including the ongoing stress that was Superdudes. However, a particular blond-haired teenager seemed intent on not letting that happen.
Tyler sheepishly emerged from behind the next corner of the hallway Josh was walking down. He waved at Josh, in hopes of looking innocent and non-threatening.
“Hiiii, Josh…”
Josh sighed. “What do you want, Tyler? ‘Cause I know you’re not here to take me out for a froyo.”
“Mem and Zen want you to come to the Galacticus for training this afternoon,” Tyler explained bluntly. “Please don’t get mad at me, I’m only telling you what they said,” he added, as if he were bracing for the impact of some sort of verbal onslaught.
“Tyler, I know I really shouldn’t be taking my anger out on you, because Mem and Zen screwed you over too,” Josh explained, “but that is not happening.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m going on a vacation, with my friends, this weekend, without you.”
“What?!” Tyler was caught by surprise. “You can’t do that! What if we need you to stop a virus attack?”
“When have you ever needed me to stop a virus attack?” Josh asked.
Tyler counted on his fingers. “Seven. Seven times.”
“See? You guys can handle this.”
“I don’t think Mem and Zen will like hearing about this,” Tyler placed in his battle ball and held out his hand. “Hold me.”
Josh was stubborn. “I am not coming with you to the Galacticus — ”
“Just hold me!”
Tyler grabbed Josh’s hand and activated his battle ball. The two teleported to the Galacticus, where Memnock, Zenblock, Shope, Kevin, and the Roach were all waiting.
“Thanks for bringing Josh here, Tyler,” said Memnock. “That means everybody’s here at training for once.”
“Uh, no,” Josh objected. “Where’s Yolanda?”
“I’m right here,” said the indigo virus warrior. “I just came out of the bathroom.”
“There’s a bathroom on the Galacticus?”
“Well, where do you think we, uh…” Memnock decided not to finish that sentence. “That’s not the point. It’s nice to see that Josh is here for training — ”
“He’s not here for training,” Tyler clarified.
“What?” queried Zenblock.
“He says he’s going on vacation with his friends this weekend.”
“What? You can’t do that!” Memnock opposed.
“You’re not my parents,” Josh responded, “You can’t control me.”
“Do your parents even know that you’re going on vacation?” the green trainer asked.
Josh had been backed into a corner on that one. “…Well, I was just about to tell them.”
“At least take your battle ball with you,” Zen encouraged.
“No way,” Josh adamantly insisted. “And besides, there’s no reason to.”
“The virus has landed outside Cornbury before,” Mem informed. “Tyler can explain.”
“It happened once,” Tyler stated, “That was a weird mission.”
“’It happened once’? Really?” Josh was unamused.
“Yeah,” Tyler doubled down. “It happened once.”
“You never know if it could happen again,” Zen noted. “As a virus warrior, you need to be alert and ready to fight the virus, wherever it may arise.”
“But I don’t want to be a virus warrior! It was your mistake that made me one!” Josh reminded them.
“We were all mistakes, Josh,” Yolanda said sternly. “You should stop using that as your excuse.”
“How am I even supposed to get a battle ball through airport security, huh?” Josh argued.
“I don’t know, checked baggage?” Tyler suggested.
“You’re going on a plane?!” blurted Kevin.
“Well, duh, Kevin, I’m not going to get to this music festival any other way…”
“Wait — ” Kevin stopped him right there. “You don’t mean you’re going to Dancefest, are you?”
“Is there another music festival happening this weekend that I don’t know about?”
“How did you get tickets?!” Kevin wanted to know every detail. “I thought those sold out months ago!”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” teased Josh.
“Alright, you two,” Memnock broke them up. “Just… take your battle ball with you, please? You never know if you might need it.”
“I don’t even have the training!” Josh was, in some ways, losing this argument.
“Well, that’s your fault,” Zen noted. “If you came to training more often like the rest of the ‘noobs, you’d be prepared.”
“There is no way that I am bringing my battle ball with me on vacation,” Josh insisted.
“Do it and we won’t ask you to be here all next week,” Mem offered bluntly.
“You know there’s going to be a day when that stops working, right?” Josh asked.
“Have we ever broken our word on that before?” Mem argued.
He had a point — they hadn’t. If they said they weren’t going to call him for training, he didn’t get called for training. Those were surprisingly comfortable times.
“We need to stop offering Josh that,” Zenblock brought up. “That’s the reason he’s as terrible as he is.”
“Well, it’s not like he’s going to come anyway, Zenblock,” Memnock figured.
Josh seemed unconvinced this time.
“I’ll stop Kevin from asking about your vacation when you get back,” Tyler added, trying to sweeten the deal.
Josh’s yellow battle ball sat motionlessly in the corner of Josh’s cyan-blue luggage.
How was I convinced to go through with this? Josh thought to himself. Oh right, avoidance bribery. I really need to stop letting them do that. Buuut, not having them around is something I want…
Josh began wrapping underwear and socks around the ball, hoping its shape would become indistinct enough to pass by his friends unnoticed.
“Heyyy Josh! You getting your luggage ready?” Simon walked into Josh’s bedroom, Rebecca and two luggage bags in tow.
Josh suddenly crammed more socks in. “Oh yeah! You guys grab what you needed from your places?”
“Yeah, we’re set — Rebecca’s mostly packed at this point.”
“Alright, how about you guys raid my closet for a few more things while I get my bag figured out?”
“Sounds good,” Simon replied. The two friends opened the door to Josh’s truly massive walk-in closet and proceeded to explore its depths. The task was somewhat legitimate, and somewhat of a means for Josh to buy time to reconcile with himself as he began to pack in pairs of pants.
The virus-fighting yellow battle ball lurking behind the pairs of socks and underwear Josh was bringing along this weekend were still at the front of his mind, despite their obscurity at the furthest corner of Josh’s luggage. Its presence there was almost metaphorical; he was carrying some emotional baggage inside his actual baggage. A painful reminder that he could never truly get away from the Superdudes, no matter how much he wanted to; sure, he could ditch the ball for a few days and ignore their calls, but he couldn’t just throw it into a volcano, run away, and be gone with it forever. For one, there weren’t any volcanoes within a reasonable distance of Cornbury. All he could do is just hope he didn’t have to use it.
It’ll just be a formality, just a nuisance, Josh thought. There’s no way I’d actually need my battle ball at this music festival.
Not needing much to thoroughly convince himself of that, he closed his suitcase for a moment, joining his friends in the closet, looking for more outfits to fill out his bag.