Melvin breathed deeply the mid-August air, and sighed to himself in satisfaction. Finally, that horror of a summer was over, and he could get back to his rightful environment. Melvins weren’t made to withstand so much exposure to sunlight. He glanced at the school’s sign, which apparently had yet to be changed by two certain walking headaches that he was going to avoid thinking about for the moment. Jerome Horwitz Elementary: Krupp’s Back Baby! Mwah ha ha. With the school’s clean up budget, you could still faintly see the imprint of “Melvin Sneedly Elementary” on the top of the board, and Melvin fidgeted uncomfortably. Hopefully the months of summer would be enough for the school to move on from last semester, and everything would be back to normal. The less people that remembered that little incident the better.
As if just thinking about his future self summoned him, Melvin suddenly swore he could see a very familiar robotic eye peeking around the edge of the sign. Rubbing his eyes to dispel the illusion, which this clearly was , he was just seeing things because he hadn’t slept that well and he was thinking about his future self, that was the only solution, he looked back at the totally normal sign. The image did not go away. In fact, the hallucination only became more interactive, as a instantly recognizable face came around the side of the sign, and a robotic hand waved in his direction.
He staggered backwards as a voice -- his voice, there was no mistaking that-- followed the waving hand, “Psst. Melvin. Come over here”.
Checking to make sure no one else was around (he was a good hour early, as usual, so there wasn’t anyone), Melvin hesitantly walked behind the sign, crouching behind it and staring up at the cyborg with shock. And fear. What was he doing here? "Wah?! How are YOU here?” he whisper-shouted frantically, pinching himself to make sure he wasn’t having some strange vivid dream. The cyborg shot him an unamused look, but did not disappear, “I've vowed not to become you, I destroyed the timeline!” he said, truly shouting now.
"Shh, keep it down! I’m trying to hide here.” Directly in front of the school hidden by only a slim sign of wood and plastic? Melvin questioned, and there was no doubt that this was Melvinborg, back somehow. And yet… he wasn’t exactly the same, now that Melvin was really looking at him. Besides his wrinkled clothing and some frayed and exposed wires, there was something off about him. It was like, even though Melvin was looking right at him, he wasn’t actually looking at him . Like looking at a reflection or a hologram, he didn’t seem quite there .
“Anyway, yeah, you did do that” he continued in a level tone. Melvin recognized it as his own ‘lecturing’ tone, saved for dramatic reveals and overly-complicated explanations, “Funny thing about that though is that you only did it because you met me. So you don't become me, but I can't NOT exist."
Despite his lingering shock at the situation, Melvin did find this intriguing, at a theoretical level. With a studious expression, finger tucked under his chin, he considered, "Ah, of course, you became a paradox. You can't not have ever existed, otherwise you would be unable to never exist".
Melvinborg threw up his arms in annoyance, "...I just said that".
The younger shrugged, “Well, to a certain extent we are still the same person. It should be no surprise that we’d come to the same conclusions”. Looking over his once-self’s semi-tangible form, he was filled with a morbid curiosity, and despite himself he asked, “So how does that work, exactly, with you being a cyborg and all?”
He grimaced, awkwardly rubbing at the back of his head, and replied, “Eh, not that well. Turns out that screwdrivers are hard to come by in the void of non-existence. Makes it hard to do maintenance” he gestured to the tangle of wires that stuck out of the box on his robot chest, as his form faded out and then back in again.
“Hmm, I see.” He thought on this for awhile, getting lost in the theories and technicalities that a being separate from any timeline would entail, before he realized that he was getting lost in the weeds, and that there were bigger problems with all this at the moment, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, if you didn’t even have the tools for basic upkeep, how are you here right now?”
He grinned sardonically at that, “Actually, for once I have other people’s idiocy to thank for that. Turns out there are plenty of lesser minds feebly attempting to make time machines of their own. Some fools managed to lose an entire half-functioning time machine. It was...rudimentary, but I made it work. All I needed to do was--”.
Melvin knew himself well enough (and Melvinborg was regrettably still enough of himself), to know a scientific monologue when he saw one. He swiftly cut him off, with an unfortunately familiar, “You know what? I don’t want the details anymore. Just, why are you here, you monstrous mistake in the timeline?”
Despite looking annoyed at being cut off, he answered, “Oh. I’m here to get you to destroy George Beard and Harold Hutchins.” He couldn’t--or didn’t bother to-- keep the venom out of his tone when he said their names, but other than that he was pretty chill about asking his once-past self to murder two children (again).
“I refuse” Melvin replied instantly, turning away from the reminder of all he didn’t want to become, with his arms crossed defiantly.
He jumped when Melvinborg moved back into his line of sight, and he had to do a double-take. He didn’t even see him move, was this just a thing he could do now?
“Oh, come on” Borg argued angrily once he was a little more solid looking, and clearly no longer caring if anyone saw him, as he stood up in the path just outside of the school, “It’s no great loss, I assure you. You would feel better if they were out of your life, permanently”.
Melvin didn’t bother turning away again, even though he wanted to, and settled instead for an accusatory point at the murdering psycho, “I told you, I’m better than that. That’s why I saved them last time”.
Even half-blinking in and out of existence, the smirk on his face was clear, “And how has that decision worked out for you? I’m sure they’ve been nothing but the best of friends towards you. No betrayals whatsoever”.
Melvin fidgeted uncertainly at that, “W-well--” he stammered.
The smirk turned up at the ends, becoming a little crueler, “Let me guess. Camp was as awful for you as it was for me, anyway. Even with your little ‘redemption’”.
Even though the words hit uncomfortably close to the truth, he re-crossed his arms and huffed, trying to maintain a picture of self-certainty, “You wouldn’t know that. I’m not the same as you, things easily could have gone differently than you experienced”.
“Come on, I know that you’re lying, that’s me lying. It was awful, wasn’t it? And all because of those double-crossing, pranking, immature neanderthals that you chose to save.” Melvinborg started pacing furiously, body erratically blinking in and out of focus, “They won’t like you just because you’re ‘redeemed’. They’ll only betray you, time after time. Come on,” he turned to the younger Melvin, with a (in a somewhat more messed up way) less cruel and more genuine smile, “We can kill them, or get them lost in space-time (as a random, non-specific example), and then your life will be a lot happier”.
“You mean your life will be happier” he retorted.
“It’s the same thing, we’re the same person” Melvinborg parried right back.
“No we’re not. The fact that you look like that proves that we are not as similar as you think”.
“Ok, fine, cards on the table. If you destroy George and Harold, not only will it make me personally very happy, but then it will potentially fix the timeline and I’ll exist again!”
“You have no idea that that’s how it works. Just because I would kill them still doesn’t mean that I would become you. In fact, I think this whole venture just decreases the probability of that happening exponentially.”
“What ever . I just want them gone either way. If you do it, maybe I’ll exist again, so that’s obviously preferable. But I’ll do it myself even if you don’t”.
He paced quicker, gesturing violently as he talked, his robotic eye glowing a threatening red,
“They ruined our lives with their stupid pranks and schemes. Betrayed and used us again and again. Made fools out of us despite our clearly superior intelligence. They kept us from our dream school--for me twice! Don’t you want vengeance against them?!”
“Maybe a little bit, but I don’t want to kill them . If I need vengeance, I’ll build a robot or something”.
“That’s not enough! They’ll just keep doing it, and they’ll only get worse. I mean, they even turned you against me, and left me rotting like this .”
Well that just killed the bare thread of common ground he had managed to build. “You did that yourself ” he shot back, “For asking me to murder my classmates!”
“No! It’s their fault!” he accused, and he added under his breath, “and also yours but since you’re me, I can’t exactly get revenge for that”.
“Anyway, with or without your help I’m getting Melvindication”.
Huh, wow. Did that phrase sound that stupid when he said it? He thought it was cool, clever, and threatening, but listening to Melvinborg it just sounded childish. And Melvinborg wasn’t the elementary schooler here!
“No, I will not help you. That is my final answer”, Melvin turned his back on his future self and headed into the school. With his interference Melvin was now only 45 minutes early instead of his usual hour. If he bothered with this any longer he would be a mere half an hour early, and he was not starting the fifth grade with such underachieving.
“I’m getting my vengeance either way” Melvinborg shouted after him, despite Melvin’s efforts to ignore him, “George and Harold will pay for everything they’ve done. You’re lucky that you’re me, otherwise I’d get revenge on you too, you traitor”.
Melvin just rolled his eyes. Melvinborg’s plans usually backfired and failed when he was fully existent. In his current state he was hardly a tangible threat. Ha! Void burn! Melvin would deal with this if it became an actual problem. For now, he was going to class. He pushed open the door, leaving a seething ghostly glitch of a person behind him.
“George and Harold even managed to turn me against me! Oh, they’re so going to get it”. With that, he vanished. But he wasn’t gone, not by a long shot. Melvindication would be his, one way or another.
George Beard and Harold Hutchins were in the hall near their lockers, having an animated conversation. George was the one on the left with the tie and the flat top and Harold was the one on the right with the tshirt and the bad haircut. Melvin Sneedly remembered this, of course. In fact, George and Harold had been most of what he had thought about during the unknown timeless period he had spent in the void outside of existing, between writing declarations of hatred for them in his head, to envisioning all the ways to destroy them. Now that he was finally back and glaring at them, he decided what he really felt like doing was grabbing them by the back of their shirts and shaking them around. Having them at eye level for his monologue would be nice, too, maybe he could finally get an expression out of them other than mockery and snark. He never got respect out of them when he was the principal, maybe he could get some fear out of them when he was their enemy.
He lunged for George’s shirt collar, and stumbled when his hand just went right through it, as if he had been trying to grab smoke. The world around him turned black for a moment as he lost his grip on reality. “Buttermilk biscuits!” he screamed into the empty space, “I’m still not fully tangible!” How had he not noticed that before now? How did he only just now realize that he couldn’t feel any weather, or smell any scents while he had been back at the school? Groaning in annoyance, he concentrated on getting back to the real world, and couldn’t help but sigh in relief a bit as he was soon able to once again see the drab hallways of Jerome Horowitz. (Not that he had doubted that he would be able to come back, of course. He knew what he was doing.)
The halls were now completely empty, as class had obviously started. He wondered how long he had been gone, and glanced around the walls for a clock (his internal chronometer had become completely useless as soon as he had been kicked out of the timeline). It was already 10 am. In just that moment he had skipped by an entire two hours!
“Well, this won’t work” he grumbled to himself, “I can’t achieve anything while I’m in this state! I need to get existing again”. He vanished once again, leaving the hall empty behind him.
