Bab 1: Prelude 1 - Dave's life in Community
"So, your mysterious little brother you have never talked about comes over today and helps with the move?"
"Yes, Abed."
"And you said your brother's name is Dave, making him Dave Perry, who mysteriously has the same name as Dave Perry, the guy who has the 'A story by:' by-line in the credits of the Kickpuncher spin-off 'Kicksplasher'? Is it your brother's story that was made into the movie 'Kicksplasher'?" The young man named Troy next to this 'Abed' asked in an excited voice.
"Uh, I don't know. My brother used to doodle comics when he was a kid... maybe he sent one in for that movie? I only remember me sending one in to... Deep-Sea Comics?"
Greendale Community College, study room F, was currently home to a heated discussion between seven students. It was Friday and Britta Perry, an activist, cat owner, psychology major, photographer, and middle child of three siblings was currently doing her best to make sure her friends are cool when they meet her younger brother later in the day.
"Kicksplasher was released in 1998. You said your brother is younger, how old is he?"
"He's four years younger than me," Britta offered after Troy asked.
"So he would have been younger than 14 when he wrote the story. Did he already draw comics when he was that young?" Abed asked after counting the years in his mind.
"Well, there was this one time where he asked me to send something in when he was like twelve or thirteen I think, but I didn't know the address of this 'Deep-Sea Comics' so I wrote a random address on the envelope... hey, how do you know my actual birthyear? My driver's license I used to enroll is fake," Britta explained before getting upset when she did the math based on Abed's question.
"You did what?" Annie screamed when she heard Britta had used a fake ID to enroll.
"You deceived your little brother? That's low, Britta," Shirley interjected with a judgemental tone.
"Does he know you're a lesbian or do I need to mind my tone later?" Pierce threw in out of nowhere.
Jeff didn't mind any of that but uncharacteristically asked something the others overlooked so far, "So your brother is a failed cartoon artist because you sabotaged him at a young age? You britta'd your brother's life before you even dropped out of high school?"
"Ugh, no. Perfect little Dave skipped four grades and went on to finish his Caltech master's education as an engineer at age 19. He developed something from some comics in reality, and somehow, his patent got the attention of the military or something," Britta explained with scrunched up brows.
"DID YOUR BROTHER MAKE A REAL LIFE IRON MAN SUIT?" Troy screamed in excitement.
"You hid your comicbook-loving, nerd of a brother who made an Iron Man suit from us all this time, Britta? That's horrible," Abed interjected.
"Wait, if he skipped four grades, he would have been in your senior year. Is that why you dropped out of high school?" Jeff mockingly added.
"Oooh, so he's smart, creative, artsy and rich? Is he still single?" Annie asked with a shy smile.
"I sold a patent to the military, too. It was the early 80s, and they needed a new tactical wet wipe while fighting the Americans," Pierce boasted.
"Wait, you helped Vietnam while they fought the US, Pierce?" Jeff asked in disbelief.
"It was the 80s, Jeff. I needed the money. Plus, the Hawthorne tactical wet wipe was a disaster anyway. They would have probably won years earlier if they hadn't invested so much money into it."
"Hey guys! I need you to be cool later, okay? I'm kind of trying to get back on speaking terms with him," Britta shouted when she had enough listening to her friends completely derailing the topic.
"You know, I wanted to skip helping you move by faking an injury, but maybe I do want to meet that brother of yours. See what makes your family tick. Is he a miniature Britta? Maybe we finally get to meet the ten cats between the two of you," Jeff said with a smile.
"I only have two!"
"Why do you finally want to reconnect with your family? Did my speech about forgive and forget like Jesus would do finally manage to make the seed of faith bloom in your heart?" Shirley asked in a sweet voice.
"Wait, what would she need to forgive her super cool brother for? I missed that part," Troy mumbled dejectedly because he was out of the loop.
"Probably for hogging all of her parents' love and affection for being the smart kid," Abed analyzed. Annie, Shirley, and Jeff nodded along.
"HEY!"
"Yeah. Or was it some weird project for your psych 101 class that made you contact him?"
"Not cool, Jeff. I actually want to reconnect with him because..." Britta mumbled until the others could no longer understand what she said.
"Because he what?" Troy asked as he leaned forward.
"Because he..."
"Britta, you can't just stop saying words and only move your lips to pretend you're saying something," Annie admonished.
"He paid for the new apartment, okay? When he called a month ago, I told him I was inbetween jobs and he asked if I needed any help and when I said nothing he asked if I had enough money for rent and when I still didn't answer him out of shame, he said he'd buy a cozy apartment for me so I could live without worry! Are you happy?!" Britta shouted and stood up to storm out the study room.
"Huh, so he's rich and a nice guy? Can we kick out Pierce and get him in?" Shirley asked as she gave Pierce sitting next to her the stink eye.
"He likes comics, so I vote, yes," Troy immediately agreed.
"He might be the one to have written the story or a vaguely similar story that featured enough elements that would have cost them a libel law suit if the original writer of Kicksplasher hadn't added his name to the credits by accidentally opening a mail written to a random address that Britta made up in the late 90s. They say you don't want to meet your heroes, but I kinda want to do that," Abed spoke as he looked toward a fake camera for the last sentence, trying to break the 4th wall.
"How much money do you think Britta's brother made from that movie?" Troy excitedly asked as he looked at the same fake camera to ask the audience instead of Abed.
"'Kicksplasher' was never released in cinemas but was released as public domain two years after its filming because the director filed the wrong copyright claim when they wanted to rerelease the movie on DVD in the year 2000 after the VHS had sold 12,000 times after Blockbuster accidentally moved the comma by three decimals in a purchase order. So I'm thinking less than 10 bucks?" Abed suggested.
"So he's like a professional author and published script-writer?" Troy asked, excited as ever.
"I should show him the script I'm writing based on seven students of a community college forming an unlikely friendship starting as a study group for... French. They get into all sorts of shenanigans and hijincks together," Abed whispered.
"You can't just write a show based on our lives and sell it to someone," Pierce argued. "I want to at least write my own dialogue, you hippy! That would be my characters catchphrase: 'you hippy'. Get it? It's ironic because he's so young."
"I didn't base it on real life, I have been writing this script since I was thirteen years old," Abed answered in a no-nonsense tone.
"Don't ask any follow-up questions, guys! We already had the whole 'Abed knows the future and tells it in TV show episodes' plotline two years ago," Jeff interjected before the others could go on a crazy tangent once more.
"Uh, hey guys. I found this flier outside. Anybody care to tell me who this Ass Crack Bandit is? Or is the flier a joke? You guys think I'd be allowed to make a comic out of it?" A young blonde man in his mid-twenties, who looked suspiciously like Britta, asked as he knocked on the open door.
"Are you new? The bandit hasn't struck for almost a year now. Can't believe the fliers are still up for that. Who even made these wanted posters?" Jeff asked, and nobody but the young man watched as the young brunette in the room, Annie, twitched in her chair a little. Nobody answered before Jeff turned to the young man once more.
"We're kind of in the middle of something here discussing the move of another member of this group. You could ask anybody else on campus. Just don't ask Chang," Jeff non-offered as he turned to the young man with the Batman logo shirt and tried to shoo away the handsome blonde bloke who he saw Shirley and Annie give sparkling eyes to.
"Oh, I'm guessing you mean that small asian dude dressed up as a mall cop who tried to sell me a rape whistle outside because I was too handsome for this school?"
"Tihihi, you really should get one, Greendale isn't very safe for some good looking young man like you," Shirley spoke in her high-pitched voice and giggled like a shy girl, despite the weirdly morbid topic.
"We could share my whistle if you want~" Annie offered as she twisted her hair cutely.
"Is it just a leaf with a two page crayon drawing on how to use a leaf as a whistle, too?" Dave asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Wow, nobody's gonna say anything about how racist it was when he connected the name Chang to the first asian dude he saw on campus?" Pierce asked, but nobody paid him any attention until he muttered, "You call Chang's mother Ching-Chong once, and everybody loses their minds, but the blonde hunk gets to be racist all day."
"Uh, I connected it because I did ask 'Chang' where study room F was and he went on a ten minute rant on how nobody respected him and how F stands for 'failed dreams' and all kinds of other depressing matters. I thought he might be the campus lunatic," the young man defended as he scratched his left ear.
"Oh hey, wait! You said you were gonna help a friend move today? Are you guys Britta's friends? I'm Dave, her younger brother. Where is she?" The young man introduced himself quickly.
"Hi Dave, I'm Annie," the young brunette greeted after she sprung out of her chair to introduce herself with a bright smile.
"Dave, we're your biggest fans!" Troy shouted as he stood next to Annie.
"Are you the Dave Perry from the credits of the movie Kicksplasher?" Abed asked from next of Troy.
"I'm taking that as a yes to the question if you're my sister's friends. Hey Annie, nice to meet you," Dave answered before turning to Troy and Abed. "I don't think I've ever met fans based on a comic I wrote when I was twelve... I just mostly received hatemail because I was credited as 'a story by', and the movie got the worst rating for plot by critics ever. Still can't believe Britta convinced me she found the address of Batman's golden age writer, Bill Finger. In my defense, I wasn't allowed on the internet yet and didn't know he died twenty years before I was even born," Dave mumbled at the end.
"So mysterious brother none of us have ever heard of. Why'd you want to be in her life again? Need a kidney transplant or something?" Pierce asked with a raised brow.
"I heard of him before," Shirley mumbled, but it went unnoticed.
"Nope. I had nothing left to lose, so I finally stood up to mom and dad and decided I could be a better brother first after they disowned me," Dave explained with a carefree smile.
"They disowned you? Oh no, that's horrible," Shirley muttered with a distressed frown, but Dave simply answered with a shrug, "Jokes on them, my net worth is infinitely higher than theirs.'
"Heh, so he's poor after all," Pierce scoffed as if he won something, but nobody engaged with him either. Especially since Dave just said his net worth was 'infinitely higher' than his parents'.
"Nothing left to lose? Oh no, was the Iron Man suit a lie?" Troy asked in horror.
"Iron Man suit?" Dave tilted his head.
"The military thing," Jeff offered in help. He, too, was curious what Britta's brother meant.
"Ah, nono. A friend I made head of acquisitions in my company decided to sell my small start-up in a hostile takeover from another military supplier, thinking that he would benefit from it. Idiot got a degree from a community college, though, and forgot that the company was privately owned by me and me alone... so I got the full buying price they offered, and he was let go along with everyone else during the liquidation, taking with him a measly 4k severance package paid for by the company that bought mine. And the military patent wasn't really all that advanced like a full combat suit," Dave denied, and Troy and Abed were immediately dejected.
"I got a masters in material sciences after my bachelors in mechanical engineering and created Batman's utility belt in real life. Fully equipped with springloaded, collapsable, miniature versions of things like batons, knives, ropes, grapling hooks, and all that," Dave added with a shrug, "Now the military has full access to my patents, and I can't work on it anymore, hence nothing to lose."
"That is SO MUCH COOLER THAN AN IRON MAN SUIT!" Troy shouted while visibly shaking as Abed looked like he was about to faint from excitement.
"You two look like you want a belt like that? I can't give you the latest version, but I have a few prototypes of the first two or three iterations? It won't come with knives and batarangs, though," Dave asked with a tilted head.
"EEK!" Both of them actually fainted at the thought of receiving a Batman utility belt.
"Are they... is this okay? Do we need to get them to a hospital or something?" Dave asked in concern.
"This happened before, no worries," Shirley assured with a smile as she got Jeff and Pierce to pick the two up to lay them down on the couch next to each other.
"So nothing to lose. Does that mean you're not seeing anyone?" Annie asked as if oblivious to her two unconscious friends in the room.
"Oh, no. My fiancee left me for the acquisitions guy. She thought she was being super clever after I asked her to sign a prenup. Should have seen her face when the full amount was wired to me. Ugh, what were they even thinking? I could have even kept my company since none of them had any right to make a contract for the patent in the first place... but I saw the opportunity for it was. I could follow my dreams, end a toxic relationship, and the money was way more than I would ever need for one lifetime in the first place," Dave explained with a shrug.
"What are your dreams?" Annie asked, skipping over everything else as she batted her eyes at Dave.
"Hmm, that's kind of a question for a first or second date, no?"
"Hehehe, maybe~ Are you free this afternoon?"
Dave looked at Annie and opened and closed his mouth with furrowed brows but didn't say anything for a moment.
"Uh, I'm helping my sister move... afterward, maybe?" He suggested unsurely, but the girl missed all the awkwardness from the interaction and simply squealed and ran out of the room.
"Did she forget she was going to help with the move? And was that even a yes?" Dave asked, looking around to the others for help.
"Someone's moving? Who?" Pierce asked. Jeff looked a little unsure at the unfolding situation, and Shirley simply shook her head with a content smile.
A few hours later, when the last box was in the new apartment that looked way nicer than they all thought, Jeff and Britta included, Dave finally caught his sister alone in the kitchen for the first time.
"You know, I did say I was going to stay for a few days. Are you just going to dodge my line of sight and leave the room whenever I enter? Did you already plan to go get drunk and sleep at a stranger's house so you won't have to share the roof with me?"
"Hahaha, nooo... of course not! You must be imagining things!"
"Come on, I want to actually spend time with you. Could you tell me?"
Britta was uncomfortable but swallowed heavily and decided to address the issue.
"I feel like I'm using you for your money. And that was even after I ghosted you in New York... I made you out to be the bad guy, and that was despite the fact that it was never your fault that mom and dad seemed to like you more. You were struggling just as much as me, and I was a horrible sister to you," Britta half-screamed, half-sobbed as the words burst from her like a burst broken pipe.
"Wow, was it those guys outside who helped you become so open?" Dave asked with tears coming from his eyes as he regarded his older sister with a smile.
"Wait, what?"
Dave just stepped closer and gave Britta a crushing hug.
"I never blamed you. I just missed having you around. Growing up, I liked you so much more than our older sister Astrid. Or our parents. Please know that," Dave whispered once more, not answering her earlier question.
"Ugh, but why? I was such a bitch," Britta asked between sobs.
"You may not have succeeded as much as you planned, but you became your own person instead of what mom and dad wanted when they weren't getting wasted at a country club. You were my hero," Dave answered as he released the hug. "And heroes need someone to finance their whole hero gig for it to be succesful. So don't mind the money. I got enough for a few lifetimes. I bought a few bitcoins in 2009 and once more with the money I got when I first leased the patent and then I dumped half of them for a netprofit of 2960% a month ago."
"YOU WHAT?" Britta screamed.
"Hey, we heard screams! Did Britta find a spider?" Jeff showed up suspiciously fast and lifted his eyebrow when he saw both of them crying in each others arms.
"We heard something about heroes. What did you say? Were you discussing your favorite comic book heroes?" Troy and Abed asked as they both appeared from right behind Britta in the door behind them.
"YAH!" Britta didn't take that well and was startled by their sudden appearance.
"Huh, favorite hero? What are yours?" Dave asked the two and they immediately bumped their heads together to discuss their answer in muffled whispers.
"Top 3 starts with 3, Captain Crunch. 2 is Hobbs from Calvin&Hobbs, and number 1 is Superman," Troy proudly answered.
"3 is Batman, 2 is Spartan, the lovable undying cyborg of the WildC.A.T.s comics, made into a cartoon that only aired for one season before it was canceled in 1995 and 1 is Garfield's owner Jon Arbuckle. Very relatable," Abed answered almost at the same time.
"Cool answers, mine are probably Poison Ivy, Blade and Aquaman in the same order you said," Dave answered and Troy and Abed's smile vanished.
"Aquaman? And a Batman villain?" Troy asked in disbelief.
Abed turned to a non-existing camera once more. He took out his phone, opened the sound-board app and made a record scratch noise, "They did warn me to never meet my heroes. What a disappointment."
"Uh, you do know that did not actually stop time for your 4th wall-breaking commentary and I heard that, right?" Dave asked with a wry smile.
"Why place Aquaman on any list and why make him number one on a list that isn't biggest wet blanket?" Troy asked visibly upset.
"Hey, I'm a big nerd for fantasy based on real myths, the New 52 release for DC did him a lot of good, and had you asked me for my favorite manga characters I would have listed only OnePiece characters in the top 5 followed by Might Guy from Naruto on #6. Aquaman has a lot more potential to offer than talking to fish! So much Atlantis heritage left unexplored... Had my parents not planned out my whole life for me in drunken stupor I would have been either a marine biologist or a comic book artist," Dave argued.
"You are all wrong, obviously the answer to the question should have been Stripperella for 3," he grabbed his crotch, "and 1+2," Pierce interjected as he pumped his eyebrows and 'squeezed his boobs'.
"Isn't that the Pamela Andersen cartoon that Stan Lee made for her in the late 90s or something like that? And she fights crime with dildos and boobs?" Jeff asked while weirdly knowledgeable about the topic.
"What is a man-ga?" Shirley asked with a frown.
"Yeah, what is a manga?" Troy asked.
"It's the sushi of the literature world," Pierce answered, proud that he got the 'perfect' analogy for this occasion.
"Why is nobody asking why Jeff knows so much about that Stripperella?" Britta asked, but nobody listened, not even Annie, who would have usually jumped on that.
"Manga are the japanese equivalent to comic books and include a wide variety of genres and so called graphic novels, same as anime and cartoons. Most often these manga are not colored and only have special releases or the first pages in color. And sequentially, you read them from right to left instead of the western way of left to right. The manga Dave mentioned called OnePiece is a still ongoing manga that started getting released in 1997. It belongs to the 'shonen' genre and features the story of a young pirate trying to find the One Piece," Abed explained quickly while addressing Troy.
"He said 'colored' so often at the beginning. Is this manga thing racist or not?" Pierce asked with a thoughtful expression, briefly forgetting that he knew what a manga was thanks to one of his many ex-step-children.
"Pirates? Oh no, that's no good," Shirley whispered with a distraught expression.
"How do you know so much about this Abed? I thought you were only interested in TV and movies?" Annie asked with a raised eyebrow.
"There are japanese comics!? And they have PIRATES!?" Troy screamed while clutching his head. "Why has nobody told me!?"
"We probably should not tell Shirley that OnePiece has so-called Devil Fruit that give people super powers for the price of not being able to swim," Abed sagely added with no expression whatsoever.
"Oh lord! I should tell my pastor that we need to ban this... literature before it poisons our children," Shirley concluded while fanning her face with her hands with a horrified expression.
"That's the perfect price to pay, I don't know how to swim in the first place!" Troy shouted excitedly.
"You don't? But we went to the waterpark last year, I saw you ride down a waterslide," Jeff asked with a raised brow.
"Don't be a stereotype, Troy. Learn how to swim."
Everybody looked to Pierce.
"What? Stereotypes based on a learnable skill are the worst. Just learn the skill already! Can't be so hard to work without three siestas a day, mexicans! Just stop being lazy!"
Everyone nodded. Pierce didn't have a stroke. He was still Pierce.
"Huh, didn't you say you knew how to swim back when you guys had that sailing class, Troy?" Abed asked with a tilted head.
Troy looked to him and explained, "I wanted to prove a point because Shirley was being racist."
The group stayed silent at the ridiculous argument.
"Wait, what is this 'Might Guy from Naruto'?" Troy asked with a puzzled expression a few silent moments later.
"Naruto is a still ongoing manga based on the main character with the same name from 1999 and his struggles to become the leader of his ninja village by overcoming social stigma and gaining friends after getting ostracized his whole orphaned childhood while becoming a better ninja," Abed explained quickly.
The three women in the room 'awwed'.
"They have comics about NINJAS?" Troy shouted once more. "Today is SUCH an eMOtional ROLLercoaSTER!!"
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
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-- Power
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