Benny swung open his door, slamming it shut before leaping into his bed and pressing his face hard into his pillow. He screamed into the pillows and flailed, kicking and punching at his bed for a few moments, before he fell limp and simply lay in a heap. His eyes were red when he pulled his pillow against his chest and he turned to face his ceiling, dotted with glow-in-the-dark stars and moons and rainbows, and his small 4-point antlers rested against his headrest as he gave a shivering sigh.
"Stupid Eddy... his stupid hero person self, not letting me join him... I just wanted to help!" The boy almost punched his bed again, but let his arm flop back onto his pillow, giving it a squeeze. "Who needs him anyways... I can be my OWN hero! .... damn it... who am I kidding?" Benny reached to the side of his bed and found his iPod, scrolling through the menus before he finally began playing his favorite brooding song.
'Craaaawling iiiin my skiiiin.... these woooounds they wiiiill not' click.
"Or maybe...No."
click 'Heeeeeeal. Fe' click.
"But if I did..." Benny rubbed his arm over his eyes, the grey fur on his arm staining lines from his tears. He sniffed and looked across to his closet, which he knew was packed full of clothes. "If I did go out, I'd need a mask... and a costume." He scooted off the edge of the bed and opened his closet doors, looking at the rainbow of colored fabrics he had. His lips pulled into a little smile. "It would be fun either way...Hee hee..."
The young deer quickly hopped across his bed to change his IPod, putting on a bit of techno one of his many boyfriends had made, and then began pulling out outfits and tossing them onto his bed. For hours into the night the deer looked at himself in the mirror wearing different arrangements of clothes, trying to match his clothes to his new name... which he hadn't quite come up with. Obviously, Buck Naked wasn't going to cut it.
After trying on countless combinations of colorful clothing, the daring deer dared to dream the day had dawned when Benny could be more than just a great alliterator. Under the guise of the sun, he would continue to be the charmingly adorable high school student Benny, his grades held up by the brainiacs who wanted a few kisses, and his clothes bought by the jocks who needed more than their ego stroked. But when the light of day has subsided, and the moon shone bright its silver blanket over the city, he would be the Midnight Prancer! Hero... no... Villain! If Eddy's petty Watchdog wouldn't let him be one of the good guys, he'd be a bad one.
Benny looked at himself once again in the mirror, his midnight-blue mask stretched over his eyes and around and over his head holding down and hiding his grassy green hair. A white ruffled shirt crossed his chest, half open to show his well toned torso, and black sashed pants that hugged him in all the right curves. He stood for a moment and then fell back onto his bed.
"Too musketeer... Oh well. at least I have a mask and a name. What else does a villain really need?" His stomach growled. "A snack, obviously." Benny tossed his mask by his pillow and pranced downstairs, now awaiting the next night, when he would begin his reign over the city.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The sun dyed the sky crimson as Benny walked the downtown streets, his bare feet cool on the shaded sidewalk. The boy's shorts and tight high-cut "HotStuff" shirt hugged close to his body, his arms kept warm by the slightly over-large unzipped hoody he had 'borrowed' from Eddy's closet that morning. A dark red sucker slipped over and under the deer's tongue as he looked across the street, the sweet cherry candy reminding him constantly of his night's objective. The candy store.
Sure it sounded easy, like stealing candy from a baby and all that, but the owner of this store took two years of karate when he was in middle school! Benny had looked into it himself on the library computer at school. James Salsa, an extra long-eared jack rabbit from across the border, had run this store ever since his parents bought it when he was a little boy just learning english. He was well known all over the town as one of the best candy makers in all the state, but he had a dark past with Benny...
It made the boy cringe in the cold of the falling dusk to remember that dreadful day when Benny had last entered the candy shop. It had been almost a full year ago, on a chilly autumn afternoon just after school. Benny had been hanging around with a few cuties who thought it'd be so cool if Benny could steal some of the more expensive toffees. He knew it was bad to give into peer pressure, but Benny could always use a bit of extra cool stories to tell around school, so he snuck a few of the candies into his pockets, but he got caught. That's when James Salsa did the unthinkable, which stained Benny's life and reputation forever, and flagged the long-eared candy man as the Midnight Prancer's first victim... He called his mother and made him clean the employee bathroom and mop all of the floors until he had repaid for the candy he had tried to steal!
Benny's fist clenched inside of the large pocket of his hoody as he turned his eyes once again to the candy store. The sky was just turning a dark purple when the belly of the store's door rang for the last time that night, Mr. Salsa turning to lock the front door behind him before he went home. Benny quickly walked across the empty street and crossed under a dimply lit streetlamp, making his way towards the jackrabbit. He almost skipped as he sped himself up, catching the rabbit just as he was turning away from his shop, bumping into him as he 'tripped' over a bit of cobblestone.
"Eep!" Benny caught onto the man's waist before crashing to the ground, and as he felt the man's arms holding his shoulders he couldn't help but grin. He changed his expression, looking up at Mr Salsa with tears of surprise and fear in his eyes. "Oh, thank you for catching me, i almost crashed right into the sidewalk, i could have broken something!" Benny straightened himself, shivering with the small rush of adrenaline from the fall as the older man lightly patted off the boy's hoody.
"Are you alright?" Mr Salsa had a light hispanic accent, and he seemed genuinely concerned, but Benny knew of his greedy ways...
"I'm... I'm fine, thank you. I was just off to cut through this Alley and get to the ice cream parlor before they closed. Thank you again!" Before the candy maker could respond, Benny took a light prancing run to the alley and disappeared. The deer knelt behind a trashcan and waited, peeking to find Mr Salsa walking far down the road towards the light rail, which was almost loading passengers for its last round into town. Benny reached into his hoody's inner pocket and pulled out a neatly folded piece of black cloth, stretching it over his head and adjusting the holes over his eyes. He grinned as he pulled out of another pocket the keys he had just nabbed from Salsa's pocket when he tripped. "And thank you for these."
Benny quickly made his way to the back of the store and used the stolen keys to get inside of the candy store. The back kitchens smelled super sweet, like the walls were covered in syrups and papered with sheets of taffy and caramel, it was almost too much sweet, if there ever was such a thing. The masked deer zipped up his hoody and pulled the hood over his mask, leaving his eyes shadowed as he slipped behind the front counter of the dark silent candy store.
Benny... no... the Midnight Prancer scanned the room before falling onto all fours and crawling between the shelves of sweets. He knew that he possibly only had a short amount of time before Salsa came back looking for his keys, so he had to act quickly. He had planned his move all night and was finally ready to take his revenge on the bitter-sweet candy maker.
With a heavy grunt, Prancer pulled a large tub of cherry hard candies off of the front shelf, pushing it across the colorful tile to the other side of the display. Lifting a second tub, he replaced them with each other and backed away to grin at his work. Where the cherries had been placed with a large red and orange sign reading 'Super Fire Cracker Balls!' Benny giggled to himself in a hushed evil laugh.
Benny stood up behind the counter and noticed a bag of 'sour powder'. With a quick taste, the deer's face squeezed together in a tight pucker. "Brrreck! That's freakin sour!" The deer thought for a moment, and a new scheme grew in his head. He sneaked back into the kitchen and looked around until he found an open back of powdered sugar. With another evil chuckle, the deer dumped out the sugar into a trashcan and replaced it with the sour. Finally satisfied that the candy clerk would learn his lesson, Benny went back into the parlor to leave out the front.
As he passed the register, the masked villain froze. He looked back at the computer, noticing a corner of a bill sticking out from underneath. He looked around to make sure nobody was looking...again... and the pulled at the bill in sharp little tugs until it slipped free. His eyes went wide as his hand shivered as he took in what he had just found. "F...fifty bucks!?" Benny gulped and quickly slipped the bill into his pants, his pockets much too tight for any cash. He was beginning to sweat under the mask, wondering if the missing cash would make Salsa send the cops looking for him... but he was a villain now! He had to take that chance if he wanted people to know that he meant business!
Midnight Prancer left the store, his mask tight around his eyes as he locked the door behind him. As he walked into the shadow of a tree, he quickly pulled off the mask and folded it into the size of a wallet, pushing it back into the inner pocket of his hoody. He sighed, his heart pumping fast. A smile pulled at the deer's lips and he began to skip down the dark road, pulling out his cellphone to text his computer-nerd boy-toy to let him know that he'll be having a guest for a sleepover. He didn't want to be around Eddy back at home, in case the news of his successful crime his the ears of the Watchdog, and tempted the hero into investigations.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Not. One. WORD! Benny would scream if he weren't sitting in his math class actively not listening to his professor. He had read through two different newspapers and looked all over online, and there was not a single mention of his crimes! The deer bit his lips and pulled at his hair before taking a deep breath and opening up his notebook, completely void of any math problems but filled with doodles and sloppily sketched out plans.
The Midnight Prancer had been pulling crime after crime, almost every night, with no results! He had been pushing his limits with every crime, adding written warnings hidden at the crime scene, pranking high ranking officials at the school, making phone calls from their offices to order WAY too many pizzas, rigging the intercoms to play dirty rap music for ten straight minutes, and unlocking all the porn firewalls in the school AND the library! Not a WORD got into the newspapers about it!
Benny looked at his paper, noticing everything he had doodles and sketched, and he bit the eraser of his pencil. He thought hard, and his eyes drifted to the clock as he realized what it must be. His crimes were being noticed, every single one of them, but someone was keeping them out of the newspapers. Someone who knew that he would be watching for his spot in the news. Someone wanted him to give up his crime, to see that it wasn't worth it! Well, it wasn't going to work!
Benny gasped and giggled when he felt a note slip into his back pocket, and he turned to wink at the cute little ferret that sat behind him. Benny's math-genius glasses wearing boy-toy. The deer kissed his index finger and then dragged the finger down his chest and nodded gently for the clock, his little sign that he'll give proper thanks after class. Whatever drifted through the ferret's head was his problem, Benny's proper thanks was going to be a kiss on the cheek and a couple of kind words either way, as long as he got the notes for class and a finished copy of the homework the next morning.
As he waited for the bell for lunch to ring, the waiting villain pulled out his iPhone and began to check through his emails, at least a dozen usually stacked up during school from all of his boys wanting a little attention for the help they give him for school and shopping money. He barely began reading the starving emails when an announcement came over the intercom. The vice principal's weasely voice always gave the whole school a headache, but the announcement pulled their attention and every student on the grounds stared at the voice-boxes on the walls. Student body treasurer Amy Tacket and her brother student body vice president Jeffery, both straight A students, star athletes, and two of the nicest people in the whole school, have been suspended with possible expulsion pending?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
"But they didn't DO anything!" Benny didn't mean to pound on the counter, and he turned away a little ashamed but not sorry. He was angry and he knew this was all stupid and wrong!
Eddy sighed and scratched his head, the mutt plating up some rice and grilled chicken onto three plates. He had been listening to Benny's arguments for the past ten minutes as he finished cooking, but again he could only go back to his one sound argument. "Benny, calm down, please. It doesn't matter if you say they didn't do anything if you can't show any reason why it can't be true. It doesn't matter if I believe you or not, if you want to change something you'll have to look into this yourself and offer a reasonable explanation to try and sway the principal's decision." Eddy put the plates onto the kitchen table, pulling out Benny's chair and basically ushering the boy away from the counter and to his chair.
"But I tried to talk to the vice principal, and he was too busy to see anyone until next week, and by then it'll be too late. I talked to Sam, and he said that the student body didn't even say Jeff and Amy had done anything, that the vice principal just pulled the accusations out of nothing. It's not fair..."
Jace was just walking up the stairs, the stallion following his nose to a finished dinner. He had been half listening from downstairs, but didn't much care for Benny's drama. He pulled off his leather jacket and hung it on the back of his chair, sitting down topless, shamelessly showing off his toned torso. "Well, I think you should make like, a petition or something. The more people you can show are on your side, the more likely they'll listen to you."
Benny put his chin onto the table and pouted, staring at his plate as his two roommates began eating. "You guys don't get it... the vice principal doesn't listen to anyone. He just sits in his office all day and talks to his wife or jerk bowling pals on the phone, and brags to the office about his new car. When he says he's too busy it means he doesn't wanna do anything."
"Well," Eddy swallowed a gulp of milk and wiped his lips with a paper towel. "With that attitude, you're right. You'll never get anywhere unless you put your mind in the right attitude."
The deer glared for a moment at Eddy, but his eyes slightly crossed when he focused on the food in front of him instead. His head was beginning to work out a plan, and he finally grinned wide, picking up his fork. "You're right... I need to have the right mindset. Thanks Eddy!" Benny's plan began to unfold in his mind as he began to eat, his roommates just happy to have a moment of peace between the walls of drama. 'Hehe, the right mindset...' Benny though to himself as he looked over to Eddy, who he knew to be the Watchdog. 'If I can't get the vice to listen to me, maybe i can get him to listen to a few warnings given by the Midnight Prancer... I wonder if Sam still has his dad's tape-recorder...'
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Benny peeked over the rims of his thin oval-framed shades. It felt so wrong but soooo right walking through the empty halls of the high-school while teachers gave their lectures behind each classroom door he passed. The deer let his fingers drag over his jean pockets, feeling the outline of the bathroom, nurse, and press pass that he had picked up from Sam along with the small bulging envelope that he held in his other hand. Sam was probably one of the most useful boys in the whole school, the adorable little lamb almost too eager to help people. He was editor of the school paper, volunteered to be the nurse's assistant, and thanks to his closeness to the drama teacher he had keys to the stage and costume closet, which Benny had raided a few times for party clothes.
Benny made his way through the halls towards the main office, knowing he had only a few minutes before the lunch bell rang and he'd need to be in position. He flashed his bathroom pass to any teacher before they could ask where he was going, and just as the bell for lunch rang out the boy grabbed a newspaper from in front of the office door, folding it around the envelope from Sam, and then slipped against the wall. The office opened up as the principal and all of his loyal followers filed out to find the teacher's lounge, the door pushing towards Benny, the deer hidden and yet so close. Just as the last people left and the door began to swing close, Benny slipped around and inside. He heard the door click shut behind him, knowing that it was locked tight for lunch, and that he had about 20 minutes before the workers began to come back.
Leaving his mask in his back pocket for now, the Midnight Prancer made his first move in broad daylight. He walked towards the vice principal's office to look for evidence of Jeff and Amy's innocence when...
"Excuse me, sir, may i help you?"
Benny froze in his tracks and looked over to the help desk, where he was surprised to see a tall stork lade with tiny spectacles and beady squinty eyes. He looked at her confused before glancing down at her desk. "...Tupperware salad... again you foil my plans..."
"Excuse me?"
Benny quickly slapped on a smile and gave a light bow to the secretary. "Nothing, madam, only musing to myself. My name is Antoine Jac Cristosepe Smith, and I am just running a copy of tomorrow's paper to the desk of the principal for approvals." Benny held up the folded newspaper he had picked up from outside and flashed his press card, covering Sam's name with his thumb.
The secretary barely glanced at the newspaper, and didn’t notice that it was an old issue. She eyed the press tag, and if she were any more enthusiastic about her job she may have noticed the covered name. Heck, she SHOULD have made a quick call to the student newsroom. With their press tags being nothing more than printed and laminated paper, it would be all too easy for anyone to forge one themselves. Turning back to her salad, the stork waved a thoughtless wing down the hall. “Just leave it on his desk and see yourself out.”
Benny didn’t let his grin falter, as much as he wanted to cackle aloud right then. “Of course madam. Of course... I will be quick, and be out of your feathers.” With that, the deer almost skipped down the halls, passing by the principal’s office and slipping in right next-door to the vice principal’s. He almost lost his cool when he noticed that the door was locked, but took a deep breath and thought for a moment. He din’t have any lock pics, and he didn’t know how to use them anyways. The keys were probably with the secretary, so that was a no go. He couldn’t go through a window because it was the middle of the day... in frustration, Benny crossed his arms tightly across his chest and turned to lean on the door. He lost his balance when the door swung easily open, and he barely stifled a squeal of surprise and pain in his rear when he landed inside of the office. He quickly crawled further inside and closed the door, making sure it clicked shut.
It seemed luck was on Benny’s side, and even as he rubbed under his tail in pain he had to grin. He pulled the envelope out, tossing the newspaper into the trash without a second thought before tearing the thin paper with his teeth. He poured out the contents, a thin yet heavy pen, a small phone plug thing, a USB plug with no casing, and a piece of paper with instructions. Benny set his sunglasses to hang from one of his antlers and flipped open the paper, quickly reading as he fiddled with the instruments in his hands. The pen’s cap was pressed and twisted to open, and a small receiver was inside with two very small buttons on the top. He pressed in one switch while pressing another on the phone plug until a small light shone green on the receiver, and then did the same with the second button and the USB. With the equipment set to send and record all info to the receiver, Benny recapped the pen and slipped it deep into the vice principal’s desk. While it was on his mind, he checked the name plate on the front of the desk. “... Dave? Not much of a villainous name, but he’s a jerk anyways.” Finally, the deer unplugged DAVE’S phone from its handle, pushing the plug into the phone and then replugging it all back together. Lastly, he plugged the USB into the back of the large PC, pushing the tower back to hide the mini drive.
Benny took a step back and admired his handiwork before scrounging through Dave’s desk to find a lighter. He couldn’t have anyone finding the instructions to the gadgets he used, or they might, like, find fingerprints or recognize Sam’s handwriting! He held the paper to the flames, but then noticed a paper shredder in the corner of the office. It’d make a lot less of a mess than a fire... He shredded the paper and then slipped out of the office, holding himself high as he proudly walked out past the stork lady and towards a jelly sandwich and chips he had waiting with Sam, who deserved a big ol kiss for his help.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“Wow... seriously, Mike, you picked up all of that?” Benny stared at a large screen with highlighted conversations and numbers from the bed, a thin ferret with thick glasses sitting in front of him on a large rolling chair. “That’s kinda deep...”
“Matt.”
“That’s what I said, Matty, come on, get yer hearing checked.” Benny gave the boy a nuzzle on the cheek, making the geeky boy blush as he scrolled down the screen.
“Y...yeah... anyways, ahem, I went through the week of date you got to me from Vice principal Smith’s computer...”
“Smith?”
“Yeah, David Smith. You didn’t know his name?”
“I was just stuck on Dave, what kinda name is that for a politician?”
“he’s not really... well, anyways, it was a lot of data to go through, but most i just deleted. Lots of school work. The stuff i saved and highlighted seems off. I noted the time of the keystrokes when he started typing out the more interesting numbers and linked that to the audio recording you gave me from his phone, and i came up with quite a bit of dirt.”
Benny laid back in his boy-toy’s bed, hugging a pillow as he looked up at the ceiling in thought. “Hmm... What kind of dirt?”
“Well, first of all it seems that HE was the one who stole from the fund raising account, and not Amy or Jeff. He needed some cash to spot for a poker game that won him, eventually, his new car. At least the downpayment... he’ll be paying off that thing for years.” The ferret saved the files onto a katana-handle flash drive and popped it out to slip into the deer’s bag. “I don’t know how easily I can keep this all a secret though, hun...”
Benny’s ears twitched and he turned around on the bed until he could lean back to face Matt. “Wait what? I thought you said this would be an easy secret to keep for me...”
The ferret began to nervously polish his glasses, trying to distract himself from the growing blush on his cheeks. “Well I... I mean, I could, it’s just that... Well, i was hoping that maybe keeping my mouth shut would be enough for... Well, you promised me last time that if i helped you...”
Benny rolled his eyes before Matt could get his glasses back on. Of course he wanted that, who didn’t? But it was rare for someone to ask the deer to ‘pay up’ for his services. He turned and reached out, surprising the ferret as he pulled the geek into bed and straddled him. The deer was slow and playfully seductive as he took off the boy’s glasses and slipped them into his own pocket, leaning down to kiss at the boy’s cheek. “Matty, please... I know I said i wanted to play around for you doing sooo much for me... but I want our first to be really special... ya know? I don’t want to ruin it all, like with Bill...”
Matt had lost most of his train of thought, but was able to stutter out, “B...But i...I’ll be careful, and I won’t leave you... I don’t just want you for that, I...”
“Pleeeeeease Matty~? You’ve done me so much... just do me this one more thing. I promise that when we do... When we do, it’ll be the best thing you’ve ever ever felt.” The deer rubbed his cheek against Matt’s and let his tongue very gently drag over the boy’s lip, making him shiver and his eyes go wide. Benny leaned back and grinned, knowing he had won even before the ferret agreed. He soon left the geek’s house, after watching him destroy all of the files of info from the spying, making the thumb drive copy the only copy.
In the days to come, Benny would start to use that information. He made sure Daaaaaave was going to pay attention to him by slashing his new tires. His insurance should be able to cover that bit, but let’s see his dental plan cover ink in the coffee. When Mr Smith found the note on his desk, ‘got something in your teeth?’, it was too late, and the deer giggled as he watched the vice principal rush from his office to try to brush his teeth in the office bathroom.
When he got back from the bathroom, poor vice principal smith would find a new note on his desktop. It gave small examples of the evidence an anonymous someone had received and was now threatening to leak to the principal and the press. Evidence of stealing money from student fundraisers and an affair he was having with a poker buddy's wife was going to be the least of his worries however once he began to read the blackmailer’s demands. Unable to refuse the blackmailer with the obvious evidence he held, the vice principal was forced to allow Amy and Jeffery back into the school with a public apology, propose to the school board a field trip to the mall every year for studies of social behavior in a natural setting, suspend a small list of students who were a bunch of bullies and jerks to Benny and his friends, and even say the word ‘penis’ in his speech during the full school assembly.
Benny felt great as all of his demands were met, and he kept an eye on the vice principal from time to time, taking down a weeks of information and having Matt sift through it to make sure he was keeping his promises. Benny had Mr Smith under his thumb, and with the power that it have him, Benny felt that his first true crime as the Midnight Prancer was finally recognized in a veil of secrets. Maybe he wouldn’t be in the newspapers and maybe he wouldn’t become infamous as a person... but eventually, his crimes would become recognized in a string of unexplainable events. He would become elemental through the shadows of midnight, and his legacy would grow as he remained safely hidden behind his mask.
