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It’s bewildering how most Mount Rageons - criminal or not - are so blind to their own self-righteousness. In fact, I’ve met too many of those Rageons, Veneer suddenly feels ultra normal in comparison.
Because those nutcases will commit everything in their might, regardless of legal liabilities, just to prove that they’re better than actual or proclaimed criminals… only to become convicts themselves.
Less than a month ago, me and the whole team ended up having to seek help from the royal family’s most trusted legal consultants after a recent film award ceremony on live broadcast. Because? Many Rageon kids got filmed on camera without consent just for this sleazy documentary film producer to make a one-sided picture from unsuspecting children, who weren’t even born during Velvet and Veneer’s heyday era.
Including FJ & Sparkles, who were at the same kindergarten he was filming undercover as a random reporter… Holy shit, in retrospect that towering guy in the suspiciously long trench coat shouldn’t have been allowed into any vicinity full of children!
Besides, asking any innocent child about “what do your parents feel about frauds?”… that’s a question that the same kid is going to parrot whatever disdain they have for the fallen superstars - one being F&S’s mother and another one of them being my redeemed friend. Kids who are of school age aren’t going to have well-informed judgments about people who have made mistakes before their births… Of course one of the filmed children (the one sitting on the classroom’s carpet) replied, “Oh they hate frauds!” without the realization that they had been filmed as unsolicited social test subjects!
Thankfully, the award-winning documentary itself is the same downfall for that producer. Because he didn’t bother blurring any of the faces, which gave us the opportunity to use that fact against him in court. As much as the court fees were high, our reimbursement for effectively winning the case was even higher. Veneer was cheering like world peace had been achieved, on the day when we strutted ourselves - one Troll (myself) and four Rageons - out of the courthouse.
Thank goodness that Crimp was being sensible this time, having used a pixelation clearance and enhancement app she has invented to support our evidence by fixing visual issues deliberately implemented by that crook, who had his jaws dropped when Crimp used his own tactics against him.
We were celebrated as heroes for those children (even though they wouldn’t be aware that they had been saved from a weirdo who had violated their privacy, but we weren’t asking for additional credit points anyway), while the angry producer was being dragged into the police’s vehicle for detainment, despite his furious resistance.
There has been a lingering sense of me feeling awful that me and my good pals of sensible Rageons had destroyed his career - after all, he had helped expose an abundance of celebrities who had been committing crimes such as the typical tax evasion to hoarding very age inappropriate… things behind the scenes. So when Ven and I were at the mall and about to meet up with the rest of the gang - FJ & Sparkles kept begging us to try some new smoothies, I found a nearby melancholic janitor near the bins rather familiar with that pair of rectangular glasses…
‘It had to be HIM .’ I told myself mentally.
“Oh Floyd, you wanna cheer up a miserable janitor?” Ven was intelligent enough to decode my nod, and allowed me to do my deed. “Okay! We’ll be sitting at the table that looks like a couch over there! We’ll be waiting for you, and we can order for you later then!”
Therefore, here I am. Striding on top of a couch-shaped seat to meet eye to eye with that janitor I recognized - in that tacky combo of chartreuse complexion and lime yellow hair meshed with that dull, sad-looking dark blue janitorial uniform, accentuated by the set of cracked rectangular glasses in a dark purple frame.
“Mr. Brance. Do you have any remorse for what you have done?”
“Oh I remember you! You’re the Troll who got lucky with cheating death, but instead decided to get infected with Stockholm Syndrome by sympathizing with that fraud Veneer and now having joined his aid in turning most parents against me!!” After a short lurch upon noticing me when he’s about to wipe the seats, the former producer-rendered-janitor still has the spunk to play the blame game. (I really had too much faith in him…)
“First thing first, Mr. Brance. Any sensible parent will be rightfully enraged at their children being put under the spotlight without being asked, especially when kids don’t have the knowledge to fight back for themselves if they want to maintain their privacy.” I remain fearless, my stance unwavering.
Brance snorts, his shamelessness teeming from his haughtily huffing nostrils. “I thought you would praise me for being a righteous oddball saving my own species from having more crimes each year. My documentaries are all about shitting on shitstains like Veneer. You’re a victim. You deserve better, Floyd.”
Wow, so he does have an incorrigible god complex… Truly irredeemable, I must sadly admit to myself. I feel like my eyes falling out from my sockets out of sheer disdain aimed at him.
“Being a victim myself doesn’t equate to me flouncing my innocence, when Veneer was also a victim through committing crimes he had regrets over and being mistreated. In hindsight, all of your films are about promoting social segregation on people who have sinned that also want to turn around.” If I had a diagram chart prepared in hand, I would’ve shoved it in his obnoxious face about how his arrogant actions have contributed to homeless ex-convicts post-release (with all those citizens having absorbed his every propaganda on ostracizing released inmates).
Vividly playing in my head during this heated conversation is a memory of how once Ven and I with the rest of the gang were on a mission to allocate homeless in Rageous to shelters for free. One disheveled middle aged lady was tearing up and thanked us, because quote her own honestly tragic words “My family decided that Brance the Director’s documentary on how homeless ex-convicts would steal their family’s money was the correct adage, so they locked the doors from me after I got arrested for petty theft… I wish I hadn’t gotten reckless over a piece of overpriced gum…”
Brance scornfully huffs again, this time vaping a weird chemical smoke out of his mouth deliberately to shut me up. (I would’ve been suffocated, had my hair not shield me to cushion the wafts of gross, billowing smoke.) “So what? I became a directorial producer to be awesome in social critiques. I thought Trolls like you had more sophisticated tastes than my kind. Except you supported Veneer in turning me into a ”
I sometimes wish Ven didn’t reach out an olive branch to this ungrateful dick on pleading with the supreme judge and the rulers (Marvel and Zircon included) with changing Brance’s sentence from jail to community service… Because from the outlook now, Brance is deliberately clueless to how Ven surely had spared him from a jail that has yet to rat out all of the rotten, power-tripping guards.
“You are lucky that Veneer isn't a violent-loving murderhobo, or you would’ve been prosecuted by an even worse person.” I attempt my hardest not to groan, while having my arms crossed.
“Well. For a pacifist like him, he’s too soft to raise children. Those two tykes - Prince and Princess I think - should be placed under the limelight. That’ll boost their moral confidence in exterminating all criminals, by making said criminals sob and kowtow before them, LOL!” Brance inhales another vape, savoring whatever chemical smoke that’s wandering in his mouth. “Wish they would’ve kept backing up my passion projects once they mature. They should be smiling at how they’re stars in my magnum opuses.”
Ew. Hypocrite much. In his films’ footnotes, he kept insisting that no children should be exposed to fame and fortune at a tender age. Yet currently, he claims that FJ & Sparkles should disparage and boast about themselves if they want to become good royals for this once almost godforsaken country. When excuse me, as their godfather myself, I’ll never allow those poor kids to be exploited by another fame-sucking vampire similar to Lulu again!
Too bad Brance isn’t too far off from Lulu, who had no shame on his exploits by mistreating my two godchildren for billboards and almost selling off one of them.
The best approach now is for me to shorten this conversation. And by shortening, I opt for cutting to the chase on finding out his deepest motives.
“Okay, I heard that you have a film academy degree. Why had you specifically studied how to produce documentaries?” I use whatever I remember from the interviews me and my friends were forced to watch in order to use against him in the lawsuit.
His answer simply causes me to want to facepalm myself to death, candidly.
“I just wanna vindicate how intelligent I am for burying bad people underground, and that’s how I become a good person while being famous!”
“What…? So that is your only motive the whole time.” I try so diligently not to let my disbelief display through my annoyed face - can’t let him feel vindicated.
“Yes!” A smug smirk that’s wider than a rotten banana cracks across both of his dumb-looking dimples.
I originally was going to interrogate this mothereffer on how he had potentially put unsuspecting children into danger by listing those children’s names, when they should’ve stayed anonymous. But I now have a basic understanding of the futility to tell this dickhead any more reasonable explanation of legal repercussions when he's that terminal level of self-righteousness.
“Congrats, that's a new record of pettiness I have witnessed…” I sarcastically pose a rhetorical question, knowing that he’s going to think he’s smart-mouthed enough against my verbal comebacks. “Have you seriously considered the repercussions you have caused for my friends and everybody involved, especially the children?”
“Wut? The criminals have fee-fees? Wow, I learn smth new everyday, lol!!” Little does Brance know, he’s fallen right into my trap in confirming how much of a prick he is. This is the same moron who had spilled all of his savings in a losing battle when he had recorded his own evidence against himself, finally busting himself to the public in a live broadcast on how much of a disgusting, selfish ass he is.
In fact, Brance’s lawyer, after the court case, would later come to me to thank me and my friends for ending his sorrows of being stuck with this self-righteously oblivious stain of Rageon-manity, who had nothing left to be defended at all.
It’s certainly saying something when I feel pity for Velvet, who’s messed up in her own right by having tortured me as a ringleader, that she has to live with such a sicko in this messed up society. There’s always someone that surpasses her caliber of disturbing each day, surprisingly.
As Brance stupidly hums his tune and thinks he’s won me in a so-called debate, he is clueless as to how he has lost to me on the flip side. Because presently, he’s gotten himself deeper into dirt on warranting how he doesn’t deserve to do community service. But leaving him alive in a miserable position without his shelves of dusted, undeserved awards is already rewarding for me, when he’s going to be miserable for the rest of his life by never self-reflecting.
Anyway, I eyeroll, hop off the seats, and leave the mofo behind to throw a tantrum on how he has to scrub a cup of spilled drink. No use debating against a self-righteous dead horse. I should focus on having smoothies with my amazing friends instead.
“Oh hey dude, welcome back!” Ven and the rest are grateful to see my return, him being the most vocal about the fact. “We’re not gonna order ours until we know what you want. Gotta respect you who’s our wise elder! So, whatcha want?”
I wink at Veneer, after he hands me over a laminated piece of menu for me to have my final verdict. Life is bound to have us come across sour jerks, but that makes sweet, healthy relationships more treasured deeply in my heart - reminds me of raspberries, not gonna lie. “The plain raspberry.”
Being with my friends always reminds me that humanity - be it from any species - is always salvageable. I’m so glad to have met them.