It was getting late in the day when Charlie came across the 'Good Samaritan' working alone in the suburbs.
The past few weeks had been hectic for the homunculus to keep up with, what with City Hall throwing everything that they had into restoring the City back to its former glory and Benson grilling him for details on how progress has been going with repairs. So far, things are going smoothly in the district areas, most of the buildings in decay and/or destroyed being close to finished at this point. He'd been surprised by the amount of people pitching in to help out; even in a world like this one, it was nice to see some decency remained.
Of course, having all crime in the City gone played a big factor into things. That Nicole lady was one scary-ass person; he personally watched her wrangle some kind of giant cannonball monster into knots like some sort of cattle. And that wasn't even mentioning how she managed to man-handle the Kaiju monster. If she kept it up at this rate, they'd probably have all crime in the Kingdom gone by the year's end.
Charlie snorts. Yeah, right. As if that was even possible.
Still, it is pretty cool that she was able to clean the streets up like this. She's practically a one-man army, wonder if she'd be able to beat an actual army with the way she's progressing. Makes me wonder what kind of people those kids of hers will grow up into.
Checking his phone, he still had some time to kill before it got too dark. Maybe going for a little stroll could work off some of the tension building up inside his shoulders, plus it could help with making up for leg day.
His walk took him from the City's limits to one of the local neighborhoods, where reports of strange creatures have been harassing the inhabitants before Nicole cleaned out shop. However, from what he had heard, Nicole focused on the monsters and promised to come back later to help out with fixing the damages the monsters had wrought onto the neighborhood. Charlie was a little curious to see what kind of damages had been done, so why not check it out?
It didn't take long for him to find the neighborhood, remembering the name he'd heard from Nicole. And yet, going down the street, he was surprised to find not the ruins of homes and sidewalks from an epic monster battle, but a regular little slice of suburbia. Hell, this looks like one of the places you'd see in those cheesy holiday movies and greeting cards around Christmas time.
Charlie's eyes narrowed. "Something ain't right here..."
He took his stroll a little slower, observing areas with a keener eye, finding no traces of any damage whatsoever. His suspicions kept mounting and mounting, his mind wondering what was going on here. Nobody in the City had come out this way and he doubt that any of the other Park crew knew about this place.
Eventually, he rounded around the corner and came to a stop when he saw someone outside a local home... mowing their lawn?
"What the hell?" Charlie muttered. "Who mows their lawn at 8 PM?"
He walked over to the figure, whose features were masked by the night, squinting hard to get a good look at them.
"Hey, man," Charlie said. "You, ah, you know what happened here? I heard there was some kind of big fight awhile back, but, uh, I-I don't see any damages around here."
The lawnmower stopped and the figure turned to look at Charlie before they stood up.
Tall. That was the first defining feature of this person that Charlie noted, gaping up at them. They had to be somewhere around 7-8 feet tall, with long gangly legs and arm... singular.
Noticing Charlie staring at their stump, the figure glances down at it before looking back at Charlie with a smile?
"Oh, I'm sorry. I hope I didn't scare you with this, I know that it might look a little freaky but I promise it doesn't hurt. Heh, haven't felt anything down there for a long time."
"Nah, man, don't worry about it," Charlie apologized. "I'm sorry for staring, kinda a dick thing to do."
The figure shifts in place, their sneakers squeaking slightly. "Uh, could you watch the language around here, please? Some of these houses have kids in 'em, and I don't want them picking up any nasty words like that."
"My bad," Charlie looked behind the figure, noting the lawnmower. "You doing some late-night garden work?"
"Huh? Oh yeah!" The figure points at the lawn. "These people have been busy lately, what with the monster attack and their regular jobs, so I figured I'd help them out and clean up the wreckage, you know?"
Charlie raised an eyebrow. "You... some sort of hired help?"
"Oh no, I just like helping others."
...
Charlie blinked slowly. "...do these guys even know that you're doing this?"
"Nope. No one's seemed to stop me yet either."
"Dude, I get where you're coming from with this, like trust me. I think it's really cool that you decide to help out these people and clean up this place, it's commendable even. But you can't just walk in here and do all this stuff without asking, man. It's kinda concerning, like is that even your lawnmower?"
"Well... no. It was given to me by a nice old man about two hundred miles that way."
The figure points north and Charlie realized the direction of where this guy must've came from.
"Alright, look, that's cool and all but... do you even get paid for this? Get any kind of recognition or something?"
"Oh, I'm not into that sorta stuff," The figure shrugged. "It's never been my top priority, ya dig? All that matters to me is making sure these guys are taken care of and keeping this place safe for the little ones. This City's been a breath of fresh air for me in a long time and the people here so nice! Even you seem like a nice fellow."
"Thanks?" Charlie raised an eyebrow. "You got a name at least?"
"Huh? Oh, sorry, I didn't give it to you, my bad."
The figure takes a few steps forward and their features are revealed to Charlie under the light of a street lamp. Red skin, stitched-up patches in areas like his cheeks and stump like some sorta plush doll, worn-out sneakers, and two beanstalk eyes, one of them broken and giving off a lazy look however. Despite this appearance, it didn't seem to affect the giga-watt smile on this guy's face.
"Name's Wilt. I'm an Imaginary Friend."
"Imaginary- wait, wait, wait," Charlie squinted his eyes at this Wilt. "Are you f*cking with me right now?"
"Language."
"Nah, man, this isn't a joke," Charlie ignored Wilt's comment. "Imaginary Friend? What kinda crap are you saying right now, that's literal kid stuff. Everyone knows that those things aren't real, they're just made up. Fake. And you expect me to believe you're one of them?"
"I am," Wilt's voice remained calm. "I've been around for a long time and spent most of my life up at Madame Foster's home for guys like me before... the Incident."
"'Incident'?" Charlie repeated.
Wilt shuddered, wrapping one long arm around his thin frame. "It-it was a bad time. Happened long ago and lots of people got hurt because of it."
Charlie remembered the direction where Wilt had pointed to, and scowled. He'd heard stories about the guy that ran things up there... "Any friends of yours?"
"Yeah... they didn't make it out of there. I-I tried to save them but..."
His eye shut tight and Charlie could make out the outline of a tear. The homunculus suddenly felt awkward, scratching the back of his neck. The pain in Wilt's voice... you couldn't fake emotion like that, Charlie knew that tone of voice. It was one he had long ago after he lost everything.
sh*t... I'm probably gonna get a lot of flak for this, but dammit, I can't leave this guy out here all alone. He just looks terrible.
Sighing, Charlie looked up at Wilt and asked, "Do you... have a place to stay at?"
"No," Wilt answered, sniffling.
"...follow me, man. And bring your lawnmower with you."
...
You stare incredulously at the tall red guy standing next to Charlie, who looked calm despite the perplexed look on the red guy's face.
"Uh, Charlie..." You slowly ask. "Who, uh, who is this?"
"This here is Wilt. He's an Imaginary Friend or something like that, I dunno."
"Sorry," Wilt apologized. "I hope I'm not causing any problems being here. I was just doing my thing one minute, and then the next, Charlie here is bringing me to his home to sleep in."
You look at Charlie, getting annoyed quickly, but the homunculus folds his arms at you.
"He's homeless, Benson. And he's been the one responsible for helping the neighborhoods outside the City's limits get cleaned up by himself. Hell, he was almost done with it when I found him last night."
"Okay, that's great and all," you say, fighting back the anger. "But why did you bring him here? He's not even a registered employee!"
"You said that this job takes six people to do, right?"
"...yeah. So?"
Charlie points at Wilt. "This is your fifth guy right here, man. And I'm gonna be honest, I ain't gonna be cool if you decide to pass up a job to this guy because he doesn't have a house or anything like that."
"Charlie," Wilt starts to say.
"Nah, Wilt, don't sell yourself short," Charlie turns back to you and you're taken aback by the heat in his voice. "I don't have an issue with you, Benson, you seem like a cool guy. And I normally don't like to put my foot down on things like this so I don't come across like an overbearing jackass or whatever, but this guy is legit worth it. If you hire him onto our crew, I guarantee you that he can pick up the slack we've been having lately with the others in groundskeeping."
Your face turns red but not from Charlie's words. Moreso the reminder of that fact.
Damn you, Nikolai.
Wilt coughs into his hand. "Uh, I'm sorry, but do I need a reference for this job?"
You sigh, rubbing your head tiredly. "Yes, you need at least two."
Wilt grins widely. "Oh, that's great. Hold on, I got a list around here somewhere."
You watch a little bemusedly as Wilt brings out a standard knit-sack and unwraps it, revealing the contents inside of it; an old basketball, a half-eaten box of candy, a small bottle of water, some band-aids and sewing kit materials, and a crumpled up ball of paper. He unwraps said paper and hands it to you...
Your eyes bulge out of your sockets when you see how many names are on this list.
Charlie, raising an eyebrow, comes over to take a peek and gapes at it too.
"Wilt," Charlie gulps. "This... this list has freakin' celebrities on here!"
"Soooooo," Wilt says. "Are any of them good?"
He began work the next day.
PARK CREW EMPLOYMENT SLOTS: 5/6
