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The year is 1982 and the legendary fighter Wild Knuckles is all but retired.
Retirement for Wild Knuckles a.k.a Eugene Kuninski meant one thing. Endless sunshine, a boat all to himself and all the fish he could catch, legally permitted in the San Francisco Bay. Wearing the outfit that had enabled he and his apprentice Felonius Gru to steal the Mona Lisa right under the Bank of Evil’s nose. Wild Knuckles wore the fishing hat, gold shades and faded World’s Best Grandpa sweater with pride as he waited for the fish to bite.
Conventional wisdom had warned Wild Knuckles it would happen. But Gru drifting apart from him saddened him all the same. They’d had a good run, teaming up as the Fearsome Two. Pulling all the heists, mischief and crime to their heart’s content. But every mentor/mentee partnership eventually comes to an end, until the student becomes the master and couldn’t wait to leave the house to escape his mother’s smothering judgement.
But now that Wild Knuckles’ apprentice had flown the coop to make a name for himself at 18 years old, all that fondness for Gru he’d developed had turned into wondering and hoping Gru whether would turn out OK.
There was an urban legend circulating around San Francisco. One that both chilled and thrilled unsuspecting listener’s hearts.
His supervillain name was Chronio and unsatisfied with all the crimes he could possibly accomplish in any given year. Chronio enlisted the help of the most brilliant, yet unscrupulous scientists he could find, to build him a state-of-the art time travelling suit.
His ambitions ran high, but his targets hit a little closer to home. Enamoured by Superman: The Motion picture, Chronio raided comic book stores from the past for the very first printed issue of Superman and other memorabilia. Selling them to the highest, geeky bidder for a small fortune, Chronio travelled back and forth through time to find every nostalgic souvenir imaginable.
But when you poke around time like a ravenous rat, the fabric of time is bound to turn into unstable Swiss cheese. Civilians disappeared in the masses from entering residual time wormholes, invisible to the naked eye, prompting the Anti-Villain League to step in and decommission Chronio’s suit.
The AVL soon broadcast wormhole PSAs across all broadcast media available. Warning citizens to be vigilant in light of recent disappearances, and to stay in the vicinity of the area and wait for the wormhole’s return if they had already been whisked across time.
The AVLs efforts to contain the time catastrophes were a success thanks to public co-operation at an all-time high, and their top scientist’s capabilities of collapsing the offending time troublemakers. Two years passed and no time incidents had been reported, but who truly knew how many transient worm holes remained? Eugene Kuninski was about to find out.
Paddling his row boat in a spot he’d been assured was abundant with fish, Wild Knuckles hooked a fishing hook with bait and cast the fishing line as far as his fishing rod could sail. Nothing seemed to happen for a while, which was a given in the fishing trade, until the tranquillity was broken by the fishing line being yanked by a seemingly invisible force.
“Great Caesar’s ghost!” Wild Knuckles exclaimed, after watching too many Adventures of Superman reruns.
“Is someone using a magnet? Who’s pulling my leg?” Wild Knuckles asked to no one in particular as he rowed closer to the force of nature levitating his fishing line.
He looked over shoulder, checking to see if anyone was pranking him, only for the stray time portal crackling with white energy to pull him in, with a flash of bright light.
Sunshine glinted off the gold Lamborghini convertible as it sped through the streets of San Francisco. The wind pleasantly whipped the driver’s wavy, blonde hair, adding to his already cheerful mood.
Dru Gru was the name the driver went by and as elated as he was to be released from jail on parole, nothing made him happier than the prospect of seeing his brother Felonius again.
“I’m going to see my brotherrr—Whaaaaat?” Dru sang, but was interrupted by a boat falling from the sky and dropping right in front of his car, narrowly missing the hood.
Dru slammed the brakes in time and exited the vehicle to get a closer look at the unexpected arrival.
Inside the boat was an old man, wearing exactly what you’d expect a grandfather would wear to impress grandkids on a fishing trip. He looked a little shaken up, but none the worse for wear.
“Woah, did hurricane drop you off here or what?!” Dru asked excitedly, a little on the insensitive side, but well-meaning. Cows and houses being lifted up into the air were something straight out of movies, yet here was a man that appeared out of nowhere unscathed.
“No, I was fishing in the bay when something pulled my boat in and everything went white.”
Dru gave Wild Knuckles a hand and pulled him to his feet, out of the ramshackle boat.
"Did you see a yellow brick road?" Dru asked innocently, in such a way that Eugene couldn't tell if he was joking or not. It reminded him of a certain wisecracking little boy, who would also fire back amusing remarks.
"A yellow brick... no, I didn't see a yellow brick road! This portal— let's go with that, landed my boat straight on the road. No detours." Eugene reminded the distracted Dru, who'd almost collided with him and wiped the sawdust from his formerly, spotless white jeans.
Dru said nothing in response, only beaming and nodding. Hanging on to his every word. Looking eerily similar to the brunette boy with a pointy nose he knew so well.
“Wait a minute, you remind me of someone. Gru? Did you dye your hair? I almost didn't recognize you.” Wild Knuckles asked, astounded that it took him that long to recognize the boy he'd spent the best years of his life training. If he hadn't grown a mop of blonde locks, he might have recognized him sooner.
"You know my brother?!" Dru’s voice suddenly got very high, as he braced his arms against his chest unable to contain his excitement. This man who had fallen from the sky, also knew his brother? Dru was over the moon from the thought.
"Know him? I practically showed him all the ropes about becoming a supervillain." Eugene boasted, but only where credit was due. Aside from his own mark on the world, training Gru to become the best villain he could be was his proudest legacy.
"This is great! I was just passing through the states, taking the scenic route, not because I was lost or anything. So, why don’t we visit my brother together?” Dru casually leaned across the passenger seat and flicked opened the door lock, inviting Wild Knuckles over.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
—
Reluctant to even get a speeding ticket fresh out of jail, Dru travelled through the states within the speed limits, making the two weary travellers arrive at Gru’s home at sundown.
Dru parked the car in front of Gru’s house and ushered Wild Knuckles to follow behind him.
“He is going to freak out when he sees the both of us!” Dru whispered conspiratorially to Eugene, who shook his head, beginning to regret springing this on Gru out of the blue.
“You have no idea.” Wild Knuckles uttered as Dru pressed the doorbell and beckoned the reunion of a lifetime.
Anxious with anticipation, Wild Knuckles waited for Gru to answer the doorbell, when to his surprise a lovely, ginger haired woman opened the door.
“Dru? You big dummy, why didn’t you let us know you were coming? And who’s this, your partner in crime from jail?” Lucy eyed Wild Knuckles with curiosity. It wasn’t every day Gru’s twin brother came to visit, with a companion to boot.
Dru took Lucy’s hand and kissed it with his usual gentleman charm.
“It is wonderful to see you Lucy, this is…” Dru faltered when he realized he hadn’t gotten the name of Gru’s old friend, out of the hours of conversation during the road trip.
“My name is Eugene.” Eugene stepped in front of Dru and answered for him, shaking Lucy’s hand. He’d subconsciously left out his last name, so as to not be recognized right away. Perhaps Gru had mentioned him numerous times, or perhaps not. Either way he was interested to see the impression his appearance left.
Eugene? Didn’t that name ring a bell? Lucy wondered, cross referencing the number of people Gru had mentioned over the years, when her manners took over.
“Eugene, Dru, why don’t you come inside? We’re having spiced fish and garlic bread for dinner.”
“That sounds yummyyy!” Dru drew out his vowels and pranced inside, with Knuckles not far behind.
“Gru, guess who came home early?” Lucy called an unsuspecting Gru, already on his way downstairs.
“Dru?!” Gru exclaimed at the sight of his polar opposite brother, dressed in white. Not expecting the release of his brother for another month.
“Brother!” Dru cheered and ran over to Gru to give him a big, brotherly hug. The two brothers enjoyed the warmth and affection, the close embrace provided, just as Gru thought the hug couldn’t get any tighter Dru dropped a truth bomb on him.
“This guy says he knows you.”
Which guy? Gru looked past Dru’s shoulder and saw the red and white outline of a suspiciously familiar visitor.
Withdrawing from the hug, Gru made his way with slackened arms to the man who should presently be a ghost.
“Hello Gru, miss me?” Eugene asked softly, arms behind his back, presenting himself as humbly as he could to reduce the shock his appearance would bring.
“It can’t be. We attended your real funeral and everything.” Gru expressed his disbelief, recalling the last years of Wild Knuckles’ life. His failing health, all the hospital visits, the moving, but very much real funeral. Eugene couldn’t really be alive, could he?
“Yep, I imagine this must be real weird for you. Look, I don’t know how to explain how I got here, but a lot of crazy stuff happened in the 70’s, so why not time travel?” Eugene proposed a simple answer for all this, like it was easy as picking out an explanation from a catalogue.
“I can think of a few reasons why not!” Gru retorted, trying to deny something that was too good to be true. “But you’re here…” A weepy Gru pulled Eugene into a hug. Something he’d thought he’d never be able to do again.
“Look at you all grown up, with a wife and a house and everything. Time hasn’t been kind to your hairline, though.” Eugene was the first to break off the hug and take in the sight of his grown up protégé and joke at his expense.
“Yeah, my brother Dru took all the good looks between the two of us.”
Emerging from upstairs like clockwork, the girls—Agnes, Edith and Argo trotted down the steps for dinner. Agnes was the one trotting like a pony, the two eldest daughters descended normally.
“Girls, I want you to meet an old friend of mine, who kinda… sorta came back from the dead.” Gru greeted his daughters and invited them to meet his dearest friend.
The girls scampered over to see Gru’s guest and the friendliest of the three; Agnes spoke to him first
“Are you a wizard?” Agnes dared ask the towering, white-haired figure that was Wild Knuckles. Crouching down to Agnes’ eye level with a crack of his knees, Eugene responded.
“Can you keep a secret?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I come from the nineteen seventies!” Wild Knuckles revealed with a dramatic flair, knowing full well that any time period before a child’s date of birth was bound to sound mysterious.
“When TV was in black and white?” Agnes asked, her false impression making Wild Knuckles smile.
“Not quite, but close enough.”
—
After everyone had been seated at the dinner table and been given a serving of paprika spiced fish, Margo decided to formally conduct her interview slash investigation of the phenomenon that was Eugene’s journey.
“So, after you said your boat went through a time portal, did it seem like much time had passed?” The Gru family’s very own little scientist, Margo asked Eugene with a serious expression on her face.
His next answer would determine the foundation of her hypothesis.
“Lemme think… no? The sun was still up, if that helps.” Eugene offered, guessing she’d want to know the position of the sun and all that jazz. He didn’t have a sun dial on him or had even looked up into the sky when it had happened, but he figured any small amount of information would be useful to the curious scientist in the making.
“It does, that means there was no time dilation. I bet your boat was covered in tachyon particles back then.”
“Tacky-what?” Eugene asked. The only tack words he ever knew were tacky and tachycardia and only of those words was relevant.
“Tachyon particles. They’re hypothetical particles that travel faster than the speed of light and would be present after time travel. But since they decay over time, it would be impossible to record them before they disappear anyway.” Margo explained, revealing a field of knowledge that Wild Knuckles had never seen a child possess.
“I’m living proof of the impossible, aren’t I? So, take a picture of me and then my gravestone and show it to some scientists, that’ll mess with them.” Eugene somewhat took the steam out of Margo’s scientific discussion with an idea for a defiant, childish prank. Which was what Gru loved about the old man. He was wild AND young at heart and not afraid to remark on his own demise.
“OK. Dad, come and take a picture with your friend.” Margo took up Eugene’s wild dare and asked for Gru to come over.
Gru happily obliged and scooched between chairs and put his arm behind Wild Knuckle’s back, while Margo took her phone out of a pocket.
“What are we doing?” Eugene asked, oblivious to why Gru was angling a rectangular block above their faces.
“We’re taking a selfie.” Gru grumbled, eyebrows furrowed with dissatisfaction.
“Selfie?”
“Phones can take photos now, gramps. Just smile for the camera.” Gru instructed Wild Knuckles and checked the picture he’d just snapped. Too blurry, so they tried a second time, smiling until their cheeks started hurting and Gru figured out how to take a decent picture.
“Sheesh, I grit my teeth less when I fell down that river.” Wild Knuckles complained and brought up a painful chapter from his past to serve the joke and piquing Edith’s interest in the process.
“You did what?” Edith asked out of morbid curiosity, more interested in the feat itself than the near outcome, which was an improvement from her interest in ghastly things.
“A couple of buddies of mine, who weren’t really buddies made me take a one-thousand-foot drop into a river.” Wild Knuckles told Edith, not sugar coating any detail from the Vicious Six’s betrayal.
“How did you survive?” Edith’s eyes widened with awe, wondering how such a fall was humanly possible. Especially when the survivor was already nearing the end of his life.
“Dumb luck and an iron constitution.” Eugene winked and was proud to be able to claim that with few hard feelings. He’d come a long way from resenting the traitorous six to being able to joke about it.
“Gnarly! But I’m glad you survived, so you could be my dad’s best friend.” Edith clasped Eugene’s hands between hers, showing a sweet gratitude that only a child could express.
Once everyone had finished supper and the girls had made pancakes for dessert, it was now time for bed.
“Eugene? Gru usually reads the girls a bedtime story, but since you’re our guest, I thought you might like to do it?” Lucy inquired. Over the evening, Gru and Wild Knuckles had shared so many stories of their capers that Eugene seemed like an old friend who visited them all the time and although Lucy didn’t know the man personally. Her instincts as a mother told her, Eugene was the right choice to tell her girls a bedtime story.
“It would be my pleasure.”
As a gentleman living in the nineteen seventies, Wild Knuckles was used to bright pastel colours like mint green or canary yellow, and upon seeing the candy sweet, pink curtains and rugs and sherbet coloured wallpaper in the girl’s bedroom, Eugene felt right at home. The girl’s beds were made from defused bombs and the walls were plastered cute animal posters. Gru had gone all out to treat his daughters like princesses. It made a childless old man ponder how he would have decked out his own children’s bedrooms, had it happened.
“Eugene? Can you please tell me a story about you and my dad?” Agnes asked, who Eugene could tell was the youngest of three, not because of her height, but for her interest in just one more story after an entire evening filled with them.
“What kind of stories do you like?” Eugene asked and grabbed a chair, ready to play the role of storyteller.
“I like stories about kitty cats and unicorns.” Agnes patted Lucky the goat, sleeping by her side and shared her favourite interests with Wild Knuckles, who was scouring his memory for something even remotely related, until he found it. Gru and Wild Knuckles’ very first encounter with the supernatural and the very reason they met.
“I can’t promise you a story about unicorns, but I can tell a story about the time your dad and I fought a dragon!” Eugene recounted. It may not be about a unicorn, but it did feature a mythological creature.
“What colour was it?” Agnes asked the first question that popped into her head, because of course that was the most interesting part.
“Purple. Just like the clothes of the lady who turned into one.” Wild Knuckles answered and told Agnes the entire story behind the Zodiac Stone, minus the near-deadly fall, violence and burns that ensued. He didn’t want to scare Agnes like he’d scared her father with killer record players, now did he?
After the story was over, Agnes mulled it over and asked a very pertinent question.
“If that mean lady turned into a dragon, which animal would you be?”
Now that he thought about it, Wild Knuckles had never considered that question. He’d certainly dreamt of all the rampage he would create once he got his hands on the stone, but never with which animal he would do it as or even which of the zodiac animals matched his temperament. There was really only one option.
“I’ve often been accused of being a stubborn, old goat. So, let’s go with that.” Eugene’s answer made Agnes giggle, causing Lucky’s leg to twitch in his sleep.
“Shhhhh!” Agnes half shushed and giggled to Eugene, who also held his index finger in front of his mouth in a shushing motion before the giggles got contagious.
“Goodnight girls, sweet dreams.” Eugene whispered, switched off the lights and closed the bedroom door behind him.
—
The next day for Margo meant business. Wild Knuckle’s unexpected arrival had provided her with the opportunity to dive deep into the history of San Francisco and time travel itself.
“So, I’ve been doing some research…” Margo began.
“I get the impression you do that a lot.” Wild Knuckles remarked, meaning it as compliment for the bright, young girl. Though she was not related to Gru by blood, she had inherited his smarts.
“And according to some urban legends, there was a time travelling super villain who left time worm holes all over San Francisco.” Margo informed Wild Knuckles.
“I wouldn’t know. Besides all the times your father and I went on crime sprees, I never stuck my nose out from outside my house except to buy records or to catch a motion picture.” Wild Knuckles admitted, as a more recluse super villain. Why wander when everything he needed was at home or close by?
“The time portals were said to be time limited, so if you came from one of them, then you don’t have much time to get back home.” Margo warned Eugene, who didn’t seem to grasp the urgency of the situation as much as Margo.
“That wouldn’t be so bad. I’d get to see Gru raise you girls, find out about all the new technology this decade has to offer, like phones that take pictures…” Wild Knuckles went on about all the things he looked forward to doing should he stay in this time.
“You shouldn’t do that! If you stay here, you might change the present. Even little changes like you being gone could change history.” Margo cautioned Eugene. She felt bad for telling him off, when he just wanted to enjoy what the future had to offer, but too much was at stake to humour him.
“I didn’t even think of that, I’m sorry. I should scram before my absence does any real damage.” Eugene apologized and dashed for the door.
“You don’t have to go right this second! Just get ready, OK?” Margo said, amused by Eugene’s urgency to act. She’d seen enough time travel movies to know that the hero had enough time to carry out their plan. But Wild Knuckles didn’t know that.
“I’m going to need a new boat!”
—
“Gru, you wouldn’t happen to have a rocket powered boat, would you?” Wild Knuckles brought up the topic that morning. If he was going to return home, he would need a fast one-way ticket out of there. There was no way he was going to make it, even with the speeds of a rowing mad man.
“As a matter of fact, I might have a speedboat stashed away somewhere, because I thought the name the rich people gave it was arrogant.” Gru casually mentioned his ill-gotten loot, while smugly inspecting his fingernails like the proud thief he used to be.
“Do I even want to know?” Wild Knuckles asked regretfully, dreading hearing a weak justification from Gru. There was nothing worse than a scheme done on a whim and little purpose.
To Wild Knuckles’ surprise. The name made the boat perfectly ripe for the taking.
“It was called Thief Proof. With a name like that, it was just asking to be stolen, you know?” Gru laughed until he cried and wiped a tear of joy from the corner of his eye, making Eugene’s eyes also water with joy.
“Agree with you on that one, ha! That’s a level a of petty I’ve never seen from you Gru. I’m proud of you.” Wild Knuckles gave Gru a pat on the back, he was pleased to see the ambitious boy he knew branch out to different levels of villainy as an adult.
“Yes, it was pretty good. I like to mix big evil plans, with low level crimes every once in a while, you know?”
“I get that.” Wild Knuckles nodded. Getting his idol’s approval never failed to elate Gru. Wanting to keep his dignity before he started crying, Gru rushed Eugene along to his secret lair.
“Come on! Let’s get that speed boat.”
Gru’s lair never had a shortage of spare parts. Mechanical arms, crane hooks, jetpacks, planks of wood. Gru had it all. Without much time to kill, Eugene brought Gru up to speed on the time sensitive nature of the mission, while they outfitting the speedboat with new rocket exhausts.
Though it pained him to be robbed of saying goodbye to his surrogate grandkids and daughter in law. Gru and Eugene, both decided it was best for Wild Knuckles to leave as he had arrived—all of a sudden and unannounced.
The two borrowed Dru’s gold Lamborghini; a legal downgrade from his pointy rocket car and drove to San Francisco, where inevitable goodbyes had to take place.
“Are you sure you have to go now? Can’t you stay a teeny bit longer?” Gru channelled his inner eleven and three-quarter year-old self, unwilling to part with the closest friend he’d ever had.
“I can’t change history, kiddo. If I stay you might never have adopted your girls or married the love of your life. You won’t see me again after this, but I’ll certainly see you. When you’re young and still have all your hair.” Wild Knuckles explained and managed one last dig at Gru before it was time to go home.
“Ha, ha very funny!”
—
Eighteen-year-old Gru hadn’t realized how much he missed Wild Knuckles until a white Ferrari towing a speed boat, approached him one day. It had been a while since he’d seen the old man—an event equally caused by both guilty parties. For Eugene? It was winding down his lifestyle. And Gru? The teenage angst of growing up and wanting to separate from everyone he ever knew.
But both of them shared the desire for reconciliation.
“You’ll never guess where I’ve been to, punk.” Eugene affectionately called Gru as both a nickname and a reference to his spiky styled hair, lathered in hair gel.
“Where’s that?” Gru asked between chews of bubble gum, with a disinterested look on his face. Truly living up to the punk moniker.
“The future.”
“You’ve been watching too many movies, old man.” Gru sullenly reproached Eugene. Everyone knew that time travel only existed in fiction. It was silly of Wild Knuckles to say otherwise.
Gru’s phase of rejecting familiar things had driven a wedge between mentor and mentee, one Eugene feared they would never rid themselves of, but being given the chance to see Gru matured to adulthood, fatherhood and married life all in one, was the story of a lifetime Wild Knuckles hoped could blast the divide between them. Leaving out certain details of course.
“It’s no joke, I saw an old friend, whom you’ve never met and he had kids and was bald, so you might want to lay off the styling products.” Eugene advised Gru who was approaching his car.
“Oh yeah? You can tell me about it while we house hunt.” Gru heard Eugene out and got in the car, filling Eugene with joy by being included in the house hunt for this new chapter of Gru’s life.