Chapter Text
John honestly didn’t mean to get captured. It really was an accident. He had just been out with Rhonda in a city called Mount Rageous when he had been grabbed from behind. His goggles had fallen off his face and he heard his girl cry out for him.
John had tried desperately to escape the large hand before giving up, whistling at Rhonda to run. “Go, Rhonda! Go find Branch!” Those were the last few words he was able to yell out before the hand tightened further around him and he heard a ‘crack’ before he was plunged into darkness.
Which led John Dory, the former leader of BroZone to now. He had just woken up to an extreme pain in his side and he was having a hard time breathing. The hand that had grabbed him probably cracked a rib then. No surprise there.
He carefully looked around, taking note of his rather large surroundings. He seemed to be in some sort of pink perfume bottle, sitting on a dresser in a large what looked like some kind of recording studio. He frowned as he sat down and carefully checked on his prosthetic leg.
About 10 years ago John Dory had been in a major accident that had cost him his left leg, parts of his right paw, and left large scars left across his face, as well as up and down his back. It had been before he had gotten Rhonda. He had been out on the Neverglade Trail when a fire broke out near his tent while he was sleeping. He didn’t have time to even wake up before his tent was engulfed in flames, with himself barely about to scramble mostly out of the tent. Now normally a fire wouldn’t be a huge deal but for a troll like John Dory who had dynamite in his bag…
Let’s just say it had taken years to recover from that.
Even now his scars ached, especially the scars and burns that marred his paw. He ended up losing two of his fingers on his right paw, making him have to relearn how to hunt, write, and everything involving his paw all over again. For the first year, he had taken to hobbling around with a cane, but then he stumbled upon Rhonda as a pup.
It was then he realized he needed to be able to protect her better, so he got to work on making himself a prosthetic leg. He couldn’t just leave her alone to defend herself, he couldn’t fail again. It had taken several years (and a lot of failures) to make but he had finally made it perfect. It was made out of several different metals, he had just been picking up scraps wherever he could get them.
John Dory sighed as he relaxed slightly. His leg remained undamaged but that didn’t explain where he was or why he was in a perfume bottle. He glanced around, frowning deeply as he looked around again for any sign of someone else in the room but there was none.
Maybe this was karma for being a bad big brother. For pushing his little brothers away. Whatever punishment he had coming his way he likely deserved. He knew he was the reason why his family had fallen apart. His parents had trusted him to take care of everything, to be the man of the house when they left and he failed them.
Now granted, it was rich coming from his parents who abandoned them all as soon as John could change a diaper. It made him so angry when he was younger. Why should he have to raise his brothers all alone? He wasn’t a parent, but as he got older he realized it was for the better that he raised his brothers.
His Dad was an alcoholic, which was pretty common in the troll tree. Trolls would have a hard time staying happy all of the time knowing that death could happen at any moment. His Dad drank heavier than other trolls, however, and he was never nice about it when he did it. He often pushed John Dory around whenever he came to their pod, but John always made sure he never got to his younger brothers. His Dad wasn’t normally violent with him, but every so often when things would get too much and Dad had a bit too much to drink he would take his anger out on John.
He didn’t think of him as his Dad anymore.
His pa, on the other hand, was never that bad. He tried to keep their Dad away from them for the most part. But he was also only one troll, and there was only so much he would do. He used to brush John’s hair, tuck him in at night, and do all of the things a normal parent would do. But that all stopped after their Dad hit John for the first time. After that, his Dad and Pa were never around much, only to drop off eggs and even then it was just his Pa dropping off.
When was the last time he had even thought about his Dad and Pa. Probably the last time he saw them. It had been the night before their first concert ever. His Dad had been mostly sober when he pulled John aside and told him about the perfect family harmony, that if he could do it then the glass around the tree would break and they would all be free.
John Dory was only 16 at that time, but he had wanted more than anything to make his Dad proud of him. That if they got out of the tree his Dad would stop drinking and they could be a family again. His brothers could have what he never did.
His brothers would have a chance to be kids.
So after that first concert and his parents were gone again he started to push for them to be perfect. If they could just be perfect and achieve the family harmony then they could all be happy again. His brothers would be happy and maybe he could be too.
Who was he kidding?
He was destined to not be happy.
Before John Dory could slip further down the self-deprecating rabbit hole he heard a door open. Two large Mount Rageons with bright green hair, a boy and a girl. “Teenagers…I was kidnapped by teenagers?” John grumbled to himself, watching as the two walked towards him.
“See Veneer. I told you he wasn’t dead.” The girl spoke, walking to the diamond bottle and picking it up. She gave it a little shake and grinned, ignoring the cursing spilling from John Dory as his (presumably) broken ribs were jostled. The green boy, known now as Veneer, looked more nervous as he walked over, fidgeting with his hands in a way that reminded him of Floyd.
“Y-yeah but..Velvet this still feels wrong..” The girl, now known as Velet, scoffed and looked at Veneer. “Oh come on Veneer, this little troll should be thanking us honestly. Don’t you know who this is? This is John Dory, from BroZone! You loved them when you were a kid!”
Veneer grimaced and shifted, looking away as Velvet held the diamond bottle in front of his face. “I-I did...I mean I still do but...kidnapping him for us to get famous? This still seems like a lot.” Velvet frowned deeply and set the diamond bottle back down on the dresser with a sound ‘clink.’
She moved the few steps over to her brother and gripped his cheeks in a tight grip.
“Do you want to go back to the way we were before?! Where we were orphans who had nothing?!” Veneer hesitated before he carefully answered back. “Vels..we grew up in the suburbs. Our parents were dentists.” Velvet scoffed and pushed her brother's face away roughly. “Oh yeah until they decided to die and leave us with basically nothing.” Veneer grimaced and sighed, knowing it was better to stay silent while his sister did her thing.
John Dory could not believe what was happening. He was kidnapped by two teenagers. One with an ego and the other with no backbone. How could he be so unlucky? He was knocked out of his thoughts as Velvet picked him up again, shaking the perfume bottle a bit. “Alright, troll. Get ready to make us famous..” She grinned, spritzing herself with John’s essence.
John gave a cry of pain, feeling the very essence that made him a troll being ripped from his body. Granted the pain wasn’t as bad as when he blew his leg off but it had at least top 5 of his worst pains. He felt another few spritzes be taken from his body as Velvet turned and sprayed an unwilling Veneer.
As Velvet threw the diamond bottle back on the table carelessly, John felt his broken (he feels like they definitely are broken) ribs give a sharp throb of agony as he was jostled around. His leg ‘tinked’ uselessly against the diamond, and as he watched Velvet belt out a high note he’s guessing she wasn’t able to before. With this newfound ability, Velvet began to ramble excitedly as she drug Veneer out of the studio. As John watched the green-haired teens leave he could only hope that Rhonda had made it out of the city.
Hundreds of miles away Branch got in an armadillo bus, with Floyd right behind him.