Author's Warning: Like everything else, this takes place in my series, set up by the events in my first story "More Than My Friend" where the big event is that Frankie adopts Mac as her "little brother". If you haven't read that story yet, I strongly suggest you do so now, or else you might get terribly confused.

Also, for this particular story, I also recommend reading "Helpless" first as well.

"Oh, no…. no, no, no, no!"

The young woman started moaning in despair as soon as the engine of her tiny battered sedan started to groan as she cruised down the street. While her lips curled into a frightful grimace, she balled up one of her hands tightly and started pounding on her steering wheel.

"What?" Kathy implored her vehicle angrily. "Oh c'mon! What is it now, you stupid hunk of garbage? What? I just took you to the mechanic's a month ago!"

As if it were purposely mocking her, the car continued to emit irritatingly unhealthy sounds as it puttered on, forcing her aggravation to skyrocket as she let loose with a discouraged roar. "AUGH! Why? Why me?"

However, it wasn't as if her engine troubles were the sole factor that had sent her into such a fury. To describe it best, this brand new woe was more or less the icing on top of a gargantuan cake of woe that life had shoved her facedown into. It was terrible enough that work at the local branch of social services had been unreasonably stressful that day; the last thing she needed was even more anguish to add to the frustration she was struggling feebly to keep bottled up inside at the moment.

Such was her hideous mood at the moment, and such was exactly why just minutes later she was parking outside a massive Victorian mansion that loomed over the rest of the neighborhood. More than anything else at the moment, she simply needed someone to vent to, and quickly, so no other option seemed more suitable than her redheaded best friend. Not that it was that much of an emergency though; a visit to the other's home or a phone call was what either of the two young woman would resort to whenever nothing was going their way, and today by far was no exception.

With a sigh, Kathy clambered from her car, slipped in through the ornate iron gates, and started plodding up the front walk of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, all the while muttering grumpily to herself.

"She's not going to believe the day I had." she ranted. "Nuh-uh! First thing she'll probably ask is if I'm describing a nightmare I had last night to her. Never in her life is she going to believe the heap of messes that I had to deal with today for-YEEEEEEK!"

The young woman stopped dead in her tracks and erupted with a shriek of surprise as a large blur suddenly zipped across her path, nearly plowing her over in the process. Startled, Kathy clumsily stumbled backwards a few feet, and almost lost her balance in the process as she jerked her head in the direction of the blur, which continued dashing across the lawn as fast as was humanly possible, with legs pumping, scarlet ponytail whipping about…

"Frankie?" Kathy murmured in astonishment as soon as she recognized her extraordinarily frantic-looking friend.

However, Frances "Frankie" Foster didn't even give so much as a fleeting glance to acknowledge her, or didn't even seem to realize that she had arrived in the first place. She merely sprinted on like mad, with her emerald eyes gazing upwards until suddenly, with a grunt of exertion she leapt high into the air, thrust out her arms-

"…..AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-OOF!

THUD!

The redhead landed hard upon the ground after making a spectacular flying catch, allowing her to nab a small missile that had seemed to fall out of the sky after not only materializing from almost nowhere, but even more bizarre, it almost sounded as if it had been screaming the entire time.

Just a moment later, Kathy yelped in indescribable horror when she finally realized that the missile actually had been indeed screaming. That was all because simply put it, wasn't a lifeless projectile at all. As rightfully ridiculous as it appeared to the startled social worker, it wasn't an inanimate projectile, but undeniably an extremely familiar brown-haired little boy who at the moment was looking indescribably shaken from his traumatic fall.

As Kathy dumbly looked on, both mute and frozen with shock, Frankie and Mac remained where they had landed on the grass for a few seconds, both breathing hard as the redhead gasped, "…You…y-you okay pal?"

Mac, sporting eyeballs wide as saucers just whimpered something unintelligible. After she peeled herself off the ground and clambered up onto her knees, the child's guardian checked him over quickly before she wrapped him in a tight hug.

"Oh my God…oh my God…that was close…that was way too close…" she murmured as she squeezed him tightly. For a few moments she just continued to hold him close, nearly overcome with relief the likes of which was beyond compare.

In a flash though, she suddenly went through the most extraordinary transformation. Within an instant, the grateful, motherly young woman had vanished, and in her place was an enraged redhead with fire raging in her eyes as she glanced behind her towards the other end of the yard with a look that could kill, or at least maim. With her teeth bared in a ferocious snarl, Frankie climbed to her feet, and started storming back across the lawn, all the while cradling her charge gently in her arms. Meanwhile, Kathy continued to just stare bemusedly at the odd spectacle, never uttering a peep until her friend stamped right by her.

"Uh…..Frankie?" she murmured timidly, cautiously keeping a safe distance. "F-Frankie?"

The caretaker halted, passed her a glance, and then without a word promptly shoved Mac into the other young woman's arms. Still sorely puzzled by it all, Kathy wordlessly gathered the child into her grasp, and once the hand-off was complete, Frankie clenched her fists, then stomped off around the house towards a back, leaving her friend swimming in a sea of bewilderment.

"……Okaaaaaay….um…….what'd I miss?" Kathy finally implored to the little boy in her arms, hoping that he'd free her from the tenacious clutches of her confusion. Still extremely dazed from his tumble from the heavens, Mac just pointed speechlessly. Automatically she followed his finger, turned around and immediately laid eyes on what appeared to be nothing more that a peculiarly-shaped junk heap sitting on the other side of the front yard.

As she curiously wandered over to it, she saw that to her surprise, it was far more than just a pile of trash. As much as she couldn't believe it at first, it seemed to be what suspiciously resembled a crude catapult assembled entirely with garbage retrieved from God only knew where, sitting right on Foster's property while who she guessed was its inventor tinkered around with it.

"Huh…" Bloo grunted as he made some adjustments. "It got some pretty awesome height, I'll give it that…but it didn't fire very far at all. Maybe if I just…wiggle this around here, and…give this a quick twist…okay, that should be it. Now, all I need is something to…hmmm…"

The azure figment scratched his head thoughtfully and mulled hard for a couple moments before turning around. The second he laid eyes upon the astonished young woman though, almost instantly he lit up with delight and broke out into an elated smile.

"Kathy!" he laughed, trying his best to sound as welcoming and unthreatening as he could. "So good to see that you stopped by! Care to take a load off in my….uh…this…...this...er...chair...that I made? Yeah! Yeah! My chair!"

Unable to believe what she was actually hearing, Kathy gawked at the imaginary blob, looked at what was undeniably a fine specimen of engineering, then repeated skeptically, "…Your…chair?"

"No! Don't fall for it! Don't fall for it!" Mac suddenly blurted out as he finally recovered from his shock and found his voice again. "Don't fall for it! Don't even go near it! He'll-"

"Pfft! Oh, don't mind Mister Grumpy here!" Bloo just scoffed as he cooly tried to downplay his creator's panic. "He's only upset because he…he uh…fell out? Yeah! Yeah, he fell out of my-"

"No I didn't!" the boy snapped furiously as the dumbfounded young woman watched on. "Bloo, you pushed me onto that while I was looking at it, and before I could do anything, you actually-"

"Hey, you're all right, aren't you?" Bloo pointed out as he finally realized he wasn't fooling anyone and abruptly dropped the unconvincing façade. "Now c'mon, don't tell me that was one of greatest rushes you've ever experienced in your entire life!"

"You fired me into the air! When did that seem like a good idea?" Mac involuntarily howled with rage.

The blob however had yet to realize what was obviously wrong with what he had done. "Oh c'mon! Someone had to test it out, didn't they? Besides! Just think how much people are going to pay for a ride on this-"

"Who do you think would be crazy enough to actually pay for that? What about when they land?" Mac snarled. "Are you just going to have them all crash face-first into the ground?"

"Well I can't know where to put a pillow or anything unless I know exactly where it's gonna fire people!" the figment explained. "Why do you think I need your help to-"

"I never asked to "help" you with this at all! Frankie and I were checking what you were up to when-" the boy tried to explain.

"Look, if you're seriously gonna be such a pain about this, I'm seriously going to rethink this whole partnership thing." Bloo folded his stubby arms and grumbled darkly. "I was going to split the profits right down the middle, but since you're-"

"What partnership? What're you talking about?" Mac demanded as his frustration shot through the roof. "I just told you that I never agreed to-"

The entire time the boy and figment bickered, no one noticed the redhead stomping out from the backyard, looking starved for revenge. Before anyone could register the fact that Frankie had returned, and was now lugging a sledgehammer she had retrieved from the tool shed, she was smack amongst them, brandishing her weapon high above her head and letting loose with an animalistic roar as she brought it down with everything she had.

"EEEEYAAA!"

WHAM!

In just one mighty blow, the catapult became as worthless as the garbage it was constructed from as it was smashed out of working condition. Not willing to take any chances though, Frankie continued to go at it with a vengeance, battering and mashing away until in literally just a matter of seconds, no could recognize the absolutely pulverized heap.

Bloo, now mute, pale as a sheet, and bug-eyed with absolute terror, just stared dumbly at the remains for a moment before the caretaker mercilessly hefted him up by the scruff of his neck and glared daggers, piercing the terrified little creature to the core.

"Never again. Ever." She hissed venomously, with the infernos blazing in her eyes making it more than painfully obvious that she would only accept "no" as an answer over her cold, dead body. "Or else. Kapeesh?"

"Y-y-y….y-y-y-y-y…y-y…y-y-yes, m-m-ma'am…" Bloo barely managed to whine as she effectively reduced him to a quivering wreck in mere moments. When it became evident that she had gotten her point across, Frankie wordlessly let go, and the badly spooked imaginary friend literally hit the ground running. An instant later, he had bolted off into the safety of the house, fearing for his very life.

Once the experience was over, Frankie wearily dropped the sledgehammer, gazed heavenwards, sighed, then gingerly took Mac back from Kathy, who if anything was even more utterly flabbergasted by the sheer, overwhelming absurdity of it all.

"Hi, Kath." Frankie finally greeted her friend for the first time since she arrived as she cradled her still-slightly stunned charge and wasted not a second trying to put the entire incident behind as far her as soon as humanly possible. "How are you?"

For the longest time, her bug-eyed friend just gazed back speechlessly, barely able to believe everything she had actually just witnessed. Finally, she stared shaking her head in absolute amazement, as she managed to comment softly.

"…You guys really, really know how to one someone's troubles into perspective, y'know that?"

The End