[A/N: Hurray! For the first time in MONTHS, I finally have something o post! This is my first-ever Freakazoid fanfic. I'm a huge fan of the show (especially Dexter) and I wanted to show my love. This is definitely grimmer than the canon, but I hope you like. Enjoy!-Kaylee.]

It was a bad day to be Dexter Douglas.

The brown-haired computer geek walked home in silence. Up above, marble gray and black clouds hovered, threatening rain. Great, he thought grimly, his small body surpressing a shiver, one more thing that can go wrong today...

Poor Dexter's day had been miserable from the beginning; he had, while he was sleeping, hit snooze on his alarm clock several times and as a result was an hour late getting up and going to school. His homeroom teacher had given him detention for his tardiness. After being singled out like that, everyone, even those who generally left him alone, snickered coldly behind his back. The jock who sat behind him snorted, "Whattsa matter, PoinDexter? Nerd up too late on his computer again and forget to set his alarm clock?"

Dexter glowered and quipped, "Your grammar's awful. You know that, right?"

Before the jock could think of a comeback, their teacher snapped from the front, "MISTER Douglas!", "you already have one detention today. I don't advise trying for two!"

Dexter blushed bright red. His classmates mocked him once more, and the jock made sure to give him a hard pinch when the teacher's back was turned.

And it only got worse from there.

At lunch, he had been tripped by the same bully from homeroom and had fallen headfirst onto the floor, scalding hot, cardboard-flavored cafeteria "food" landing on him. He shuddered as it burned his skin and shuddered even harder when kicked from behind as he tried to stand up.

In gym class, he had to run a mile on the track. Even then, the heavens threatened to pelt the students with bone-chilling rain. In between the coach yelling at him to "get yer scrawny butt in gear, Douglas!", he was tripped no less than seven times.

Now, several more emotionally-scarring instances later, here he was, on his way home an hour late, sure to be lectured for his tardiness, hood over his head to mask his humiliation. Sadly, this was simply a more extreme variation of every day for Dexter. Inside his mind, he felt a familiar prescence pushing at him, begging to be let out. "Aw, come on, Dex! Do it, say "Freak out", let me deal with these creeps, huh, please? Please?"

Dexter simply shook his head, responding in a firm mental refusal. As much fun as it would be to let Freakazoid blow through the school like a tornado and make all of his bullying classmates and teachers pay, he knew he couldn't jeapordize his secret identity like that. While he could exact a little revenge on his brother, whose IQ was equivalent to wet cardboard, he didn't know everyone at school. Who knows? Some of them might have been smarter than his family and catch on. And if that happened, God only knowswhat kind of weirdos would try to find him and his family! As usual, he would have to bear this burden and hope it would get better. As if.

Perhaps as an omen of events yet to come, the skies burst forth about a block away from Dexter's house, spilling down fat drops of icy water. "Really? Really?" Dexter growled under his breath and ducked into an alleyway, hoping to be caught in the lee of one of the two buildings and thus avoid being soaked any further. Without warning, as if the sun had eclipsed (which wasn't due to happen anytime soon) the alley was shrouded in total shadow. Dexter could no longer see anything at all.

"Hello, Dexter." A deep, black-cherry voice snaked its way into the nerdy boy's ear through the darkness.

"Wh-who's there? Who are you?" Dexter's voice quavered as he took a defensive position with both fists clenched. A grim chuckle came from the owner of the words. "Duncan, if this is a prank, it isn't funny!"

"I'm afraid not, dear boy." The voice was closer now, almost in his ear.

Scared out of his wits, he began to do the thing he thought was best. "I'm freaking-!"

The words were stifled by a strong hand holding an oddly-perfumed cloth over his nose and mouth. "I'm afraid not, Dexter Douglas.", the stranger purred, "or should I say, I'm afraid not, Freakazoid."

Dexter's struggling became weaker and his eyelids grew heavier as the effects of the Clorophorm began to take hold. Oh God. Somebody knows. It hit his dimmed thoughts. Somebody knows.

The last thing he was aware of before he lost consciousness was the fact that he was being lifted up by a pair of strong and surprisingly gentle arms and set down in the back of a vehicle.

It was definitely a bad day to be Dexter Douglas.