Okay, guys. This is my first Epic fanfic, and I LOVE the movie. I hope I'm doing this right, and please don't hesitate to inform me if I'm not. Thanks again, and I hope you all like this!
"Dad! I'm home!" M.K. called from the front door, struggling to get through with her immense pile of luggage. Most of which she had taken with her to her new apartment she had rented the previous November, but some had been purchased while staying, so she was forced to bring that back, too. Well, being kicked out of your own apartment isn't really a desired outcome you'd prefer.
"Oh! M.K.! I didn't see you there!" Mr. Bomba called from the kitchen. "I was just putting some things away."
"Oh. Okay." M.K. said, dropping a couple bags in the process.
"It looks like you could use a hand," said Mr. Bomba, coming out of the kitchen. He slowly bent down, grimacing, then grabbed a couple bags himself.
"Are you okay?" M.K. asked, witnessing her father's moment of weakness. "Did you hurt your back or something?"
Mr. Bomba laughed. "No . . . just a random come-and-go pain. I normally just ignore it." He started towards the stairs, lifting the bags onto his shoulders.
M.K. sighed. Of course her father would have tried something to hard for him alone while she was gone. Well, it had only been a few months, but still.
"Ah, we'd better get you settled in quick." Mr. Bomba said, "I've got . . . something to talk to you about."
M.K. wasn't quite so sure what was going on, but she just went with it. As they carried the suitcases, bags, and extras up the stairs in silence, something felt off. She knew that this was almost exactly like when she first came here after her mom's death, but there was something missing.
"Where's Ozzy?" M.K. asked, reaching her room. Her dad sighed, setting the bags on the newly-added desk in M.K.'s room. They had completely redecorated, but it still reminded M.K. of when she was smaller, and both her parents lived here.
"Sit with me?" Her father asked, sitting in M.K.'s desk chair, gesturing to her bed.
M.K. sat with concern across her face. What could have possibly happened? Another incident with the Leafmen? Mandrake was back? Something worse than last time?
"The other day," M.K.'s dad started, "there was a meeting at Moonhaven. Nod told me through the camera that some Boggans that didn't want the peace between them broke in, destroying pretty much half of the castle. Ozzy and I took off with a can of bug spray, but he got there before me. Apparently, the Boggans expected this, because they . . ." Mr. Bomba trailed off, looking at the ground in sadness.
"They killed him, too?" M.K. asked. She was getting used to losing people she loved most. So she was able to keep her composure for a little while longer since the time when her mom died.
Her father nodded, but refused to make any kind of eye contact. "Yeah . . ."
M.K. rested a hand on her dad's shoulder, sighing. She thought she saw a silent tear roll down her father's cheek, but he quickly wiped it away. He stood, regaining his old, familiar smile.
"So, I'll leave you to unpack. Unless you want my help doing that . . ." He started lifting some of M.K.'s suitcases (with difficulty) onto her bed beside her.
"Stop, dad." M.K. chuckled. "You're gonna end up killing yourself. I can get these," she said, gesturing to the rest of the luggage.
Nodding, her father started to open empty drawers, the closet, and then, when they were all open and ready to be packed full, he sat down again. As M.K. started to open her first suitcase, a steady beeping came from Mr. Bomba's pocket.
"Do you want to come see what I was talking about?" Mr. Bomba asked, standing. M.K. nodded, following him out of her room.
They walked just as quiet down the stairs as they did coming up, only the sound of beeping saying that they were even there. As they reached her father's computer lab, M.K. noticed that something was off. It may have been Nod who was at the camera screen, but everything around him . . . it wasn't green anymore. It looked . . .
Black.
"Oh my God." M.K. muttered to herself before sitting at the desk. "What happened?" She asked the question even though she already knew what did.
Nod rolled his eyes, chuckling. "It's nice to see you again, too." Even when disaster struck, he was still bursting with sarcasm.
M.K. studied the background. Nod must have noticed, because he quickly moved to the edge of the screen. They had allowed M.K. to move a camera to the edge of Moonhaven so she could chat with anybody whenever she wanted. As long as it didn't interfere with Leafmen training or mealtimes or whatever was important on their schedule. M.K. forgot all about Ozzy as she looked.
All that was once green had now been turned black. Any person walking could see that something bad had arrived.
Nod gestured around. "Welcome to the new Moonhaven."
M.K. stared for a few more moments, before asking; "What happened here?"
"While you were gone?" Nod clarified. "Oh, the queen has finally started repairing the forest from the last Boggan attack, but we got a surprise from the extra Boggans that were left. Thus creating . . . New-Haven."
M.K. chuckled. "Did it take you that long to come up with that?"
"No, no. I actually just came up with it right now." Nod answered, running a hand through his hair.
M.K. slowly stopped laughing, remembering the events that had happened just about a year ago.
"Anyways," Nod said. "While M.K. was gone, I thought about things." Nod started walking from one side of the screen to the other.
"I hope you didn't hurt yourself." M.K. joked, smirking.
Nod stopped walking long enough to glare at her, then continued. "I thought about the last time M.K. had visited, and how she had only been here for a mere day. So, I got this thought of if M.K. could or could not possibly return for an even longer time. So, I talked to the queen when I got out of Leafmen training, and she said she'd talk to her other council members, and she got back with me, and then we had this meeting the other day and she pulled me off to the side and-"
"What'd she say?" M.K. interrupted, leaning forward in her seat.
Nod hesitated for a moment, obviously wanting to cause the suspense that filled the air. "She said yes."
M.K. shot out of her chair like a rocket, turning and giving her dad the biggest bear-hug she could manage.
Mr. Bomba laughed. "I guess you get to go see your little boyfriend again. Pun intended."
"The queen said she could stay for as long as she wants, or however long you'll let her," Nod said. "She just has to be at the forest's edge tomorrow night at around dusk. The magic transformation should take a lot out of her, considering that this one will be at night. It's a lot harder to do then."
"Okay . . ." M.K. looked up at her father. "Would you be able to survive a week without me? Or do I need to just go an afternoon?"
"No, no. I'll be fine here for about a week. But that's all," Mr. Bomba said teasingly. "I think I'd go mad without you being here any longer than that. Will I be able to talk to you through the cameras, though?"
M.K. looked over to Nod for conformation, and he nodded.
"She'll be able to talk through this camera anytime she wants. As long as it doesn't interfere with Leafmen or the protection of the forest, she can hang out here without supervision anytime I'm sure. The queen won't pay much attention as long as it never affects anything." Nod explained.
M.K. nodded. "I'm sure since I have no Leafmen training that I would have no responsibilities, so I'd probably be able to just spend the majority of my time by the camera except for whenever Nod gets out of training. Then I'd like to be able to help around with the damage that obviously needs help cleaning up."
"Well, that's Ronin. And he does not look happy. I'd better get going. Talk to you later M.K.," said Nod, calling for his bird.
"Bye, Nod."
Nod waved, then flew off to meet the head Leafmen leader, preparing for whatever Ronin was going to yell at him about now.
M.K. hugged her father, squealing very girlishly into his chest.
"I can't wait to go back! I get the chance to learn more stuff about their culture than I did the first time! And maybe, they'll give us the permission to take a picture or two of them so we can always know they're real!" M.K. was practically jumping up and down now. She ran into the kitchen, grabbing two glasses, then filled them with some lemonade. She brought them back out, then sat in front of her father's work desk. She opened one of their sketchbooks, and started to look through some of their drawings that were based off of her experience with them.
"I worked on the outlines a little while you were at your apartment, and I thought they turned out pretty cool. You certainly remembered a lot about their outfits than I could have ever hoped to. Especially when, at that time, you thought I was . . . crazy, too. I didn't know how you got turned small, though, so I couldn't write that one in the books. Literally." Her father joked. He sat down in a chair beside M.K., then looked at the pictures too as she slowly turned the pages.
Eventually, they got to the end of the book, and M.K. sighed.
"You know what, dad? How about we go out?" M.K. asked. "I had a job before I got kicked out of my apartment, so I have some money left over. We can go out to eat, to a theme park, anywhere you want. It's only . . ." M.K. paused to pull out her phone and check the time, "1:37. We have about eight hours until nighttime, and we'd want to get back here before then. It gets pretty hard to navigate through the darkness. Especially when we live all the way out here."
Mr. Bomba chuckled. "You really have thought this out, haven't you? You always seem to know the exact time for everything an everyone. Especially with that new phone of yours."
M.K. beamed. "Yes. Yes I do."
They both laughed, then stood.
"I'd better go get my stuff ready to go. I won't need everything; probably just some bathroom essentials and clothes. And my phone. Definitely my phone." M.K. said, nodding to herself. She was already working on making a mental list of everything she'd need for a week in the forest.
As she started to lead the way to her room to start making an actual list, M.K.'s phone started ringing. She pulled it out, and once she saw the caller I.D., she quickly turned it off.
"Avoiding someone?" Her father asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I just don't want to talk to said person right now."
M.K. tossed her phone on her bed, emptying out one of her multiple suitcases. She started packing her clothes she thought would make the best impressions on the Leafmen. She wasn't being provocative or anything, or was trying to make anything weird with her and Nod, but she chose the clothes she was the most comfortable in, then narrowed it down to the ones that looked relatively nice.
"I hope you haven't gotten yourself into trouble with anyone. That's probably the last thing we need right now." Her father said, watching M.K. slowly begin to stack clothes in one half of the large suitcase.
M.K. shook her head. "No, I haven't. I had this boyfriend, and we only dated for about a week, and when I broke up with him, he got kinda mad. I had a few friends help me avoid him, because he was threatening me and stuff. I didn't really care, but after I got kicked out of my apartment because he was always at my door screaming and hitting the door so hard I thought he was going to knock the door in, I had a good enough excuse to move back here. I have to call my friends tonight though. I told 'em I'd call them whenever I got here. I'll just say we are going on a camping trip for a week and I won't have internet to talk to them. Convincible, right?"
M.K. dad nodded. "Extremely. I would fall for that in a heartbeat. As long as they don't know about our work. Right?"
"Right. I haven't told them anything about what you do for a living, and what I assist with." M.K. said. "I am the master of secret-keeping." She crossed her arms over her stomach, straightening her back as far as she could. She put on such a ridiculous snotty look that you would have to be insane not to laugh.
After they both had finished packing whatever M.K. wouldn't need within the next day or two that she would need for her week away from home, M.K. decided to call her friends. While they chatted about current events M.K. was missing, she and her father decided on going out to eat at a fast food restaurant, then stopping by Dairy Queen on the way back. M.K. eventually got off the phone with all three, then grabbed her keys.
"Ready when you are," said Mr. Bomba, smiling.
M.K. locked the door behind them, and they got into her new, red, mini-van.
And drove.